Mirrors and Mist

I’m not into Rap music, but Friends Forever by “Vitamin C” is one of my daughter’s favorite songs. So when I recognized the melody at a memorial service this weekend I checked with the musicians and was told that it was Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D major. Not being a classical music aficionado I checked him out and found that he was a precursor to Bach, who developed a style involving multiple instruments playing different melodies; an almost geometric development of short musical statements. The musical term “Canon” is, according to Wikipedia, “a polyphonic device in which several voices play the same music, entering in sequence.” It is like a “round” (such as Row, Row, Row your Boat) in that different sections of the musical line fit together in harmony. If you watch the YouTube video you can see each of the 3 violins taking up the same musical passage from left to right.

Johann Pachelbel Canon in D Original Instruments from Voices of Music on Vimeo.

Watching the video reminded me of one of the more subtle tricks in the visual arts; the repetition or mirroring of a central shape in the surrounding picture field. The “Masterpiece” column in the Wall Street Journal, by Karen Wilken (Sat/Sun June 2-3, 2012, page C13) featuring Titian’s 1509 portrait of Gerolano Barbarigo noted the repetition technique: “From farther away, the portrait seems solemn and graphic, constructed with a few big, curved shapes against a neutral background.” The effect is not blatant as in some abstract graphic work, but is instead hidden behind a façade of reality.

Robert Bateman is an artist who, besides being a great wildlife illustrator, is brilliant at playing with patterns. The Ghost of the North – Great Gray Owl shows a nearly colorless painting of an owl with the surrounding branches echoing the shape of the owl’s head and feathers. In the Golden-crowned Kinglet and Rhododendron the red cap of the Kinglet on the right is repeated expansively in the flowers on the left, creating a beautifully balanced composition.

Of course birds aren’t buildings, but there are occasionally opportunities to play the same game when illustrating architecture. Buildings are large, so repeating shapes have to happen in similarly large things… such a clouds. The clouds beyond this convention center mirror the wedge shape of the building itself.

Sometimes the surrounding parking, roads or landscape provide the needed shapes. The preliminary sketch of Terminal One at JFK airport includes the sweeping approach roads which mimic the flowing shape of the terminal behind.

Landscape is usually a contrast to the rectilinear nature of buildings, but if you explore the shadows of a building you might find an unexpected shape that can be repeated. The oil sketch below takes the curve of the building shadow at the top of the bluff and reproduces it twice in the hill side and the river bend below.

If the rendering focuses on a portion of a building you might find patterns in the design elements and the shadows that can be used as a theme. Below is a shadow study for the Tokyo International Forum, where a zigzag pattern is repeated in the overhanging volumes, the far escalator, and the foreground shadow.

When using computer rendering programs, pattern repetition becomes a matter of luck. Trying out a number of different view and light angles gives you a chance to stumble upon an abstract find such as the image below.

Once you get into the middle of the built environment you start to see repeating geometry everywhere. Whether it is a single building or a city, rectangles proliferate, squares are scattered across the viewing field along with a few triangles and circles here and there. Architects are natural pattern repeaters, and to paraphrase Shrek, “it’s getting them to stop repeating that’s the trick.”

So, to some extent the preceding notes are a waste – who needs to learn to sneak repeated shapes into a rendering when the architecture does it for you? This brings up the reverse problem in any illustration, how to keep your subject from getting lost in the context and background shapes of a picture. Illustrating a single building in an open landscape is like painting a portrait, the focus is obvious and doesn’t need any emphasis. When you are faced with a new building set in an urban context however, it is a different matter. Bateman created and solved this problem in his painting Galloping Herd – Giraffes.

Bateman’s use of dust raised by the running giraffes to separate the central giraffe from the rest of the herd can be applied to the urban context. Dust doesn’t typically obscure the atmosphere of large cities, but rain, snow or mist certainly does. The misty street scene is a favorite theatrical backdrop of mine. The sketch below shows a conceptual idea for a Broadway view. The subject building is shown with some detail, but the surrounding buildings are left as silhouettes.

When you are dealing with buildings which are standing close together in the urban fabric it can be disconcerting to see one building clearly detailed while the next is a silhouette. A dusk view can make a more believable image by spotlighting the subject building, while letting surrounding buildings take on the cool, flat colors of the evening. The pastel sketch below uses this technique to make a cool curtain of skyscrapers that  compliment the warmly lit hotel.

When you are trying to work out the focus of an urban scene it helps to do a few quick sketches to explore the possibilities. Below are a set of sketches for a modern glass curtainwall tower set among other tall buildings. You can see that none strongly separates the tower from the context, but some are more successful visually than others. And, as in love and war, being obvious is not always the best strategy.  It's all in the wrist balance.

Aerial views are especially problematic in that one building can get lost in the dense urban thicket. My default approach is to assume a cloudy day, and allow a “spotlight” of sun to fall on whatever I’m illustrating. This has the dual advantage of being realistic (everyone has seen the effect from an airplane), and being dramatic. The aerial below of Laclede’s Landing in St. Louis applies this technique to a waterfront development.

Of course whether you want to clarify or obfuscate is up to you. A commercial job will normally demand clarity and specificity. But, the further you get into the esoteric “artsy” world the more an unfocused approach will be tolerated. Indeed, at the height of the cultural pile you might find that reality disappears, and you will be left with a goldfish bowl of architectural dreams. Be sure to wave as they float by.

Beauty

I occasionally toss a philosophical question at my practical daughter to get her to do some abstract thinking (a bad habit from my limited humanities training).  Yesterday I showed her Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats, and asked her whether she agreed with the famous final statement: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty”.  Being wise she said she did not know, and asked what I thought.  I, being a fool started to talk and analyze and tie myself in a knot.  Obviously I needed to clarify it in my mind before I opened my mouth.  As such… the following is an outline of my considered thoughts (or perhaps a rambling thicket of random thoughts).  This is a summary of personal research and opinion, so read on at your own risk.

First, in cold rational analysis, beauty is not truth, and truth is not beauty.  There is obviously overlap in certain areas of human thought and activity, but in general the examples where truth=beauty are minimal.  And, all of this is going on in our heads anyway, so… never mind.

At the other end of the ‘aphorism chart’ you have: “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”  In other words beauty is entirely a matter of personal preference.  Yes, but how much individual choice do you have.  We don’t have wildly differing ideas of beauty, but we also don’t all love the same color or shape for instance (note that I’m a visual artist, and so will emphasize that area throughout the following).  We are a mix of freedom and conformity, and this border land is what follows.

Human Nature (based primarily on The Second Conquestof Earth by E.O. Wilson):   Brain wave analysis shows that humans prefer approximately 20% redundancy in abstract shapes.  We like a balance of the familiar and the unfamiliar.  We also prefer a balance between complexity and simplicity; we hate boredom, but don’t want to be bewildered.  Finally, we prefer images or views that provide a hierarchy of things to focus on; we dislike a blank world, but similarly hate a world with infinite points to focus on.

Human Nature (based primarily on The Blank Slateby Steven Pinker):   Meta-studies of human groups show that humans prefer open fields with scattered trees, similar to the savannah where early humans developed.  We like to see or be close to bodies of water.  And we prefer a panoramic view of our world.  Scientists who study these preferences suggest that they are “hard wired” via natural selection over thousands of years of human development.

In terms of physical beauty, humans prefers healthy looking things: symmetrical, uniform and conventional.  For instance most societies consider female beauty to include a 0.7 waist to hip ratio, although different cultures will favor thinner or fatter overall body types.

Cultural Variety (based on various sources):   Female beauty is the best documented area of cultural divergence.  For centuries foot binding was the way to get your daughter noticed (and married) to a rich and discerning man in China.  A woman’s elongated neck (produced by wearing metal rings) was the ticket to upper class marital bliss in old Burma.  A “full figured” woman is considered beautiful in Nigeria, while in California plastic surgeons seem to rearrange faces and figures to match the latest fad.

Internal cultural preferences are usually set by the ruling class, the elites and the taste makers in the media.  Up until the 19^th century the western elites were fat and pale, reflecting their access to plenty of food and their freedom from hard outdoor labor.  The modern “leisure” society features thin tanned elites, reflecting their access to health clubs and Caribbean vacations (people who are fat and pale are now considered poor, ignorant rednecks in our tolerant worldview).  We are also swayed by dominant foreign countries.  In the 18^th and early 19^th centuries France was the dominant European power (England forged a colonial empire, but France dominated Europe).  French fashion, language (lingua franca), arts and science were mimicked by the elite of other European states, and eventually were spread around the world.  The 19^th century saw the rise of the Anglo-sphere which established the universality of the English language and “anglo” culture.  Now nearly every potentate in the world is dressed like any state senator from Kansas.  We revel in the exotic third world “eco-vacation”, but the world is becoming an American strip mall.

Architecture and art have followed the path of cultural hegemony.  The Roman/Hellenistic style was fashionable in Renaissance Italy, but that gave way to the French Beaux Art movement in the 18^th and 19^th century.  A scattered rejection of tradition I’ll call “modernism” dominated the 20^th century, bolstered by the hegemony of the United States following World War II.  Whatever comes next will be an outgrowth of what has gone before, influenced by whatever polity dominates the world at the time.

Just one other thing I have to add to the cultural discussion.  The “modern” art movement rejects historical precedent, but embraces, or rather, worships innovation.  This is due to the artistic tendency to mimic and symbolize whatever is central in their world; and science is central now.  The value of scientific exploration and innovation is unquestioned, but mimicry of something which is important does not guarantee beauty (or importance for that matter).  Is every new thing beautiful?  No.  Is every new thing interesting?  Yes, by definition.  In our worship of “the new” we have relegated beauty to a minor position behind the “fresh”, the “edgy” and the “transgressive”.  Perhaps this is a phase which will lead to unexpected beauty, just as any good artist has to go through failure to master their art.  We shall see.

So, have I made myself clear?  No?  My schizophrenic outline pits the free individual against the preprogrammed individual.  Which is it, freedom or programmed?  The answer unfortunately is Yes.  We humans are a mix of ant and angel: a rational Dr. Jekyll attached to a psychotic Mr. Hyde.  We analyze and rationalize our gut reactions, and mindlessly defend our scientific discoveries.   Analysis and rationality is something we have built our modern world upon, but for the human animal the aphorism may be more than enough to live by and easier to remember than the algorithm.  The reality is that “In the eyes of the beholder” explains most of human experience.  And perhaps Keats meant that in the end: “- that is all /Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.

Inspiration - Jean-Leon Gerome

I once knew a brilliant architecture student who was working 24/7 on his thesis project.  His family took him to see a play, just to “take his mind off the project”.  On returning to the studio he said he didn’t remember much about the play, but that the design of the air handling system of the theater was so nifty that he was going to work it into his thesis project.  His family had failed - his mind had remained “on” the project. 

Phryne before the Areopagus, 1861

A similar mindset often affects me when viewing paintings; I am attracted by the buildings and objects that frame the subject of the painting.  And, I am often disappointed by the crude misrepresentation of the context in an otherwise excellent painting.  In other words I ignore the nude and ogle the floor tile.  In that spirit, the following is the first of an ongoing series of posts highlighting the artists who have inspired me (with their tile work). 

Pollice Verso, 1872

Jean-Leon Gerome, a late 19^th century French painter, was the first Beaux Arts painter to catch my eye.  While still a child I was fascinated by his painting of the gladiators called Pollice Verso , although I didn’t  register his name at the time.  I was also familiar with the old masters of Europe, but I later failed to see them as having much to say to me as an architect or architectural illustrator.  Yes, Vermeer and Rembrandt had an eye for light, and Canaletto and Vernet had mastered panoramic cityscapes, but they all seemed to treat architecture as a secondary subject.  Gerome on the other hand, was a revelation in his brash but realistic depiction of architecture. 

An Arab and his Dogs, 1875

This posting is not meant to be a biography of Gerome, nor a critical essay.  Instead I want to point out the lessons that are taught in a score of images.  Most of the following paintings are examples of “orientalist” art; paintings of contemporary (19^th century) middle eastern culture.  Although Gerome was adept at academic and historical painting, his oriental paintings have always had an immediacy and realism that is valuable to an architectural illustrator.

Harem in the Kiosk, 1870

Gerome rarely painted a full view of a building, which was understandable since he was a painter, not an architect.  The two examples of full buildings (above and below) show relatively human scaled structures which are beautifully rendered, but don’t overpower the human figures beside them.  The Kiosk, above, is a study in detail, weathering and age, while the minaret, below, shows detail in shadow.  Neither painting is particularly brilliant in its architectural delineation, but both use a correctly realized structure to frame the story he is telling.

The Muezzin's Call to Prayer, 1879

Gerome is on more solid ground when he renders the framing buildings with a flattening light.  Prayer on the Housetops, below, creates a theatrical scrim to contrast with the almost silhouette of the men in the foreground.  There is just enough detail to be convincing – a good rule to follow when developing any rendering.

Prayer on the Housetops, 1865

The painting below places the action in such a way that the buildings form an outdoor space.  It could have been quite pedestrian except that Gerome has placed the sun so as to light the far pylon while keeping the people in the cool shaded area.  The grading of the brightly lit wall from left to right, and the soft edged shadow on the pylon demonstrate an impressive understanding of the effects of late-day sun on masonry.

The Pyrrhic Dance, late

The Woman of Cairo at Her Door, below, is more than a subtly erotic view of a woman of the street, it is a close observation of light, both direct and indirect.  As with the example above, the subject is kept in the cool shade, while the context takes a star turn.  This compositional decision is worth considering in spite of the de-emphasis of the subject of the rendering.  It essentially plays a game of “hide and seek” with the viewer, creating an entertainment rather than a boring snap-shot, lacking all mystery.

Woman of Cairo at her Door, 1897

Return from the Hunt, below, is a favorite of mine for both its exquisite balance of color and its really breathtaking portrayal of stonework at the top.  Green is a dangerous color to allow dominance, but Gerome has made it work here.  The contrasting reddish brown of the stone, dogs and jacket fix the green in its place.  The three different color renderings of the stone carving is an audacious bit of painterly “showing off” and yet is a satisfying backdrop to the scene below.

Return from the Hunt, 1875

The image below is perhaps the most architectural image Gerome ever painted.  The stone arched porch rendered with clearly cast shadows and reflected light on the back wall exemplify what any architect should know.  The pigeons and harem ladies are just eye candy for the uninitiated.

Harem Ladies feeding Pigeons in a Palace Courtyard, late

The Carpet Merchant is another image I ran into years before becoming an architect.  It is an interior view, but seems to be in a deep courtyard since there is soft light from somewhere above.  It is interesting for the contrast between the confetti color of the robes and carpets, and the mottled age of the stonework.  Also note the variegated surface of the white stones in the foreground and the whitewashed walls in the balcony. 

The Carpet Merchant, 1887

The Reception of the Duc de Conde taking place under a large skylight at Versailles, is instructive in the grading and coloring of the staircase.  The progression is from cool green-grey to a warm terracotta at the kings feet.  The sparkle of people and the flat handling of the back wall are of less interest to me.  You might look up The Grey Cardinal to see a rather dull rendering used in the service of storytelling.

Reception of the Duc de Conde at Versailles, 1878

Prayer in the Mosque is an excellent example of an interior lit softly by a high clearstory.  Note the soft though correct shadows, the stone joints and the “over exposed” windows in the background.  Also, the foreground stone describes a clear geometric pattern, but is faded so as to defer to the figures and continues the soft lighting pattern.

Prayer in the Mosque, 1900

Public Prayer in the Mosque of Amr Cairo is a similar venue, but lit from the right side by an open arcade.  The one point perspective is slightly off center; always a good idea.  And the simplicity of the perspective is offset by the figures and the almost abstract effect of the roof arches.  The picture is grounded, appropriately enough, by the intricate stone pattern of the foreground.  Although this is an interior view there is a distinct fading with distance which helps unify the scene.

Public Prayer in the Mosque of Amr Cairo, 1870

The dead tiger, below, is interesting, but the majority of the painting is taken up by a melancholy stage set which both reflects the emotional tone of the picture, but also describes the scale of the palace hall.  The repetitive pattern of columns and candles creates a rhythm across the center of the painting.  Such repetition of shapes from foreground to background can make a banal image into an interesting puzzle of shapes.

The Grief of the Pasha, 1882

I suppose some might be attracted by snakes and little boys, but to me the stone floor and the tile wall below, are just gorgeous.  Tile work is especially hard to reproduce in a computer rendering, so observing a master capturing the surface effect is worth your while.

The Serpent Charmer, 1880

OK, I admit the pile of severed heads is arresting.  My point in including this painting is the fascinating mix of pea-green and burnt sienna in the stone blocks.  It is the application of an old rule, that any color field must include its compliment to avoid a deadly (pun alert) sameness.  The handling of the sunlit space beyond in oranges, yellows and browns gets the point of sunlight across without blowing out the range of values.

Heads of the Rebel Beys, 1866

The guy in the party dress below is an Arnaut, an Albanian mercenary who fought for the Turks.  You did not want to make fun of him back in his 19^th century heyday.  Although some might focus on the classy hookah he is enjoying, my interest is in the wooden grille behind.  The white skirt is also a good example of white taking on all the colors of the surrounding room.

Arnaut Smoking, 1865

The Arnauts on guard below, is a useful reminder that brick should never be overbearing or too consistent.  Besides that, the semi abstract additions to the screen above the far door are a needed invitation to whimsy not uncommon in Gerome’s oeuvre. 

Arnauts of Cairo at the Gate of Bab el Nasr, 1861

Active from 1850 to the turn of the century, Gerome helped establish academy painting and teaching as a high art.  The tragedy of Gerome’s career was that he lived long enough to become an antagonist to the “modern” movements.  In spite of the negative judgment of 20th century critics, Gerome is an astonishingly creative artist working within a demanding discipline.  He obviously studied and reworked tirelessly.  His sense of composition, color and reality is unsurpassed.  His self-discipline and self confidence was legendary, which may have been the reason the "anything-goes" modern art world could not accept him. 

Arabs crossing the Desert, 1870

Or perhaps his pains-takingly rational recording of the human comedy did not fit with the wild flailing of the “fin de siecle” world.  But if his detractors would have looked closely, they might have seen the freewheeling mind moving underneath the masterly order.  In any case, Gerome is highly valued in the reemerging world of realistic art.

Inspiration - Jean-LeonGerome

Inspiration- The Dreams of Lebbius Woods

Inspiration- Sargent & Structures

Inspiration- Louis Sullivan & Ornamentation

Inspiration- Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue

Inspiration- Winslow Homer

Inspiration- Dore & value studies

Inspiration- Hugh Ferriss

Inspiration- Waterhouse & Color

Inspiration- Bierstadt & Atmosphere

Inspiration- John C. Wenrich

Inspiration - Cyril Farey

Simple Palette - Monochrome Days

You’ve probably done the same thing…

Browsing through some pictures you are arrested by one image.  Among all the other splashes of color it has something – a unity that the others don’t have.  It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s MONOCHROME!

Here is the picture, taken some winters ago, and forgotten.  Although it is a full color photo saved as a full color RGB Tiff file, it seems monochromatic.  All snow, all blues, very cold.  How did that happen?  Why is it so striking?  First, it happened because I took the photograph without bothering to adjust for the lighting conditions.  The camera was set for “auto white balance”, which assumed that the bluish cast of the view was normal, but was not what I experienced when I was freezing my ass off in front of the house.  The image is striking because human perception seems to enjoy the balance between the expected and the unexpected.  A familiar scene rendered in a limited range of colors will attract the viewer’s attention more than a straightforward photo of the same scene.

Producing a monochromatic image is quite simple using a computer and Photoshop.  De-saturate (image/mode/greyscale)  the file to create a grey-tone image, then convert that to a “duotone” image (Image/mode/duotone) picking whatever color you want to render it in (blue in this case).  Traditional photography used to do the same thing using filters, and traditional printing used to save money doing the same thing in the press run.  

Of course ink and pencil drawings are natural examples of monochrome art.  Ink is easily reproduced but has a limited range.  Using black and white pencils (or pastel, or ink) you can approach  reality with a minimum of fuss.   

The unity this technique gives to figure drawing is so satisfying that I prefer it to any color technique.

This drawing, working from a photograph, shows how the pencil can go from smudgy sketch to pop-off-the-paper realism.

I have found less success in using the pencil on toned paper depicting architecture.  However, the monochromatic approach is still worth considering as you finalize your illustration.

This rendering of a renovated bank building looked lost in full color, but was too dry in black and white.  Working with a range of yellows created a warm period-piece that the client loved.

This image was originally a full color rendering of a brick “wedding cake” building.  I never liked the end result, but it is resurrected by re-framing the image on the most interesting side and reducing the color to a monochrome brick red.

This sketch of a “Euro Model House” in France lacked “style” in its full color rendering...

...but the sepia tone version, while giving less information, has an atmosphere that more than makes up for the lack of color.

And finally, here’s with color (done with herculean effort)…  And then without (done with 3 clicks of the mouse).  I find the colored image more interesting – as art.  But I find the monochromatic image more believable – as a building/time/place.  Ironic, that. 

So, I’m going to restrain myself here, and not go on about the psychological meaning of non-color, or the historic legacy of non-color photography, or even the artistic interpretation of non-color.  No, the simple reality is that sometimes an illustration just looks better in black and white (apologies to Paul Simon).  And, with color simplification so easy, there is no reason not to do some exploring before you finalize your masterpiece.