Tuesday, April 20, 2010
I've done some 'left and right' paintings of cities before, see below, and these are a continuation of the theme. They aren't divided in halves in the obvious way that the earlier ones are; instead, the distance of viewing will separate two functions.
In concrete jungle, from afar, your right brain recognises, through its grasp of forms, tree trunks but as you come near, the left recognises details of a city. In the red painting, motifs of a city- windows, modes of transport etc- dot the painting but not in the way they would normally be arranged. From afar, all you see, again, is the forms.
Does our right brain really 'hand over' viewing pictures to the left when we walk towards a painting? Does it happen while viewing, say a Van Gogh, as you take it in first when you enter a museum space, and then peer at each and every stroke later? May be interesting to find out.
Cityscapes
Cityscapes, with a tree or two in each. Not that its a terribly rare sight, but I like to see how plants and trees and buildings interact, even when i'm walking around.
The 'Left and Right' cityscapes.
Lateralization of brain function with specialized roles for each hemisphere has been around for quite some time now; in-fact, long enough to have spawned conversational cliches, creativity being a so-called 'right-brained' function. The idea that anatomically similar, or equal halves should have their own agendas while being part of one whole has always fascinated me.
The older names- 'dominant' and 'nondominant' are outmoded now, and rightly so, since how can such comparative terms be used when functions differ! The left brain, now called the 'categorical' hemisphere, specializes in analytical thinking, rationality and logic, apart from being the seat of language. The right brain or the 'representational' hemisphere handles all things intuitive and artistic.
As far as the visuospatial aspect is concerned, the categorical hemisphere has an eye for detail. I remember reading about a case study in which patients with damage on the right side of the head- working with effectively only a left brain- remember only details of what they see, but fail to see the whole picture. The right, on the other hand, sees a 'holistic' picture: no numbers and decimals, thank you, but shapes and sizes and comparisons.
How does one represent this on a canvas? The (rather obvious) idea was to divide the picture into two halves, and try to 'separate' the functions in these two- and thus the four paintings which follow. I chose to paint cities as they abound in sensory stimuli, and we have little details and lofty forms all coming together beautifully. In the first three, the left side is done in a style depicting details, in legitimately city-like colours and lines. The right side is more abstract, done using drips and colours which may seem out of place, but yet, giving us an overall idea of forms.
In the fourth painting, the left gets stuck with a rather boring white-and-black version, while the right is red. This follows the additional role of the left hemisphere to 'put away' things in everyday life which are usual or mundane, while the right is activated by any sort of surprise. Here, the surprise lies in the unusual colouring.
Of course, its occurred to me, a tad late, that if the functions are to be separated, per se, the left ought to be just a myriad of details rather than a realistic view. Perhaps in a subsequent painting. Also, since creativity is a right domain, does painting in itself negate all things left?
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Kanchenjunga paintings
A good kick-start to my foray into oils (Though I had done a few before these) was a picture of Mount Kanchenjunga (or,officially, Kangchenjunga) in a book given to me by my grandmother. It seems to have a certain informal character to it, a play of peaks in the light (unlike Mt Everest, which looks formidable and severe.) It also has a nice three dimensional quality, with little crevices between five pyramids. Colours, of course are everywhere in the Himalayas with abandon, and reason enough for me to use whatever came to my mind. I had also just started to explore making controlled drips, and seem to have used them everywhere!
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