W/NW, A Genuine Abstract Photograph

Tim_Lookingbill · December 21, 2016

Now there's conviction in saying what you mean and meaning what you say. I also quote this since I know how much some of you dislike these little quotations (perhaps scared in the cradle by a philologist?).

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Dislike these quotations? JDM? I couldn't understand a word of them. It was like reading from some literary grammar cult that has no idea how to say what it means. I'm going to have to take the first sentence and reduce it to understandable language...

•"Thwackum replied, this was arguing with the usual malice of all the enemies to the true Church."... Arguing with trash talk said by enemies of the "true" Church (whatever that is)? •"He said, he doubted not but that all the infidels and hereticks in the world would, if they could, confine honour to their own absurd errors and damnable deceptions;"... Trash talking, ignorant people would say their own errors and lies was a kind of honour.

•“but honour,” says he, “is not therefore manifold, because there are many absurd opinions about it;"... Manifold meaning various and different which honour is not... (how can honour be various/different? No clue what that means)... because there are many absurd opinions about it (of course the word absurd is an opinion as well) what a hypocritical A-hole. Still don't know what the hell he means.

I've had enough. Yes, JDM, I have a visceral dislike to this form of literary communication. I actually want to strangle Henry Fielding for writing like this. I HATE IT! AAAAH!

AJHingel · December 22, 2016

Thanks JDM, you made my day ! and obviously not Tim's - AAAAH !

Wonderful writing of Fielding, which invites all not to think that Tom Jones is film, but a historical treasure of literature from the time where England fought its rebellions against the "glorious revolution" (the English Church). Reading the text, one has the joy of the English language in full flower before it was destroyed by shorter and shorter sentences to prevent readers from making any intellectual efforts. The same has, to a much lesser degree, I admit, been done to the French language, one of the reasons why la Pléiade edition of historical texts is that popular, reading original texts of Proust, Voltaire, Montaigne, Sand, Sartre or Yourcenar. Of course there is a good reason for JDM to put such a text under our noses, when discussing "abstract photography". Visual arts, and maybe especially photography has probably been subject to the same simplification for "readers" of images, offering still more easily consumed images of already known stuff (the "boredom" of some). Any image going beyond such simplicity of communication is either ignored or rejected by great numbers of potential viewers because of laziness or, more likely, lack of image literacy. When images becomes non-figurative and abstract, most viewers loose their feet and treats them as pure "design" and made for entertainment. On of the good reasons why a forum on the subject is most welcome.

Tim_Lookingbill · December 22, 2016

Reading the text, one has the joy of the English language in full flower before it was destroyed by shorter and shorter sentences to prevent readers from making any intellectual efforts.

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It takes a lot more intelligence to communicate effectively an idea than to obscure it and stiff arm the masses with clunky prose with Yoda like pontificating.

He said, he doubted not but that all the infidels and hereticks in the world would...

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He doubted not? That's just stupid writing. I believe teenagers talk like that, not? That's smart not? That's not intelligent writing. Might as well be talking in code in order to keep everyone in the dark. If one claims to be an intelligent writer there's got to be a benefit as a result whose purpose is to improve society with efficient transfer of information. Not with pompous sing song backward talk. It's useless if it doesn't communicate but only to a small group (gang) of people no matter how flowery it sounds.

AJHingel · December 22, 2016

Intelligence might not be at stake, Tim, but maybe education and culture. You have of course the right to be be who you are and appreciate what you care to appreciate in life.

Others too, I would believe.

Norma Desmond · December 22, 2016

The reason one would write "he doubted not" instead of "he was sure" is akin to the reason one would photograph someone in a mysterious shadow instead of with perfect portrait lighting. Telling Fielding his prose is clunky and should be more "intelligent" is like telling telling a film noir director he should have used better lighting so everything would have been more easily and clearly seen.

There's more to prose than basic communication (especially more to it than communication at a 3rd-grade level). And there's more to movies than the standard Costco portrait lighting.

Straightforwardness and clarity are not always the point. Writers, photographers, and filmmakers are creating moods, atmospheres, uncertainty, ambiguity, poetry, harmony, tension and, yes, in some cases intentional obfuscation. If you can't stand the heat, don't tell the chef to cook hamburgers instead. Just get the hell out of the restaurant and be on your way to MacDonald's.

Norma Desmond · December 22, 2016

Anders, I don't see Gordon's beach abstract working near as well in gray scale. It seems to me, in grayscale it becomes more serious and more inward while it loses its sense of beachiness (which is part of where its abstractness lies, not so much in the beach as in the beach-ness) and some of what I feel as whimsy. Those pastel colors are intoxicating. Removing them, for me, would be zapping some of the "abstract" right out of the image. The same image in grayscale would mimic so many other photos of the beach and reference photography as art way too much. Here, what I'm feeling is photography at play. And a lot of abstraction, IMO, is play. Kandinsky talks about fairy-tale splendor. [This quote is probably one Tim should try his best to internalize.]

"That it was a haystack the catalogue informed me. I could not recognize it. This non-recognition was painful to me. I considered that the painter had no right to paint indistinctly. I dully felt that the object of the painting was missing. And I noticed with surprise and confusion that the picture not only gripped me, but impressed itself ineradicably on my memory. Painting took on a fairy-tale power and splendour." —Wassily Kandinsky

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JDMvW · December 22, 2016

Despite Tim's pretended naiveté, of course the impressions he got from the Fielding quotation were precisely what Fielding intended -- Tom Jones, 18th c. picaresque, and all.

Fielding's making fun of the high pretense of over embellished discourse.

AJHingel · December 22, 2016

Really JDM, and only ? : and the text continues like this:

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<td>“I purposely avoided,” says Square, “drawing a conclusion which I thought evident from what I have said; but if you perceived it, I am sure you have not attempted to answer it. However, to drop the article of religion, I think it is plain, from what you have said, that we have different ideas of honour; or why do we not agree in the same terms of its explanation? I have asserted, that true honour and true virtue are almost synonymous terms, and they are both founded on the unalterable rule of right, and the eternal fitness of things; to which an untruth being absolutely repugnant and contrary, it is certain that true honour cannot support an untruth. In this, therefore, I think we are agreed; but that this honour can be said to be founded on religion, to which it is antecedent, if by religion be meant any positive law—”</td>

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<td>“I agree,” answered Thwackum, with great warmth, “with a man who asserts honour to be antecedent to religion! Mr. Allworthy, did I agree—?”</td>

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<td>He was proceeding when Mr. Allworthy interposed, telling them very coldly, they had both mistaken his meaning; for that he had said nothing of true honour.—It is possible, however, he would not have easily quieted the disputants, who were growing equally warm, had not another matter now fallen out, which put a final end to the conversation at present.</td>

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Norma Desmond · December 22, 2016

Imagine Fielding layering his writing like that. For shame!

In any case, JDM, hiding behind Fielding to call others "pretentious" who are involved in a conversation you aren't even participating in seems pretty cowardly to me. Make a point about the subject and write it in your own more simplistic style and I'll bet even the more high falutin' among us will understand and may even respond if you have something worthwhile to say about abstract photos. Or even just post an abstract. But do something, man, other than complain about the way your peers are talking to each other.

AJHingel · December 22, 2016

Fred is exactly because of the sense of beachiness, that I see it better in greyscale although, as you write it becomes more serious and more inward - which does not disturb me.

Whether it mimics something already seen in colours or in greyscale, I cannot answer. With a wooden pillar of a beach-house it would mimic a Meyerowitz (Cape Cod) and in grey scale a Spilliaert.

Norma Desmond · December 22, 2016

More serious and inward doesn't disturb me either and I doubt it disturbs Gordon on occasion. But it would disturb this

photo, IMO.

gordonjb · December 22, 2016

I'm not that easily disturbed. I do however agree with Fred in that my image would lose its "beachiness" in greyscale. I was a little surprised by Ander's suggestion as it did seem to miss the point of the photo, but then being surprised by other peoples reactions is part of what makes these forums interesting.

AJHingel · December 22, 2016

Gordon, have you tried in grey scale. I have and it is, in my eyes actually very good, but of course another scene, another image.

My immediately reaction to your colour version was, that I saw very well the idea and what you tried to realize (that Fred nicely termed beachiness), where the two shades of blue work very well, but the grey/grey beach, which is with great variety of contrast, I found not to sufficiently support the scene. i would have expected the beach to have a tone of light-yellow (complementary colour to blue).

Tim_Lookingbill · December 22, 2016

The reason one would write "he doubted not" instead of "he was sure" is akin to the reason one would photograph someone in a mysterious shadow instead of with perfect portrait lighting. Telling Fielding his prose is clunky and should be more "intelligent" is like telling telling a film noir director he should have used better lighting so everything would have been more easily and clearly seen.

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That's your interpretation, Fred. You don't know that as fact. That style of writing is dead and has no connection to cinema and cinematography not even music if you think that will make your point.

The main gripe looking back to my youth when that style of ornately written prose was required reading in high school such as The Divine Comedies and many other similar books of literary "acclaim" is that after 40 years I can't remember one thing of what they were about, not one line of dialog.

I wasted my time reading all that crap! I'm not doing it any more. The Emperor has no clothes and that little story I can't remember the details about either except when it's used as a metaphor in political discussions.

Tim_Lookingbill · December 22, 2016

Gordon's abstract photo is perfect just as it is. I do have to wonder how he came upon a designer color beach like that. It's quite dreamy and real at the same time.

Norma Desmond · December 23, 2016

That's your interpretation, Fred.

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Quite right. You won't find me giving you Moses's interpretation, or Ben Franklin's, or Katherine Hepburn's. The facts I tend to give out sound like facts. Here are a couple of examples: "Fred is a 62-year-old male who was born in Brooklyn, NY." "Steerage is a photo by Stieglitz done in 1907." But, really, most of my talk about photography, art, literature, writing, is opinion and interpretation, some of it coming with more experience and some of it coming with less experience. Please, always do remember, and thank you for pointing it out, I am Fred and these are my opinions and interpretations. Bravo!

That style of writing is dead and has no connection to cinema and cinematography not even music if you think that will make your point.

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Just as you can't remember one thing about some of that required reading in high school, your memory is just as bad about how to understand analogies, or maybe you were absent that day.

As far as wanting to strangle Fielding or some of those writers from high school you can't remember a thing about, try the same reminder on yourself. Just as the words I wrote to you were my interpretation and opinions, your feelings about Fielding and those other writers from high school are the results of your interpretations, understanding (or lack thereof), and opinions. So there's no need to strangle them. And no need to flog yourself. Just accept your own likes and dislikes and don't lay it on the writers as if your understanding and likes were facts, facts worthy of strangulation (metaphorically, of course).

AJHingel · December 23, 2016

That style of writing is dead

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No! This type of writing still speaks to us.

It is not more dead than you can meet its contemporary companions by just read one issue of New York Review of Books.Many of these books are re-issued over and over again. Not more dead than classic paintings and sculptures are admired by millions every day in public squares throughout Europe and museums throughout the world. Not more dead than you can see classic films by Strindberg of Dreyer by just connecting to Netflix or Youtube. Not more dead than Elizabethan music (William Byrd, John Bullis) from the time of Fielding's Tom Jones are played in concert halls, somewhere, especially in England, every evening.

Whether you can't appreciate it or not, Tim, is mostly a question, that only you can answer.

“Those who try to impose a single form and style .... of writing are taking on a task that is both fruitless and absurd.” ("Erasmus, The Ciceronian, 1528)

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Julie H · December 23, 2016

A computer simulation of Mondrian's circular painting [Composition with Lines, 1917] permits us to see more sharply by comparison his distinctive order and refinement as a composer. A physicist at the Bell Laboritories, Dr. A. Michael Noll produced that computer version for a test of artistic perception and judgment with the technical and office staffs as subjects.

[line break added] Analyzing the components of the work with respect to their variable size and position, he programmed the instrument to shape a "reasonably similar" composition — what he regarded as an "equivalent," although admittedly more random. Xerox reproductions of photographs of the original and the simulation [which is Computer Composition with Lines, 1964, by Noll] were shown to the subjects who were asked to indicate their feeling toward abstract art, whether of like, dislike, or indifference, and to answer two questions: which of the works is the computer's? and which of the two do you "most strongly like or prefer?"

[line break added] Of the hundred members of the combined staffs, only 28 percent identified the computer product correctly and 59 percent preferred it to the other. That judgment of the computer picture was shared by lovers of abstract art — they made up 75 percent of the respondents — and by those indifferent to it, as well as by some who admitted their distaste for that art. The subjects as a group had little or no artistic training. The highest percentage of any subgroup preferring the computer version — 76 percent — was of subjects who expressed a liking or even a strong liking for abstract art. Some who preferred the simulation and judged it to be the original described it as "neater," more "varied," "imaginative," "soothing," and "abstract" than Mondrian's work.

[line break added] There was no significant difference between the aesthetic responses of the office employees (one-third of the subjects) and the scientists and engineers of the technical staff, although the latter did somewhat better in identifying the machine-made picture, perhaps because of their familiarity with computers. The ones that liked abstract art and those indifferent to it had the same success in this game of recognition, but from an aesthetic point of view the subjects who disliked the art were the most successful; theirs was the lowest percentage of preference for the simulation.

... The experiment is an evidence of a now common but usually ignored response to abstract painting. ... [W]e learn from this trial of judgment that the randomness of strewn forms, without likeness to particulars of nature, could be enjoyed as a positive quality in art and preferred in a less accomplished simulation, just as in the past certain features of a represented subject — the various sentiments and associations suggested by them — were attractive to the viewer uneducated in art and blind to the weakness and banality of the work.

[line break added] Randomness as a new mode of composition, whether of simple geometric units or of sketchy brushstrokes, has become an accepted sign of modernity, a token of freedom and ongoing bustling activity. It is alluring in the same degree that technical and aesthetic features in figurative art, found in the works of the masters — microscopic minuteness of detail, smoothness of finish, virtuoso rendering of textures — besides an agreeable subject, could satisfy in mediocre paintings a taste that was insensitive to relationships of a finer order. The artistically immature taste for the imitative, cliché-ridden, often skillful kind of painting, called kitsch, is now directed also to the widely publicized abstract art. — Meyer Schapiro, 1978

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Norma Desmond · December 23, 2016

On the other hand . . .

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard. —John Steinbeck, year unknown

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gordonjb · December 23, 2016

What I find most noteworthy about the quote Julie pasted is the fact that first Mondrian had to be Mondrian and create a body of work and then a lab tech at Bell could work up some reasonable knock offs.

Analyzing the body of work of a well known popular artist and then producing 'reasonably similar' work and showing it to a group of people who are "uneducated in art and blind to the weakness and banality of the work" and then discovering that some confusion ensues is a rather predictable result.

Graphic art departments deconstruct Mondrian and use the designs on everything from airline logos to cereal packages. There are going to be some people who like their cereal box far more than an original Mondrian.

Norma Desmond · December 23, 2016

Speaking of <a href="

CEREAL</a>.

gordonjb · December 23, 2016

Anders, in answer to your question, yes I did try the image in B&W, but it lost something. I am an admirer of Hiroshi Sugimoto's greyscale minimalist seascape photos however that look was not what I was after here.

gordonjb · December 23, 2016

Fred :-)

Tim_Lookingbill · December 23, 2016

It is not more dead than you can meet its contemporary companions by just read one issue of New York Review of Books.Many of these books are re-issued over and over again.

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Reissued for whom? The entire population of the world or a small group (gang) of self appointed intellectuals who can read and understand that style of writing used as a standard for college level passing grades in literature and English?

How would this gang of folks pass the grade in understanding and appreciating the culture of Ebonics language? They'ld most likely flunk and be considered uneducated dolts.

Those who write the rules make the rules and to hell with the rest of the world. That's a gang. Not a culturally advanced civilization that is inclusive to all cultures.

Tim_Lookingbill · December 23, 2016

What I find most noteworthy about the quote Julie pasted is the fact that first Mondrian had to be Mondrian and create a body of work and then a lab tech at Bell could work up some reasonable knock offs. Analyzing the body of work of a well known popular artist and then producing 'reasonably similar' work and showing it to a group of people who are "uneducated in art and blind to the weakness and banality of the work" and then discovering that some confusion ensues is a rather predictable result.

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Respect the randomness of one thing leads to another and where it leads is anyone's guess even if it's second guessed looking back after the fact. 20/20 is hindsight you can base any interpretation on but is it fact or fiction?

Gordon, good point. Still don't know why that study had to emphasize "those with no art training". What is it about art training that would've made the test invalid?

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