Frankly, I have a bit of an aversion (really, a bias) toward static two-dimensional representational art. It seems dead to me in some way… the action occurred during the painting, which is now over.
I’ve always been jealous of some of the other forms of artistic expression. Sure, Bach is long dead and his manuscripts finished works. But every time a pianist takes one in hand there’s the sense that the art is being re-lived anew… the same with dance and theatre. Even a completed, architectural structure can be walked through and touched and felt in a four-dimensional experience. And it was terribly exciting for me as a young teen to discover Marcel Duchamp’s attempt to infuse time into a two-dimensional painting form, spawning the Futurism movement. Today, as I enter modern galleries and come across all sorts of moving, active installations, I experience some relief and joy. In each of these instances, a sense of re-living the creative experience through time is offered for the viewer/audience.
If representational art (for example a painting of an historical battle) could depict a novel, and design (for example, a logo) depict the climax alone, could the two combine into a kind of short-story-hybrid of visual art? And thereby, fuse the best of both worlds: the punch of design AND the lure of narrative?
Eye movement across a page, even rapidly, does mark the sequence of time, and therefore the possibility of a narrative. If the design artist unequivocally controls where the viewer’s eye starts, guides the eye rapidly along a singular, brief visual path to end at the only one destination the artist desires, s/he may have in fact achieved narrative within a design-rich format. Like a short story, the main plot elements are there, but drastically reduced to essentials.
I’ve always been jealous of some of the other forms of artistic expression. Sure, Bach is long dead and his manuscripts finished works. But every time a pianist takes one in hand there’s the sense that the art is being re-lived anew… the same with dance and theatre. Even a completed, architectural structure can be walked through and touched and felt in a four-dimensional experience. And it was terribly exciting for me as a young teen to discover Marcel Duchamp’s attempt to infuse time into a two-dimensional painting form, spawning the Futurism movement. Today, as I enter modern galleries and come across all sorts of moving, active installations, I experience some relief and joy. In each of these instances, a sense of re-living the creative experience through time is offered for the viewer/audience.
If representational art (for example a painting of an historical battle) could depict a novel, and design (for example, a logo) depict the climax alone, could the two combine into a kind of short-story-hybrid of visual art? And thereby, fuse the best of both worlds: the punch of design AND the lure of narrative?
Eye movement across a page, even rapidly, does mark the sequence of time, and therefore the possibility of a narrative. If the design artist unequivocally controls where the viewer’s eye starts, guides the eye rapidly along a singular, brief visual path to end at the only one destination the artist desires, s/he may have in fact achieved narrative within a design-rich format. Like a short story, the main plot elements are there, but drastically reduced to essentials.