Scrambled But Legible

When instructing a plein air class I anticipate where students will have a problem and I think I know why.  They will make rivers and lakes appear to be going uphill. They will iconize trees, rocks and other subjects. Trees will be rounded and smoothed; rocks and clouds will look like rounded potatoes.

They don’t realize that most of our image of reality is constructed within the brain. Six times more of our image of the world is constructed in our brain than comes from our eyes. We mostly build our picture of reality from within.

When we look at a lake we are conscious of a large area of water. Even though our perspective on the lake may reveal only a narrow sliver we still believe we see broader swath of water because we know it is there.  We trust the information from our mapping sense more than from our direct visual senses. This dissonance between mapping and seeing is a principle source of frustration for student artists. They recognize their picture isn’t right but, they can’t correct it because they believe more in the image made by their mapping brains than their biological vision. We map with our brains more than we see with our eyes.

We construct an image of the world by searching for edge information. We find information along edges and not as much from in the areas within the edges. We look along edges and along areas of high contrast where we feel the sensation of an edge.  We fill in information within edges. We fill in information with the brain’s memory and expectation. I borrowed an example (I think I found it in Susan Weinschenk’s 100 THINGS EVERY DESIGNER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT PEOPLE) which illustrates our dependency on edges as well as our ability to fill in information.  Example 1 provides only the first and last letters of polysyllabic words and scrambles the interior letters. Observe that you are still able to fairly easily read the text.  When the artist realizes this is how we see and, they can rely on the beholder to fill in areas then, the more successful the artist becomes.

Example 1, Scrambled but legible,

Here is an example of a distant battle scene by Velazquez (example 2). Observe   in the distance we think we see a battle. But, when allowed to look closely at the marks between the pikes in a detailed close-up (example 3) we find that Velazquez relied on our ability to fill in the distant information.

Example 2, Velazquez, Surrender at Breda, full image,

Example 3, Velazquez, detail from Surrender at Breda.

In my final examples I too rely upon the viewer to fill in the information within larger shapes.  In my example 4, you see what appears to be a beach scene. The scene is more legible at a distance when we can easily fill in more information.  Example 5 and 6 present steps one and two of the same image. The first step (example 5) presents a blurry image defined by an arc of darkness in the upper left.  The second step (example 6) presents the image after an application of visual noise within the arc shape. Here we find information within information. Our initial perception is one of contained chaos but, as we look for more edge information within we develop more plausible flora hypotheses.

Example 4. Abstracted beach, Running Hot to Cool.

Example 5, Step one of the Dark Arcs.

Example 6, Step two of the Dark Arcs with more visual noise and invitation to fill in.

Let me welcome you to a new semester of registration for classes at the Silvermine School of Art, 203 966 6668 ext2.  I hope some of you will join me there. I also can announce my three days of workshops at Jerry’s’ Artaramas at their ArtoftheCarolinas.com I will have three different workshops beginning on Friday November 11 through Sunday November13.