As an artist and designer I’ve explored the properties of Balance and Shape that Arnheim explains in these chapters almost subconsciously. Like any artist, I’ve intuitively known, to a certain extent, what was “right” or “wrong” in the composition of my work. But I had never thought about it in terms of psychology and visual perception. It was always a matter of creating an image that was visually accessible---not necessarily a harmonious or appealing image but one that the viewer could take in naturally. Until this reading, I never knew of any psychological explanations behind an artist’s or viewer’s desire for clear, visually palatable works of art.
I immediately related to Arnheim's explanations of our visual sense of balance, weight and symmetry. He's laid out visual challenges in their simplest form that artistS and designers are constantly running into. How does one place the black disk in the correct part of the square so that it is centered or off-centered enough to make sense to the viewer? Where do you place the doors and windows in the wall of a house so that your statement as the designer is clear? I'm not advocating for strictly formulaic, symmetrical art and design. But aesthetic choices, whatever they may be, must be made clear to the viewer for the piece as a whole to be accessible and effective. As Arnheim put it, this lack of clarity "makes the visual statement unclear and interferes with the observer's perceptual judgement"( page 14).
We run into the same esthetic challenge on page 22 in figure 7b. In this image, "The proportions are based on differences so small that they leave the eye uncertain whether it is contemplating inequality, symmetry or asymmetry, square or rectangle." This uncertainty, unless it is part of the designer's statement, is a prohibitive distraction that viewers have a hard time moving beyond.
I think some of the other visual functions explained in these chapters feed into this notion of visual accessibility as well. On page 67 Arnheim describes our tendencies to “level” and/or “sharpen” what we see. He compares classicism to expressionism and briefly describes how the former appeals to our capacity to level and the latter to our capacity to sharpen or heighten the tension. The two styles are radically different but the aesthetic choices and their visual and psychological effect are clear.
I don’t mean to suggest that certain types of art or certain styles are “right” or “wrong.”I also don’t think that artists and designers should shy away from subtly and nuances. But I think one of Arnheim’s points is that a work of art, no matter the content, or style or subject or medium, will sink in better on a strictly visual level, if it displays clear esthetic choices. Our brain does not want to see ambiguously balanced, or ambiguously ordered or ambiguously complex images and I think artists intuitively don’t want to make such images.
5 comments:
I was very interested in what Gordon had to say about Arnheim's discussion of balance, weight, and symmetry, as well as shape. I agree with Gordon that Arnheim discusses visual challenges that artists and designers are always encountering. It was interesting to look at images like figure 1 on page 10 or figure 7b on page 22, and think how, as an artist, I would/would not make the choice to put that circle in a seemingly ambiguous space, or put that center line ambiguously off-center. Artists always have the right to place things where they want, for they are essentially creating their own world. However, what interests me in art is when the artist makes a strong choice. The images like figure 1 and figure 7b make me feel somewhat uncomfortable because they are off-balance, but this is not uninteresting. If such an image is intended by the artist to yield that result, then it is an interesting and strong choice. Yet if it is clear that the artist simply had no sense of balance or symmetry, then it is uninteresting. One could argue that it's difficult to tell, but I think when an artist makes a firm decision, that is visible in the piece. Probably, though, such a decision is firmer and less ambiguous.
I am also interested in Arnheim's discussion on balance because when I was younger, while drawing, I always had an idea of where things were "supposed" to go. For example, if I was drawing a circle in a square, I would put it clearly in the center. I understand now that this sense inside me telling me where to put things was based on the brain's need for balance. Arnheim says, "Seeing something involves assigning it to a place in the whole" (11). The picture is not a circle and a square, but a circle inside a square, and the experience of the viewer will change based on where that circle is placed. Essentially what I am trying to say is that I found it very interesting to read a close dissection of the brain's reaction to balance and shape, especially as an artist. It gives me things to thing about, things on a very basic but important level.
I find this discussion about balance and symmetry interesting. On page 18 in Arnheim, there are two figures, 5a and 5b. While Arnheim proposes that in a, although either of the black disks might look unbalanced by themselves, together they balance out with symmetry. On the other hand, Arnheim says that because b's two circles do not have symmetry around the mid-point, it appears more unbalanced.
One of the reasons I found this discussion so interesting is that while I was reading the book, I was examining the pictures before I got to the writing to see if I could figure out what Arnheim was going to discuss about them. With those images (5a and 5b), I actually found a to be more unbalanced while b seemed quite balanced. I think the reason why it appeared balanced to me was that in b, the outer dot appeared to be circling the center dot. By "making sense" out of the picture, my brain found the image to be more stable than the other image.
I can relate to what Gordon had to say about knowing the "right" or "wrong" way when making a piece of art. The Gestalt functions of our brains try to piece the image together before it is complete, and the brain's constant quest for order and stability try to bring balance to the image. Like I mentioned in the second class, when I was a kid I would draw faces consisting of a circle with two dots for eyes and a curved line for a smile. Naturally, they had a triangular party hat placed on top, and a smaller circle on top of that point of the triangle. The concept of balance is demonstrated by need to not only place another shape on top of the triangle, but also to construct these shapes in such a way so that the ball on top doesn't "fall" off, or appear to fall off. Also, the top angle of the triangle makes quite a bit of difference in the balance of an image.
I also picked up on the notion of an artist's intuition when making compositional choices in a piece of art. Particularly, the quote: "For any spatial relation between objects there is a "correct" distance, established by the eye intuitively." (Arnheim, page 12)
As Gordon notes, an artist considers "accessibility" when creating a work. I agree with Arnheim that these decisions are better judged on the bases of intuition, than on the bases of quantitative measurement. A piece of art is meant to be looked at, so the role of the viewer is important to consider. An artist must make intentional, conscious choices, that determine the degree of interaction that is necessary on the part of the viewer. This I think parallels Gordon's idea of accessibility in that an artist uses their perceptive tools when making compositional choices in order to make an artwork that is relatively accessible, and possibly appealing to our more subconscious perceptive responses, or an artwork that is less accessible, and possibly requiring more intellectualization on the part of the viewer.
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