Art theory should be based on the activity of seeing a thing in everyday life.
Seeing any shape gives him a certain pleasure , which makes him seeing a thing unintentionally.
Each shape gives him different pleasant feeling.
The problem is that most human stops using this faculty of seeing for its own sake in daily life.
Educated persons are so conditioned that they can hardly spear time for seeing without purpose.
Only few like 3 months old babies, real artists and persons of pleasure can use such ability easily.
Though such ability may look unpractical,it helped the evolutionary process: the one who has curiosity of seeing more than the other can find more food and avoid danger.
This faculty is found not only in human but in more primitive organisms.
The faculty works automatically when a maker produces any artifact.
This is why artifact has functional beauty.
When the object has efficient function and the formal beauty is noticeable,the maker can handle the shape more playfully.
When the copy is reproduced according to the established sample,this is the beginning of applied art.
Some people may want an artifact not for initial purpose but for the appearance.
The work becomes fine art.
Any object can be beautiful unintentionally, which means art is not communicational but informational.
Being so-called fine art does not promise to be pure art.
We see few good works in the contemporary art scene.
People expect pictures in a museum being fine art but they are applied art: applied for the demand of the contemporary art world.
artifact=usefulness+shape
This simplified equation is convenient to explain where the beauty lies.
The usefulness can be communicational when the artist wants to express his idea.
It can be commercial made for the demand of the art market.
It can be functional as archtecture is.
It can be illustrative like religious painting and historical painting.
Such usefulness lasts for certain time.
It is durative,therefore historical.
The history of spoon can be studied by art historians.
The shape lasts even when the use is forgotten and nothing written about it is found.
Negro sculpture was in such state when Picasso found it.
It is like a shell on sea shore.
Art has been mostly made as by-product represented on the shape.
As the study of medicinal effect of herb is not the business of botanist but of chemist,
the study of shape is not the business of art historian but of a new kind of grammarian who studies shape.
Any shape is geometrical , which makes the study easy.
squares 1~5
Friday, July 22, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Universal Grammar of seeing
1)The faculty of seeing shape with pleasant sensation is the basis of artistic activity.
Artifact maker with such faculty makes pleasurable shape intuitively,which is why any artifact has artistic quality more or less.
Artifact =usefulness+shape
The usefulness is temporary and the shape lasts forever.
Art historians' main concern is the usefulness.
We need a new type of study for the shape,which I call visual grammar.
2)Art theory should not be only based on art work but on every object we enjoy seeing.
Fine art is a sort of applied art.
Applied art is a sort of artifact.
Artifact is a sort of natural object,
The form of natural object is the one we enjoy seeing.
99 percents of objects we see nowadays are reproductions of the originals, which are kinds of artifacts.
The original objects we can see are only fractions.
Art theory based on art works only is inevitably outdated.
The new art theory on all shpes rather than on art works may be created easier than before because we are having larger amount of reproductions of objects: digital images, together with art books.
3)Art seeing is shape seeing and is two dimentional.
The image on retina is two dimentional and to see a shape,the image must be static.
Seeing a sculpture is seeing many pictures, each one at a time.
Seeing a sculpture on walking around is like seeing a movie.
An art student uses only one eye to see the proportion of the model because binocular vision is not static.
The proportion is well known important characterristic to give the viewer pleasant sensation.
4) Shape seeing is attentive:seeing particular geometrical characteristics of the shape of an object quantitatively.
We can see some shape is made of four straight lines whose proportion is 1:2:3:4 and has one concave,etc.
The quantity of each characteristic of a shape effects us pleasant feeling.
The study of quantative characteristics of shape is objective.
The business of visual grammar is science.
As grammar is not about literature but about all the writing,the visual grammar is not about art but about all shape.
5)Most philosophers seem to consider that the conditional reflex is the beginning of mentality.
My claim is that unconditional sensing comes first and this is the basis of aesthetics.
When we say that the taste is better, this is Kant's taste judgement:additional act of reference is necessary.
Eating some food,the taste give us pleasure instantly. This is sensing.
Likewise shape seeing is seeing a thing as if it is the first time to see it.
Even Gestalt psychology and cognitive psychology tend to neglect this animalistic,non-symbolic act of seeing.
6)The human mental faculty has four levels: sense; perception; cognition and imagination.
The popular art theories skip the first and stand on the other three,i.e. picture theory.
This does not explain why I have pleasure of seeing non-picture like a cardboard cutout shape without background.
Seeing a shape is tactile;the eye follows the contour as the finger does.
Piaget called this faculty topological.
7)The function of the visual organ is both tactile and optical.
A shape can be sensed tactilely and colour can be optically.
The binocular vision is optical and useful for catching food.
8)Each of the four mental faculties perceives four different things: form; real object; real world and imaginative world.
The faculty of sensing shape matures to what I call proto-visual-grammar.
With the help of the other three faculties, this can be advanced to visual grammar for itself and to geometry, arithmetic and logic.
Charles Sanders peirce wrote that ethics is based on logic and logic based on aesthetics.
I follow him.
Aesthetics is based on visual grammar.
Visual grammar is based on proto-visual-grammar .
Proto-visual-grammar is based on sense experience.
If art seeing cultivates proto-visual-grammar,art is important in human life.
10)Any art work has four separable layers.
Imagine that we see a bird drawing by Picasso.
Immediately we recognize it is a Picasso. (Art of code)
The bird looks like a white dove which is a peace symbol. (Art of symbol)
Even without such knowledge,it is still a bird. (Art of icon)
When we enjoy it repeatedly we do not anymore pay attention on the semiotic contents but on the lines. (Art of form)
The first three layers are useful as 'manifold content' and the last two are perennial and universal.
11)Let me introduce a method of peeling art work: a sort of anatomy.
An original sculpture minus originality is the replica.
It can be made in any size, which I call size-free model.
It can be made of any material,I call solid model.
Reproductions can be made from many single views of the original.
Any reproduction belongs to flat model.
The flat model has colour and textural impression.
The textural impression should be regarded as small structure of its own.
The flat model minus colour is black-and-white model.
subtracting the tone from the black-and -white model ,the design appears.
12)Design is the basis of all the art.
a design consists of line and any executed line has two types of structual lines: the contour and the back bone line which is the trajectory of executing tool.
For example,a letter O has double loops as contour and a loop as back bone.
13)Imagine the type of a letter B with two half-circles attached on the right side of a vertical line.
This can be drawn with a ruler and a compass.
This Euclidean shape is an example of proportional model.
All the geometric characteristics of this model are recognizable separately: proportion; angle; curve; smoothness; shaplikeness and concavity.
By removing one characteristic each time ,the next model can be made.
The proportion of the two semi-circles can be changed without losing B- likeness. (proportion-free model=angled model)
The angle of the letter can be varied . (angle-free model=curved model)
The degree of the curves can be different, (curve-free model=smooth line model)
Without the smoothness of the curve,the letter B is still recognizable. (smooth- line-free model=shape model)
We can make such a B with cotton twine on a sheet of paper.
Shake the paper a little.
It is no more readable but may look like two loops without concave attached at a point. (concaved model)
Shaking further,the loops lose tension and become two loose closed strings attached at a point. (string model)
A string is not a characteristic but a thing.
A design is a thing of string with all the characteristics.
Any design has all the models and each model trnsformable to the next.
The transformation is reversible.
now I am ready to establish visual grammar.
(This is the part one of visual grammar)
Artifact maker with such faculty makes pleasurable shape intuitively,which is why any artifact has artistic quality more or less.
Artifact =usefulness+shape
The usefulness is temporary and the shape lasts forever.
Art historians' main concern is the usefulness.
We need a new type of study for the shape,which I call visual grammar.
2)Art theory should not be only based on art work but on every object we enjoy seeing.
Fine art is a sort of applied art.
Applied art is a sort of artifact.
Artifact is a sort of natural object,
The form of natural object is the one we enjoy seeing.
99 percents of objects we see nowadays are reproductions of the originals, which are kinds of artifacts.
The original objects we can see are only fractions.
Art theory based on art works only is inevitably outdated.
The new art theory on all shpes rather than on art works may be created easier than before because we are having larger amount of reproductions of objects: digital images, together with art books.
3)Art seeing is shape seeing and is two dimentional.
The image on retina is two dimentional and to see a shape,the image must be static.
Seeing a sculpture is seeing many pictures, each one at a time.
Seeing a sculpture on walking around is like seeing a movie.
An art student uses only one eye to see the proportion of the model because binocular vision is not static.
The proportion is well known important characterristic to give the viewer pleasant sensation.
4) Shape seeing is attentive:seeing particular geometrical characteristics of the shape of an object quantitatively.
We can see some shape is made of four straight lines whose proportion is 1:2:3:4 and has one concave,etc.
The quantity of each characteristic of a shape effects us pleasant feeling.
The study of quantative characteristics of shape is objective.
The business of visual grammar is science.
As grammar is not about literature but about all the writing,the visual grammar is not about art but about all shape.
5)Most philosophers seem to consider that the conditional reflex is the beginning of mentality.
My claim is that unconditional sensing comes first and this is the basis of aesthetics.
When we say that the taste is better, this is Kant's taste judgement:additional act of reference is necessary.
Eating some food,the taste give us pleasure instantly. This is sensing.
Likewise shape seeing is seeing a thing as if it is the first time to see it.
Even Gestalt psychology and cognitive psychology tend to neglect this animalistic,non-symbolic act of seeing.
6)The human mental faculty has four levels: sense; perception; cognition and imagination.
The popular art theories skip the first and stand on the other three,i.e. picture theory.
This does not explain why I have pleasure of seeing non-picture like a cardboard cutout shape without background.
Seeing a shape is tactile;the eye follows the contour as the finger does.
Piaget called this faculty topological.
7)The function of the visual organ is both tactile and optical.
A shape can be sensed tactilely and colour can be optically.
The binocular vision is optical and useful for catching food.
8)Each of the four mental faculties perceives four different things: form; real object; real world and imaginative world.
The faculty of sensing shape matures to what I call proto-visual-grammar.
With the help of the other three faculties, this can be advanced to visual grammar for itself and to geometry, arithmetic and logic.
Charles Sanders peirce wrote that ethics is based on logic and logic based on aesthetics.
I follow him.
Aesthetics is based on visual grammar.
Visual grammar is based on proto-visual-grammar .
Proto-visual-grammar is based on sense experience.
If art seeing cultivates proto-visual-grammar,art is important in human life.
10)Any art work has four separable layers.
Imagine that we see a bird drawing by Picasso.
Immediately we recognize it is a Picasso. (Art of code)
The bird looks like a white dove which is a peace symbol. (Art of symbol)
Even without such knowledge,it is still a bird. (Art of icon)
When we enjoy it repeatedly we do not anymore pay attention on the semiotic contents but on the lines. (Art of form)
The first three layers are useful as 'manifold content' and the last two are perennial and universal.
11)Let me introduce a method of peeling art work: a sort of anatomy.
An original sculpture minus originality is the replica.
It can be made in any size, which I call size-free model.
It can be made of any material,I call solid model.
Reproductions can be made from many single views of the original.
Any reproduction belongs to flat model.
The flat model has colour and textural impression.
The textural impression should be regarded as small structure of its own.
The flat model minus colour is black-and-white model.
subtracting the tone from the black-and -white model ,the design appears.
12)Design is the basis of all the art.
a design consists of line and any executed line has two types of structual lines: the contour and the back bone line which is the trajectory of executing tool.
For example,a letter O has double loops as contour and a loop as back bone.
13)Imagine the type of a letter B with two half-circles attached on the right side of a vertical line.
This can be drawn with a ruler and a compass.
This Euclidean shape is an example of proportional model.
All the geometric characteristics of this model are recognizable separately: proportion; angle; curve; smoothness; shaplikeness and concavity.
By removing one characteristic each time ,the next model can be made.
The proportion of the two semi-circles can be changed without losing B- likeness. (proportion-free model=angled model)
The angle of the letter can be varied . (angle-free model=curved model)
The degree of the curves can be different, (curve-free model=smooth line model)
Without the smoothness of the curve,the letter B is still recognizable. (smooth- line-free model=shape model)
We can make such a B with cotton twine on a sheet of paper.
Shake the paper a little.
It is no more readable but may look like two loops without concave attached at a point. (concaved model)
Shaking further,the loops lose tension and become two loose closed strings attached at a point. (string model)
A string is not a characteristic but a thing.
A design is a thing of string with all the characteristics.
Any design has all the models and each model trnsformable to the next.
The transformation is reversible.
now I am ready to establish visual grammar.
(This is the part one of visual grammar)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)