Leonardo

On Space and Time in ArtAuthor(s): Albert GarrettSource: Leonardo, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Autumn, 1972), pp. 329-331Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1572588 .

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Leonardo, Vol. 5, pp. 329-331. Pergamon Press 1972. Printed in Great Britain

ON SPACE AND TIME IN ART

Albert Garrett*

1. SPACE AND TIME IN PICTURES

A man inflated a balloon while walking between two points. The expanding balloon illustrates a chang- ing aspect of form with time, for the balloon under- went a transformation in spatial dimensions. The man changed position in the same time but his change in form was very slow. Both kinds of changes with time have been introduced into the visual arts.

The visual perception of space and of time depends on the manner and magnitude of their change. Changes in the human form with time, for example, cannot be perceived except after weeks to years have elapsed whereas the change of the form of the balloon mentioned above is perceived im- mediately. The movement of a second hand on a clock is easily perceived whereas that of the hour hand is not. An interesting discussion on space and time in music and the visual arts by E. de Bertola was published in Leonardo recently [1]. It deals especially with the objective and psychological perception of time.

Space is perceived in an accurate manner by the eye by means of reflected and refracted light rays. The painter who uses opaque paints has available colours resulting from the reflected or refracted components of the light rays impinging on the painted surface. This is a subtractive process and, as Cezanne said in a conversation with E. Bernard and K. X. Roussel [2]: 'Light is something that cannot be reproduced. It must be represented by something else, by colour, for instance. Light, either radiated from the Sun or produced electrically, may be used as, for example, in stained glass windows and in kinetic art of the Lumia and Lumidyne kind [3-6]. Here transparent colours are employed.

Cezanne in his later drawings and watercolours broke shapes into small planes. This segmentation idea proved to have important repercussions on painting. Klee used colour values and texture to give an illusion of space on a two-dimensional surface [7]. He did not attempt to reproduce effects of light as did the Impressionists, whose approach led to form taking on a secondary aspect in their paintings. The Cubists, expanding on the idea of

* Artist living at 10 Sunningdale Ave., Eastcote, Ruislip HA4 9SR, Middlesex, England. (Received 2 January 1971).

Cezanne, introduced into their compositions the different facets of an object that can or cannot be seen from one viewing point [8]. Later even internal aspects of an object were incorporated, leading to more and more complex arrangements that become more and more difficult to grasp [9]. The Italian Futurists decided to introduce visual ideas of motion into their compositions. Their objective was des- cribed by the poet Marinetti in the 'Movimento Futurists' [10], which I find is characterized by emotional excesses more than by reasoning. The so-called 'lines of dynamism' in their painting and sculpture gave structure to their compositions. Facetted images were woven into this framework. As in the case of the Cubists, their work was initially characterized by dominant lines and images and later became more detailed and finally mosaic-like. Balla's drawing 'Leash in Motion' attempts to give an illusion of motion that, I feel, is out of context with good form. I believe attempts to give illusions of motion by means of multiple static images is bound to lead to a 'powdered' kind of composition.

2. CONSCIOUSNESS OF TIME IN STATIC PICTURES

De Bertola has discussed some of the aspects of experiencing time in static pictures [1]. In order for a viewer to obtain a sense of time in a picture, the pictorial idea itself should be capable of stimu- lating such a reaction or the viewer must know the time process involved in the technique used to make it. I find that one can be particularly aware of the time process of technique when viewing the works of, for example, Klee and Hayter.

'Taking a line for a walk' is Klee's description of his method of making a picture [7] and I find that when I contemplate one of his pictures I can sense the passage of time from the way his lines are drawn. Hayter's colour etchings give me both an illusion of space (depth) and also a sense of the passage of time since I know that four or more plates were used in succession to print them [11-13]. Hayter has discussed the making of one of his paintings in Reference 14.

A recent scientific technique that has been applied for making pictures made of lines consists of photo- graphing the screen of an oscilloscope either by a

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Albert Garrett

Fig. 1. '4-D Globular', wood engraving, 6-75 x 110 in., 1968. Six stages of development of the same wood block.

still or a motion picture camera. I find the still pictures of Laposky [15, 16], which he calls 'Os- cillons', particularly satisfying. They have the appearance of a drawing and, since I know that the lines are produced by a steadily moving electron beam impinging on a phosphorescent screen, I am conscious of time passing as the picture was made. Drawings made by programmed digital computers also satisfy my criteria for an acceptable picture giving a sense of the time required for their pro- duction. A number of examples of these kinds of drawings can be found in Reference 17.

A window cleaner gave me the idea for my series of 6 wood engravings '4-D Globular' (Fig.) It will be noticed that the basic composition is constant for the series but that the background becomes whiter and whiter from the first version to the last one. One obtains in viewing this series a sense of the passage of time when one scans each picture, when one shifts from one version to the other and when one takes account of the method of making and printing them [18].

I have also made a series of wood engravings varying progressively in dimension until the last was 47*5 in long. This final block may be the longest end-grained box-wood block ever made. The block makers, T. N. Lawrence and Son, Bleeding Heart Yard, Greville Street, London, E.C.I., were able to make excellent additions to the engraved blocks. To engrave a series of blocks of these dimensions makes strenuous demands on the artist since large ones cannot be cut with the muscles of the hand alone, as is the case with small blocks which are usually cut with the artist in a sitting position. The muscles of many parts of the body are involved.

3. SPACE AND TIME IN SCULPTURE

Gabo was concerned with space and time in static sculpture but, in my view, he minimized the role of solid forms. In his 'Realist Manifesto' of 1920 [19], he wrote, 'We renounce in sculpture the man as a sculptural element. It is known to every engineer that the static forces of a solid body and its material strength do not depend on the quantity of the mass. But you sculptors of all shades and directions, you still adhere to the age-old prejudice that you cannot free the volume of mass'.

The way for the development of giving a stronger sense of time to the viewer of a drawing was, I

believe, initiated by Klee in 1924 and in sculpture by Gabo in 1937. Gabo stated also in his manifesto, 'Futurism has not gone further than the renovated effort to fix on the canvas a purely optical reflex which had already shown his bankruptcy with the Impressionists. It is obvious now to everyone of us that by the simple graphic registration of a row of momentarily arrested movements, one cannot re- create movement itself. It makes one think of the pulse of a dead body.

Gabo generally began a work by making a draw- ing to crystallize his ideas and then proceeded to the making of the sculpture itself, using metal sheet, transparent plastics, wires and strings. Using wire and string enabled him to stress line. His several versions of 'Spheric Theme' were perhaps the first sculptures defining space without the use of a mass of material. Undoubtedly Gabo's work influenced architects. Gabo regarded line as an indication of the direction of static forces. He gave his arrange- ment of lines a sense of rhythm to give the viewer a sense of time. Furthermore, he was interested in curved surfaces rather than in angular structures of the constructivist type.

The sculpture of McWilliam is an example of work embracing volume, solidity and structure, and that I find gives a sense of the passage of time [20, 21]. He emphasizes the erect position of the human figure, his central theme, and the interplay of volume with respect to the human structure. He uses materials that enable him to build up a mass, particle by particle. The size of the particles used sets an acceptable maximum limit to the size of the work. A mass made up of discrete particles was missed out by Gabo because the aesthetic guide- lines he set for himself did not include this approach.

The reason I find McWilliam's sculpture so satisfying is that he makes a total transcription of the human body, as in his 'Matriarch' (1952) and 'Patriarch' (1953) [18, 21]. His transcriptions of form are as complete as those in Klee's renderings.

REFERENCES

1. E. de Bertola, On Space and Time in Music and the Visual Arts, Leonardo 5, 27 (1972).

2. J. Rewald, The Ordeal of Paul Cezanne (London: Phoenix House, 1950).

3. N. Trygvadottir, Painting with Light Through Colored Glass, Leonardo 1, 125 (1968).

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On Space and Time in Art

4. F. J. Malina, Kinetic Painting: The Lumidyne System, Leonardo 1, 25 (1968).

5. P. K. Hoenich, Kinetic Art with Sunlight: Re- flections on Developments in Art Needed Today, Leonardo 1, 113 (1968).

6. R. I. Land, Kinetic Art: The Chromara, a Lumia Technique, Leonardo 5, 103 (1972).

7. H. Read, Klee on Modern Art (London: Faber and Faber, 1958).

8. G. Apollinaire, The Cubist Painters (New York: Wittenborn, Schultz, 1949).

9. A. Garrett, Hess v. Garrett on Picasso, Art 2, (1956). 10. J. T. Soby and A. H. Barr, Jr., Twentieth Century

Italian Art (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949).

11. S. W. Hayter, New Ways of Gravure (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949).

12. A. Garrett, Aesthetics and Engineering Design, The Engineer, pp. 296 and 337 (20 Aug. and 5 Sept., 1958).

13. A. Garrett, Art and Science Meet-S. W. Hayter, Art News and Review, 9, pp. 210 and 224 (9, and 23 Nov., 1957).

14. S. W. Hayter, The Making of a Painting, Leonardo, 1, 347 (1968).

15. B. F. Laposky, Oscillographic Design, Perspective 2, 264 (1960).

16. B. F. Laposky, Oscillons: Electronic Abstractions, Leonardo 2, 345 (1969).

17. H. W. Franke, Computers and Visual Art, Leonardo 4, 331 (1971).

18. A. Garrett, Space-Time Form in Visual Art, Impulse 2, 3 (Sept., 1957).

19. H. Read, Gabo (London: Lund Humphries, 1957).

20. A. Garrett, F. E. McWilliam's Sculpture, Art News and Reviews 4, Nos. 20, 23 and 25, pp. 44, 43 and 46 (1952, 1953).

21. R. Penrose, McWilliam (London: Alec Tiranti, 1964).

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