Conversely, anything asymmetrical should be less attractive or downright ugly. It is debatable whether this is true (and personally I don't agree), but in the world of art how has these concepts, "symmetry" and "asymmetry", been handled?
First I want to look at Leonardo Da Vinci's Vetruvian Man.
This image is most commonly used as the embodiment of health and fitness, and seen quite a lot in the medical community. Da Vinci sketched this as an accompaniment to his technique and also as a scientific study showing the human body as having symmetrical proportions that create an overall harmony.
Next I wanted to examine the Chartres Cathedral. To glance quickly at this marvelous piece of architecture, one might see it as a very symmetrical cathedral. In fact, at closer examination, it is apparent that the west spires are mismatched. All that I could find out about this was the south spire is a 349-foot plain Romanesque pyramid dating from the 1140s, while the north is a 377-foot early 16th-century Flamboyant Gothic spire on top of an older tower. My personal feeling is that this structure with it's combination of symmetry/asymmetry creates a much more interesting product that beckons me to study it more.
This is Mark Rothko's Magenta, Black, Green on Orange (1947) and is another example of symmetry vs. asymmetry. In the book Mark Rothko by James E. B. Breslin, Tom Hess from Art News is quoted calling one of his shows "'one of the most enjoyable' in several years, declared that it established 'international importance of Rothko as a leader of postwar modern art,' and commended his creation of a 'elementary serenity of symmetry in a way that avoids the paralyzing boredom perfect symmetry aspires to'" This notion of "perfect symmetry" versus "imperfect symmetry" is an interesting way to look at it. Maybe the greater the degree of asymmetry, the lesser the degree of comfort.
Next we have a painting by Jackson Pollock titled Number One (1948). In John Haber's essay The Last Dance he speaks of the experience of a Pollock painting saying, "...paint takes over its shallow space. It gets denser, a painting's symmetry gets more obvious, and the technique gets varied and absorbing. A physicist has actually quantified the symmetry, not implausibly, with fractal geometry. When Pollock calls a painting Simmering Substance, one sees the heat but feels a refreshing cool." My highly limited understanding of fractal geometry explains that if you took an irregular shape and split it in half, each half would be a smaller copy of the larger. I guess this gives symmetry to the asymmetrical but I find a Jackson Pollock symmetrical just because no one splatter or brush stroke stands out making none of them more important than the other and further the frame provides the symmetrical borders.
Finally I would like to show the album cover from Akron/Family's self-titled album. Unfortunately I don't physically own the album yet, and absolutely cannot find who the artist is that created the cover. Again there is a strong symmetry, but certainly not "perfect symmetry". It seems to me that there are two categories that define symmetry. The first is the term "perfect symmetry" which allows the viewer to draw an imaginary line through the art and have a mirror image on each side. The next would have to be a scale where on one side is symmetry and on the other side asymmetry. I think this is far more interesting because you can create something uncomfortably asymmetrical or something highly symmetrical but not completely, and the result should always be more appealing than the perfection and boredom of "perfect symmetry".
No comments:
Post a Comment