In discussions with my students, I am struck by how we may have only a partial understanding of form. Most often, students regard form in art as simply "shape". I may be wrong about this-(if so I have been operating under a faulty assumption for nearly forty years,) but I regard form as so much more.
It is the mass and volume- the space that something takes up, as well as its outline. In the most satisfying of instances, this form will emerge from the nothingness of the shadow, the surface or the smoke (
sfumato) of a painting-
But form may also be the capsule that enables meaning to operate temporally, carrying it through time- in a continual cycle of tension, compression, extension and expression.
Yesterday, a baby girl was born in a small village in India. She has two faces. It is said that the villagers regard her has the reincarnation of a Hindu Goddess. Happy Birthday, little one.
In discussions with my students, I am struck by how we may have only a partial understanding of form. Most often, students regard form in art as simply "shape". I may be wrong about this-(if so I have been operating under a faulty assumption for nearly forty years,) but I regard form as so much more.
It is the mass and volume- the space that something takes up, as well as its outline. In the most satisfying of instances, this form will emerge from the nothingness of the shadow, the surface or the smoke (sfumato) of a painting-
But form may also be the capsule that enables meaning to operate temporally, carrying it through time- in a continual cycle of tension, compression, extension and expression.
Yesterday, a baby girl was born in a small village in India. She has two faces. It is said that the villagers regard her has the reincarnation of a Hindu Goddess. Happy Birthday, little one.
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