Building An Image Through Trials and History

When constructing an image on a canvas or within a camera the principles of  design help to build a more arresting image.  I employ them when visiting exotic locations like Rome  where I am easily seduced by so much  picturesque imagery.  I am drunk with it, and therefore;  more likely to compose poorly. In Rome I aim for my favorite destinations like the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona, the Coliseum,The Borghese Museum, the Caravaggios off the Piazza Del Popolo and the Roman Forum. If I hope to find paintings in the ruins of the Forum I must take loads of photos, usually backlit to silhouette the ancient architecture and, from a variety of positions. I think about layering the imagery to give it a mysterious confusion which can heighten the impression of  lost layers of time. I concentrate on building an image on art historical principles that will have coherence, rhythm, space, rich color, rich texture, and poetic allusions that could travel across time. The afternoon sun obliged me with multiple views of three free standing columns. Here were pages of mystery waiting for compilation, investigation, and experimentation. I was excited.  I offer you a variety of  those views followed by their layered, cloned, recomposed, and  re-colored versions. Image 1 gets layered with image 2 then, the yellow solar flare circles are cloned out and the image
receives increased color saturation as well as the separation of darker warm frontal zones from paler cool background zones.
(image 1)

(image 2)

(images1 and 2 layered)

Here the two images are layered with increased color saturation. The earlier yellow solar flare disks were cloned out. The warmer colors help advance the foreground and the bluer paler colors recede to the back. Notice the shadows from the columns in image 1 and 2 lay in different directions but, when combined create a subtle set of triangles pointing into the image. Notice the two repeated bell towers on the left. One stands above the paler more distant trees and one is lower above the darker umbrella pines. They demonstrate a Renaissance principle called the “flawed echo” or Ruskin’s principle of repetition. Observe that when the two sets of the columns are almost directly overlapped a fuzzier image of them appears,simulating a sensation of confused parallax vision. This helps to deliver a better 3d sensation. In this layered composition I was able to get reciprocal angles moving in counterpoint to one another from the sides of the painting. The image gently falls into itself.  The layered architecture emotes an apparition-like effect to enhance the feeling of layers of time. I tried other combinations and compositions which were either too static, too repetitive, or suspiciously lined up with unfortunate coincidental overlaps. For example, take a look.   When I overlap the images but, separate the column structure the image loses its centralized motif and violates the principle of primacy.  This image has too much slant to the left along the upper edge of the background. We  slide out of the image.  We no longer have the echoing bell tower but rather, we have an unfortunate coincidence of the remaining distant bell tower lining up inside a column, an abhorrent suspicious coincidence as neuropsychologist V.S. Ramachandran might say.

In this image I arranged the layers to suggest four columns with three interstitial
spaces which is interesting but, I still have lost the flanks folding toward the center of the image, a potent way of sustaining a viewers attention within the frame of the image. Again, there is the unfortunate coincidence of one of the bell towers lining up with a column. The Columns shadow tracks are more confusing here as well.  Finally, here is a work of mine that underwent the same process as the photographs above but, with paint.
 
I have since added another layer as a part of my exploration to find a unifying mystery and ambiguous depth.  Here is the same 36×36 oil on aluminum painting as it has evolved to this point.