Exhibit: a question of perspective

I'm just going outside . . . , thenewcornpoppy

 

Once upon a time, a long time ago, artists didn't use perspective.  In the beginning the most important thing or person in the picture was the biggest.  It made sense to order people and objects - as Wikipedia has it - hierarchically according to their spiritual or thematic importance, not their distance from the viewer.  We have got used to seeing pictures with the perspective right - but it doesn't have to be.  Perspective only works for that one person, for that one moment - and hey, all that is is a photograph.  So the picture above could show Captain Scott and  some of his team (Capt Oates on the left) at the South Pole.  But someone standing a  little further away, maybe at a slightly different angle, sees something different.  He can see Amundsen and his Norwegian party reached the Pole first.

 

. . . and I may be some time, thenewcornpoppy

 

When you are standing in front of a building, say a church, merrily painting it, so you can sell your pictures in the Arches by the Square Tower on a Sunday afternoon, it makes sense to follow the convention of perspective.  But. If you are trying to paint the Field of the Cloth of Gold you really don't want to be standing in one place.  You really don't want just one perspective.  It is bigger than that.  There is more going on. It doesn't all happen at once. You would need to be omnipresent to see everything.  And you're not.  But the artist can be.  The artist can choose to order not only people and objects but also the timeline of events.  Omni-chuffing-potent.

 

fishing boats 7, thenewcornpoppy

 

There are no facts, only interpretations

Nietsche

 

fishing boats 11, thenewcornpoppy

 

Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and -- if at all possible -- speak a few sensible words.

Goethe

 

two brothers, thenewcornpoppy

 

It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?

Asimov

 

Shallid, the twinkling of an eye, thenewcornpoppy

 

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

George Eliot

 

 mydarlingclementine, thenewcornpoppy

 

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

 John Lubbock

 

Hull 0, Liverpool 3, thenewcornpoppy

 

Point of no return 

(AZ8)

 

fishing boats 05, thenewcornpoppy

 

Line of fire

(AZ8)

 

fishing boats 8, thenewcornpoppy

 

You gotta have faith

(AZ8)

 

fishing boats 3, thenewcornpoppy

 

First time

(AZ8)