We can reproduce almost exact shape on the available grid of PC.
( We need to use finer grid to draw the face.)
Any shape can be reproduced as digital image on small grid.
As most of the music in the world can be notated with twelve tones, it seems that most shapes drawn by human are made of limited curves, i. e. most artwork is made of limited units.
Cutting coloured papers with scissors, Matisse in his later years, made shapes without relying on manual dexterity.
If Matisse lived now, he would use PC to draw.
As we see in Bar's famous Diagram of modern art movement, the american formalism could not find proper position for Matisse, Klee and Picasso.
The way of criticism that invents isms and connects them to make a tree diagram is not structured on formal level but on semiotic level.
Formal art must not be founded on knowledge but on shape which is the common denominator of every visible thing, which is potentially artwork.
Matisse's abstraction was inductive: the simplification of natural shape.
Matisse noticed the interesting effect of Cezanne's deformed nude.
Cezanne taught Matisse that natural shape can be intentionally distorted.
" I am also correct if Cezanne is correct.", Matisse said.
He painted Dance experimentally.
I picked the dancer on the right side as the most deformed body.
I can imagine the notoriety when it was exhibited for the first time.
We need a formalism to include Matisse's abstraction.
To explain Visual Grammar, so far, I used very simple shapes taken from abstract paintings as example.
now the terms and the grammar are ready for figurative artwork too.
So I start from Matisse.
Black-and-white photos of some versions have been introduced in a number of books but now we can see all online.
According to Bar's book, Matisse made drawings for the painting beforehand.
But I found a pastel which is much similar to the first version of Pink Nude.
So I start comparing it with Pink Nude.
We know this pastel was painted by Matisse because the documents tells so( this is the level of reference).
We also know that this is not a portrait of special woman( level of symbol).
To see a naked woman is a level of icon.
To see the imperfect body is also iconic level and to see the shape as it is is a level of sense.
Pure vision sees the geometric characteristics of shape: anyone sees the same thing.
Picture becomes pure art on this level.
At the stage of the pastel, the image is already non realistic: illustrative.
There are neither actual colours nor tones.
The contour is drawn with black line.
The face is like cartoon, much simpler than Ukiyoe painting.
In the oil paintings, the sense of reality is further removed.
At the first stage, the picture started with new motifs: flowers in a vase and a pot on the table behind the sofa.
Then the corner of the room disappears and the sofa becomes background.
The table disappears and the vase, the pot and the flowers becomes decorative element of the background.
The body is enlarged and some parts becomes outside of the frame.
Without the parts of the body,the figure becomes new shape.
And as a consequence the number of the intersection of the shape increases; the design became more complicated.
The head rises straight and is surrounded by the lines of the arm; the outline of the body is simplified.
Double lined buttocks become single in the final stage.
Being free from the reality, act of creating becomes playful with geometric elements.
Living in a country side, I have not been able to read all the books about Pink Nude.
I only hope that they will become digital and easily searchable in future.
Anyway in order to discuss the problem of art, words have serious limitation.
Not only that we define the meaning of art terms precisely but also we should devise grammatical models common to all shapes.
Now I try to analyse the network structure of the two pictures mathematically
.
① Comparing the two pictures in the same size, we notice the nude of Pink Nude has become unusually large.
We can hardly call them the same type of figurative art.
② Mark the intersecting points of the line.( The detail can be treated as a secondary design because they often disappear at the process.)
③Thinking that the lines are rubber strings, stretch them on grid.
Then separate the pattern in colour.
④Neglecting concavity, simplify the pattern.
⑤ In order to determine the minimum lattice pattern which represents the network, organize the nude part and the back ground separately.
⑥Colour the nude in pink and the back ground in blue.
In the pastel, the nude network fits into a rectangular frame.
The body in Pink Nude touches to the frame and forms eight dots.
The pattern becomes complex mosaic.
We can clearly see the difference on grid level.
The lattice indicates how many squares are necessary.
This is the minimum lattice structure of the network minimum lattice model of network.
The minimum network of Pink Nude is a grid of twenty times twenty and of the Pastel ten times eleven.
Instead of Alfred Bar's tree diagram,the new diagram of shape, in which each artwork has its own position, should be made.
The outline of a body is a loop, so it is possible to classify this type of artworks based on the number of concavity.
Let me try to classify Matisse's human body.
(The figures on the right are referential; archaic idols and modern artworks.)
The number of concavity of the nude in the painting of Renaissance is approximately two times of Pink Nude.
Online I tried to find photos of Mt. Choukai which I enjoy seeing whenever weather is fine.
I traced the outline of the mount.
The top has a cavity which is the crater, the left slope descends without so much dents but the right side has a large lump breaking symmetry.
"Nature does not create art.It is we, and the faculty of interpretation peculiar to the human mind, that see art."
Man Ray
Features of the curve is more simplified in the outline of nude,
A number of smooth curves are connected like a melody.
Each curve is recognisable by difference in curvature, which makes the outline expressive.
The body curve can be seen easily without the head and legs, which makes us realize that a chain of curves is the cause of enjoyment of seeing.
Seeing a shape is tactile and seeing colour is optical.
The ends of a line attract our eyes, so think about the eye movement starting from the left end.
The line rises to the right then falls straight bending a little to the left.
We recognize the line's turns: right, left, right, left; the turn is countable.
We also see some parts of the line specifically: not only the two ends, but also each bend.
When a line is closed, we can count the number of concave(the number of convex is the same.)
Henri Matisse in 1908 wrote in 「Notes of a painter」
"The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive: the place occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, every thing has its share. Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the diverse elements at the painter's command to express his feelings. In a picture every part will be visible and will play its appointed role,whether it be principal or secondary."
It is a great surprise for me to know he had a such insight in 1908.
My plan is to explain his great ideas grammatically little by little.
Now we are ready to see the body shape in the Pastel.
This shape is a network of 18 intersections where 3 lines meet.
Each line can be seen separately from intersection to intersection or intersection to the end..
① A curve in the same curvature can be recognised as a unit.
the eyes tend to go to the top of a line.
② Looking at the top of the curve , we notice that the right curve is different from the left curve.
The natural shape like the outline of a mount is usually very complicated and mathematical curve like parabola has very gradual change of curvature
We do not see these lines as succession of a few divisible segments of curve.
But an artwork is made of simple curves: the shape of plates in Cezanne's still life is not oval shaped but of divisible curve.
At a glance, the outline of the pastel has more unit rectangles than Pink Nude.
The shape of picture became simpler after Cezanne; the outline is divided into smaller number of rectangular units.
This often happened in so-called art history; art history is the history of artistic artefacts.
When simplification of shape happens, artefact have more chance to have higher quality because it is easy to see the structure.
We cannot see the shape of a flying bird.
When we see Moor's sculpture we have to stop walking around.
Art is a static image, not an object.
Digital image online becomes potential artwork for everyone.
We are surrounded by potential artworks ever time every where.
We see an image in every visible thing: the outline of mountain; nude; calligraphy; decorative pattern; figurative and non figurative painting.
Every shape seen as image has lines made of curved line segments as unit.
A series of curved lines makes melodious line, which affects us enjoyment.
We learn at early stage innate visual grammar by looking at shapes around us.
