Opposing Lines.

Fine lines.

Choose.

This is cross-hatch:

Steady study of head, hand, and pillow showing cross-hatching to create realistic volume, depth, shadows, and contours. (1493 / USPD)

All about the lines:

Parallel lines repeated with extreme precision. Making it look real. Look close.

• Cross-hatch shown and defined: Foundations in Art/University of Delaware
• The master of the cross-hatch: Albrecht Dürer

Stand back.

This is pointillism:

All knowing eye blends and blurs mere dots and blobs of color to convincingly make out a river scene.(1888 / USPD)

All about the dots:

The image they create when technique more important than subject matter. The observer’s eye and brain determine the image when viewed long distance

• “Pointallism Art Movement And Its’ Most Inspiring Artists”
• And in this corner you get the master of pointillism: George Seurat.

And then there’s this:

All about kinesthetic movement and the manipulation of materials. Sounds pretty sophisticated. (Zeimusu/Commons.wikimedia.org)

Disordered, random, scribbles.

A total lack of any recognizable object or cohesiveness.

• But at least it’s colorful. That’s enough for some.
• New lines and forms are repeated over and over. Seemingly without direction.
• Childish or childlike? One’s better than the other.

Art reflects life…or is that the reverse?

Dürer and Seurat, two alike, but different.

One’s technique requires tight focus and attention to detail for successful outcome by the producer.

The other requires the receiver, the viewer themselves, to focus and work hard to see what is being said.

Both common on and off society’s canvas these days.

And a few fine lines – of art and life:

From Albrecht Dürer:

• “Everything comes from repetition, and yet, repetition of human actions is impossible.” (“The Remarkable Legacy of Albrecht Dürer”)
• “…all human actions are different from each other. There has never been an artist, who has been certain that he could make two things that are so similar they could not be distinguished. For in all our work nothing is quite and altogether like anything else, and this we cannot avoid”. (Same source as above)
• “Since geometry is the right foundation of all painting, I have decided to teach its rudiments and principles to all youngsters eager for art.” (from The Art of Measurement, 1525. Albrecht Dürer)

From George Seurat:

• “Originality depends only on the character of the drawing and the vision peculiar to each artist”
• “Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science” (source)
• “The inability of some critics to connect the dots doesn’t make pointillism pointless”
• “Let’s go and get drunk on light again – it has the power to console”

Can’t paint a better closing than that fine, last line.

Phil, the Philosopher Mouse of the Hedge

 

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