Discipline, design & Escher

Monday, March 02, 2009

Ok. What has never happened on this blog is about to. What's the harm in creating some needless suspense :) The announcement: I am going to post DAILY. (Vineeta, take a deep breath, for courage.) This is a month-long project I have undertaken so I can prove to myself that I can be disciplined. So this month of March, each day on 'artnlight' there will be something new. Each month till date I promised myself 'next month' I will post more often. New year came and went, nothing changed, feb came & went, nothing changed. I kept thinking work load will reduce, I will post, I will go on vacation & be free & then post. Nothing happened. So this is it. I'm not waiting anymore. There is enough work in my life in terms of office work load & personal committments, but I have decided. I need to know I can do this. Wish me luck guys .
Discipline is repetitive, it is doing the same thing again and again. Its a pattern. Pattern can be beautiful & even quirky. Here's a quick look at M.C. Escher, the world's best example of quirk, genius & pattern all in one.

"Long before I discovered in the Alhambra an affinity with the Moors in the regular division of the plane, I had recognized this interest in myself. At first I had no idea at all of the possibility of building up my figures. I did not know any "ground rules" and tried, almost without knowing what I was doing, to fit together congruent shapes that I attempted to give the form of animals.... The dynamic equilibrium between the motifs... has led to the creation of numerous prints. It is here that the representation of opposites of all kinds arises. For is not one led naturally to a subject such as Day and Night by the double function of the black and the white motifs? It is night when the white, as an object, shows up against the black as a background, and the day when the black figures show up against the white."
Here, too, we have the components diminishing in size as they move outwards. The six largest (three white angels and three black devils) are arranged about the centre and radiate from it. The disc is divided into six sections in which, turn and turn about, the angels on a black background and then the devils on a white one, gain the upper hand. In this way, heaven and hell change places six times. In the intermediate, "earthly" stages, tbey are equivalent.


On the uniformly gray surface of a strip of paper that is being unrolled, a simultaneous development in form and contrast is taking place. Triangles, at first scarcely visible, change into more complicated figures, whilst the colour contrast between them increases. In the middle they are transformed into white and black birds, and from there fly off into the world as independent creatures. And so the strip of paper on which they were drawn disappears.

This print has been used is physics, geology, chemistry, and in psychology for the study of visual perception. In the picture a number of visual elements unite into a simple visual representation, but separately each forms a point of departure for the elucidation of a theory in one of these disciplines.

Waterfall

Encounter

lizards

Faces.
I found this very fascinating. Look carefully. I love the many different faces coming together.
And do check out World of Escher where we get kinds of Escher cool maal(stuff).
Silk ties

Tshirts & stationery.

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