Pictorial Field Research Articles

Review of New Zealand Coastal Talitroids with description of three new genera (Crustacea, Amphipoda, Senticaudata).

A generic revision is provided for the New Zealand coastal talitroids, which reports two families, seven genera and thirteen species. Three new genera are described: Aotearorchestia gen. nov.; Subantarctorchestia gen. nov.; and Tatahipeke gen. nov. to accommodate seven known species, A. chathamensis (Hurley, 1956) comb. nov.; A. telluris (Spence Bate, 1862) comb. nov.; S. aucklandiae (Spence Bate, 1862) comb. nov.; S. bollonsi (Chilton, 1909) comb. nov.; Tatahipeke cookii (Filhol, 1885) comb. nov.; T. kirki (Hurley, 1956) comb. nov.; and T. tumida (G.M. Thomson, 1885) comb. nov. The three genera, Bellorchestia Serejo & Lowry, 2008, Protorchestia Bousfield 1982 and Transorchestia Bousfield, 1982 are revised to include additional information on morphology, growth stages and distributions for three New Zealand species: Bellorchestia quoyana (Milne Edwards, 1840); Transorchestia miranda (Chilton, 1916); and Trans. serrulata (Dana, 1852a). Lastly, a small commentary is given on four species of coastal talitroids where additional museum collections could not be located for study, B. spadix (Hurley, 1956), Pictonorchestia dentata (Filhol, 1885), Protorchestia campbelliana (Bousfield, 1964), and T. kirki (Hurley, 1956) gen. et comb. nov. A dichotomous key and pictorial field guide are provided to all New Zealand coastal talitroids.

Écfrasis líricas y relaciones intertextuales alrededor de la Melancolía I de Alberto Durero

Melencolia I (1514), an engraving made by the german painter Albrecht Dürer, is certainly one of the most widespread and analyzed engravings in the history of art until today. However, the pictorial field is not the only one in which this work has left its fertile seeds, also producing significant repercussions in the literary field, especially in poetry. In between the several lyrical ekphrasis that refer to this prolific renaissance engraving, we can find a trail of intertextual connections which begins with the sonnet “El desdichado” from Gérard de Nerval, followed by “The Waste Land” from T.S. Eliot, and then Jaime Gil de Biedma writes his poem “Príncipe de Aquitania, en su torre abolida”, influenced by the former; apart from other poetic references which also lead to this engraving, such as “Ciudades” by Enrique Lihn, and more recently the poem “Tres”, published by Rafael Ávila Domínguez in the sixteenth issue of the journal Apostasía, in indirect dialogue with the first two poems mentioned above. From these references, all interconnected around this picture, the materiality of Melencolia I has acomplished to expand from image to language, strunging on the pearls of an intertextual lineage that broadens the significance of the concept of melancholia around artistic creation, transmotivating the lyrical connotations from renaissance to the romantic and the modernist imagination, and from them to our present idea of melancholia.

Mira Schendel: Signo e Sigilo

Este artigo tem por objetivo realizar uma leitura da obra de Mira Schendel a partir de duas de suas monotipias da série Escritas únicas, de 1964-1965. Estas obras nos ajudarão a entender mais precisamente a relação entre “signo” e “sigilo”, palavras manuscritas nas referidas monotipias. Signo, sigilo são formas de orientação, primeiro por um tipo de materialidade praticamente indistinta da escrita e do traço que a artista desenvolveu com a técnica da monotipia; segundo, essa escrita é um fato que constitui a ética e a estética de Mira Schendel e talvez ela esteja atravessada pelo cruzamento de fronteiras entre países, linguagens, campos semânticos e pictóricos, mas sobretudo pelo que ela identificou como símbolo e vivência imediata.
 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_7-1_4

Die fünfteilige Schöpfungsgeschichte Michelangelos und Platons Timaios

Abstract Michelangelo based the design of the architectural frame of the Sistine Chapel ceiling on an underdrawing in a watercolor by Piermatteo d’Amelia, but he chose to subdivide it into nine bays. He then depicted the biblical story of Creation in five, rather than six, pictorial fields and made references to the number five in the fresco. This structure was intended to allude to the five Platonic bodies, which are a further development of the four elements and, according to Plato, explain the creation of the world. In the views of Augustine and of Christian Neoplatonists, there are close similarities between the creation story and the creation process as described in Plato’s Timaeus. They believed that Plato had imitated the story of Genesis. The remaining four panels would then symbolize the history of the human race and the classic four elements.

Writing the body: Andrea del Verrocchio’s Measured Drawing of a Horse

This article sheds new light on Andrea del Verrocchio’s Measured Drawing of a Horse Facing Left (recto), c.1480–88 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19.76.5), by scrutinizing the artist’s unique approach to the representation of measurement. It takes as its focus the complex apparatus of annotations traversing the horse, which painstakingly translates the proportions of the equine body into words. A close reading of these “written vectors” fundamentally transforms our understanding of the function of text in a measured drawing. For Verrocchio, writing is not merely a descriptive tool but rather a powerful vehicle for the construction of a spatialized body within the boundaries of the pictorial field. His experimentation with the graphic potential of the written word challenges the traditional tension between pictura and scriptura and speaks to a broader shift in how drawn images were constructed and conceptualized during the Renaissance.

Trzy kroki w stronę obrazów. Pierre Bonnard i percepcyjne opóźnienie.

The essay is an analysis of three interpretations of Pierre Bonnard’s paintings offered by Jean Clair, John Elderfield, and Yves-Alain Bois. Their approaches are crucial in the context of the revaluation Bonnard’s works and his place in the history of modern painting, which has been continuing since the 1980s. Today’s scholars have been interested mostly in his late works from 1920-1947. At that time the artist created a multidimensional pictorial synthesis which addressed the most advanced dilemmas which appeared in the first half of the 20th century. The critical opinions analyzed in the essay, referring to physiology and the psychology of perception, the cognitive conditions of visual perception, and specific philosophical traditions, stem from individual visual experience and demonstrate significant tensions. Taking the painting as a starting point triggers differences in interpretation not just at the level of theoretical discourse, but in respect to visualization itself. Bonnard’s works significantly program the process of visual perception – grasping the changing rhythm of relation between the center and periphery and moving toward fixations scattered in the visual field. The specific composition of paintings makes the spectator deconcentrate; it can be grasped in an act of perception which extends in time. Such “delay” of perception means that Bonnard’s paintings are a challenge to the gestalt psychology which prevails in the analytical practice of art history. The unique quality of Bonnard’s works, based on the coexistence of the rhythms of organization and disorder,shows no superior coherence of the gestalt. They establish an “inconclusive” relation between the part and the whole, which results in continuing deference and delay of the integration of motifs and elements of the pictorial field. The discussed episode in Bonnard’s art’s reception confirms a belief that “he is not a painter for those in a hurry. The phenomenon of the perceptive delay seems to be significantly connected with the delay in discovering such qualities by art historians.

Malarstwo materii w Polsce. Na marginesach odwilżowej "nowoczesności"

The painting of the matter was an important component of Polish art of the “thaw” period and the 1960s. So far Polish art historians have usually interpreted works made of non-traditional substances by Polish artists as examples of inspiration by Western art and a tendency to abandon the painting as such. Scholars and critics stressed the relief qualities of art objects and their impact on the spectator through the surface texture and the properties of the material used, often incorporated into a picture directly from reality and provoking specific associations. Such an approach did justice only to some such works, e.g., those painted with paints mixed with nonpainterly substances, with the mud effects of the palette, characteristic of French art (Aleksander Kobzdej, Jan Lebenstein), or abandoning traditional materials to challenge the painting as such (Jan Ziemski, Włodzimierz Borowski, Jerzy Rosołowicz). Thus far the reflection on the painting of the matter seems inadequate to the works in which paint was eliminated in favor of other materials and substances combined with painterly activities. Those unspecific substances and materials were often distributed on flat surfaces and composed in terms of basic division of the pictorial field, its main axes, relations to the edges, etc. Such “paintings made of matter” are interesting examples of the “thaw” art, which have not been interpreted as paintings, escaping chronological and other criteria of art history. Ambiguously called the “painting of the matter,” they occupied the margins of the critical discourse. The inadequacy of the terms adopted to describe them resulted in ignoring many works, while others have been included in the history of Polish art only in some aspects. So far no one has addressed the basic question of different artistic responses to the problem of searching for the limits of the painting, and related attempts to enhance the painterly idiom which was at the same time disrupted in a number of ways. The author analyzes works selected from the set of about three hundred items found in thirteen Polish museums. Regardless of the individual differences, the paintings by Jadwiga Maziarska, Bronisław Kierzkowski, Adam Marczyński, Teresa Rudowicz, and Krystyn Zieliński exemplify the combination of non-traditional substances and surface composition. Paradoxically, the decision to abandon paint did not make those artists deny the superior role of the surface, which resulted in the creation of works oscillating among painting, relief, and sculpture, close to collages or assemblages, yet quite specific. Their works either exploited the conditions offered by the framed flat surface or brought into play new, autonomous surfaces.

Path, place, and pace in mid-Ming Suzhou landscape painting

Path, place, and pace in mid-Ming Suzhou landscape painting

Pablo Palazuelo. Espacio plegado

Pablo Palazuelo (1915-2007) no sólo demostró su maestría en el ámbito pictórico, sino que también se adentró con éxito en la tercera dimensión. A partir del análisis de los fondos de la Fundación del artista se ha tratado de reconstruir el proceso de trabajo escultórico, empleando como semilla los trazados simbólicos contenidos en el boceto Del cuatro para seguir el rastro de las maquetas y croquis inéditos que custodia dicha institución.

Description on some rescued turtles and their translocation at Turtle Rescue and Conservation Centre (TRCC), Sanischare, Jhapa

The present paper deals with the brief introduction of Turtle Rescue and Conservation Centre (TRCC) and description of some rescued turtles. Nine specimens of turtles belonging to five genera were rescued and translocated to the centre till date including 9.3 kg male Indian Peacock soft-shelled turtle (Nilssonia hurum) for the first time from Jhapa district. The rescue operations were conducted for the translocation of turtles confiscated from the local market, censorial collectors, fisherman and public residence. The high resolution photographs of captured specimens, their necessary biometry and GPS coordinates of location were taken. Species identification was done with the help of and pictorial field guide and relevant literatures. Climatic data of study area were recorded from Gainde Irrigation Project, Maidhar, Jhapa. Interviews were taken during field visits with the help of structured questionnaire. Preliminary rescue data showed that the Indian flap-shelled turtle (Lissemys punctata) and Yellow bellied roofed turtle (Pangshura flaviventer) were the most overexploited species in the vicinities of the study area. The climatic condition of the rescue centre and water quality found suitable to support terrestrial and freshwater turtles and other various wetland flora and fauna. However, the rapid population growth and habitat destruction due to deforestation, unmanaged urbanization and expansion of agricultural land are found as the major threats to the survival of turtles and other wetland creatures at the study area and its vicinities. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/bibechana.v11i0.10394 BIBECHANA 11(1) (2014) 141-148

Voir et entendre : des paroles dans l’image. À propos d’une enluminure du manuscrit 121 de la Bibliothèque municipale d’Avignon

Seeing and hearing : words in the picture, with reference to an illumination in ms 121 in the City Library at Avignon. Drawing letters, or writing a word within an image, is not an anodyne act, and proceeds from the desire to represent the invisible, the latter being not necessarily immaterial or divine. As for music and its representation in pictures, this consists of translating a sound principle, the voice, into a pictorial field in the form of a word. To investigate the way words can act and modify things, we have chosen a unique and exceptional image, an illumination, painted between 1330-1340, whose visual content reaches a high degree of sophistication (Avignon, BM, ms. 121, fol. 73 v). It represents the death of a Religious, and, as it belongs to the vast field of caritas, it includes prayers, mediation and gestures, which are essential and should be effective.

The Colorimetric Barycenter of Paintings

The locations of the colorimetric barycenter or “center of gravity” of the pictorial fields of paintings were compared graphically with the geometric centers of the art works. The art stimuli consisted of reproductions of 1332 paintings of different compositional genres created by renowned Russian artists. It was observed that artists' manipulation of a color palette and their spatial control of color within a composition resulted in the location of the colorimetric barycenter of a painting corresponding closely to its geometric center for both representational and abstract paintings. This finding demonstrates the power of the center of a pictorial field to function as a balancing point about which artists exert spatial control of color among all of the compositional colors and the areas they occupy within a pictorial field.

Euripides, monumental painting, and the portrayal of space in the fifth century BCE*

Technical advances in the visual arts were a routine occurrence over the course of the fifth century BCE after the Persian wars, the period which encompasses the lifetime of the Athenian tragedian Euripides (c.485-407 BCE). They seem to have come steadily and in rapid sequence, with each new development rendering obsolete all previous notions about representation, and bringing the art of painterly mimesis to the very threshold, or so it must have seemed, of nature itself. Whereas the developmental history of Greek sculpture may be said to peak just after mid-century with the invention of the Polykleitan canon, developments in painting gain momentum in the second half of the century, leading to the great flowering of the next. It is important not to underestimate, for the period in question, the cultural and intellectual weight of changes wrought on the history of painterly representation by individual artists, and their potential to captivate, to challenge and, occasionally, to offend, an engaged, inquisitive populace. The methodical transformation of a two-dimensional surface into a unified pictorial field of vision, or, to put it somewhat differently, the replication of optic reality through a series of calculated falsifications — in short, the painting of space — was the result of one of the most radical visions ever entertained by a small segment of humankind. The equally methodical dismantling of their achievement in the early years of the twentieth century constitutes one of the greatest acts of homage in the history of art.

From the Photo-Series to Extended Photo-Observation

From the to Extended Photo-Observation/' which appeared in Proletarskoe foto with Max AVpert and Arkadii Shaikhet's famous photo-essay A Day in the Life of a Moscow Working-Class Family, borrowed many of its arguments from TreViakov's 1929 article Biography of the Object and transposed them from the earlier discussion of narrative, mutatis mutandis, into the field of photography. Like Biography of the Object, which disputed the Ptolemaic idealism of the psychological novel, From the Photo-Series challenged the conceit of portraiture to provide a comprehensive image of the individual without any indication of his productive relations to society. And also like the earlier essay, From the Photo-Series consequently explored the possibilities for a practice that, instead of atomizing and monumentalizing the individual, would situate him within the social fabric of his day. For TreViakov, the photo-series and extended photo-observation were above all techniques for reestablishing the connections between the individual and the social environment that are obscured in traditional portraiture. Within the medium of photography, this meant harmonizing the discrepancy between subject and background. On this count, From the Photo-Series draws upon Osip Brik's 1928 From the Painting to the Photograph, an essay in which Brik exposed the latent humanism of a linear perspective that extracts objects from their setting, isolates them from one another, and then redistributes them within an ideologically structured pictorial field: Differentiating individual objects so as to make a pictorial record of them is not only a technical, but also an ideological phenomenon. . . . We need a method whereby we can represent [the] individual persona not in isolation, but in connection with other people. . . . Photography can capture him together with the total environment and in such a manner that his dependence on the environment is clear and obvious. l The goal for both Brik and TreViakov was to produce not a portrait of the individual, but rather a picture of a collective subject.

Artists' Use of Compositional Balance for Creating Visual Displays

This study sought empirical evidence that balance influences the way adults trained in the visual arts create visual displays. Thirty-two volunteers made four designs each using two different types of shapes (rectangles or quadrilaterals) within two types of pictorial fields (a circular or rectangular format). A videotape recording of the development of each design from start to completion was used to create a digitized record of its image at 20 percent intervals of the time taken for completion. It was found that, regardless of element type, format, or phase of construction, the center of a design was closely aligned with the geometric center of the pictorial field. Furthermore, the structural or physical weight of the compositional elements measured quantitatively was evenly distributed (balanced) about the principal axes of the designs throughout their construction. These findings demonstrate the power of the center of a circular and rectangular field to function as an “anchor” or balancing point about which a design's structural skeleton is organized by artists.

A journey into pictorial space: Poetics of frame and field in Maithil painting

This article explores the ways in which Maithil painting is constituted in a plurality of contexts. Even though the painting is ephemeral on ceremonial occasions, the women artists take great care in composing it. Its formal structure always emphasises the dominance of the centre occupied by the vermilion dot around which the core motif (such as the lotus plant) is organised. As an ambulant object made for nobody in particular and at home everywhere, Maithil painting embodies a notion of portability and permanency during the commodity phase, which influences its formal structure in significant ways. For the first time the picto rial border is introduced to the painting. Along with new pictorial surfaces, colours and tools, the border has important implications for the organisation of the pictorial field. However, the concern for authenticity and meaning has led most scholars to overlook the complexities involved in the making of the painting, particularly such basic issues as frame and field, and foreground and background relationships. This article also tries to show that, despite these changes in the formal attributes of Maithil painting, the compositional structure continues to emphasise the dominance of centric tendencies within the pictorial field.

An empirical evaluation of the visual rightness theory of pictorial composition

This research tested the visual rightness theory of pictorial composition's assertion that the induced organizational structure of a visually right (i.e., “good”) design is perceptually salient and judged superior by anyone viewing it regardless of his or her training in the visual arts. Stimuli for Experiments 1 and 2 consisted of 16 reproductions of paintings by renowned artists and an experimentally reconstructed less-well-organized version of each art stimulus. It was found that design professionals (Experiment 2) were significantly more successful at detecting the original versions than were participants untrained in the visual arts (Experiment 1) (hit rates=64% and 55%, respectively). In Experiment 3 participants replaced a major structural element removed from each of six pictures of the stimulus set at the location where they thought it appears in the original. A significant number of untrained participants and those with training in design theory were in agreement as to the location of each element within its pictorial field; the location chosen conformed to its compositional structure but not its actual location in the original. Findings demonstrate that the ability to detect the induced structural skeleton of a painting resulting from a visually right design does not require expert knowledge of design principles whereas the ability to discriminate between several articulation possibilities of the same composition does require formal training.

The role of balance as an organizing design principle underlying adults' compositional strategies for creating visual displays

This study had two interrelated purposes, namely, to determine if balance influences the way adults create visual displays and to subject theoretical notions of pictorial balance to experimental scrutiny. Adult volunteers made four designs, one each from circles, squares, rectangles, or leaves of different sizes. A videotape recording of the development of each design from start to completion was used to create a digitized record of its image at 10% intervals of the time taken for its completion. It was found that, regardless of element type or phase of construction, the center of a design was closely aligned with the geometric center of the pictorial field demonstrating the power of the center of a square field to function as an “anchor” or balancing point about which a design's structural skeleton is organized. The ordering strategy used by participants to organize the elements of a composition about its balancing center was influenced by their shape characteristics and orientation potential. Structural weight was evenly distributed (balanced) about the center of the circle designs throughout their construction; an imaginary horizontal–vertical grid served as the structural skeleton for the creation of designs composed of squares and rectangles, and participants manipulated directionality of leaf elements to create an organized global design within the pictorial field. Finally, evidence of the visual salience of dynamic balance is provided by the finding that viewers were able to perceive subtle differences measured quantitatively in the distribution of physical weight about the axes of balanced compositions. Theoretical speculation concerning the nature of pictorial balance is discussed in light of the present findings. PsycINFO classification: 2100; 2300

Field guide to the orchids of New South Wales and Victoria

A pictorial field guide for those interested in locating, identifying, and studying the rich orchid flora of the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria. Updated from the 1996 edition, this guide includes a general key and a key to each orchid genus and 504 detailed species descriptions co

The Activist Model; or, the Avant-Garde as Italian Invention

Modern Italian art was born in 1909. In that year, F. T. Marinetti published the founding manifesto of the Futurist movement and Giorgio De Chirico painted Enigma di un pomeriggio d'autunno (Enigma of a Fall Afternoon), the first example of metaphysical art. The new course of Italian art was thus inaugurated by Marinetti, in the theoretical and literary field, and De Chirico, in the pictorial field, although each had broader interdisciplinary and ideological tendencies. At the same time, they created-or, at least, synthesized in exemplary fashion-two fundamental directions of modern culture: the avant-garde and its opposite; on the one hand, the abolition of the past, which exalts the progress of History, and on the other a melancholic awareness of modernity, which is lived as a crisis and a loss of traditional values. This peculiar coincidence, which through a complementary relationship both joins and separates the two founders of modern Italian art, invites reflection on the existential itineraries of both. Both Marinetti and De Chirico found themselves involved in a specifically Italian problematic. Their individual ways of conceiving of modernity and modern culture were born first of all as reactions to the mythic image of Italy that had been forged by the Risorgimento. The traumatic experience of living their own Italianness can be found at the heart of their choices. Italian by language and culture but born abroad, neither had any concrete knowledge of the Italian reality at the beginning of the century. Marinetti's parents, like the parents of De Chirico, instilled in their children the pride of being Italian: they belonged to the culture of a country rich with an immense artistic glory and a unique history in the world-a history that, from the Roman empire to the spiritual empire of the Catholic Church, made Italy the most active center of Mediterranean and European civilization throughout the centuries. Furthermore, it was a country that had become reborn as a result of the Risorgimento, the achievement of political unity and the establishment of nationhood.