Replying to LO27002 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew Campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:
>Did you know the average time someone, anyone,
>stands before a work of art in pretty much any gallery,
>whether before a Rothko or a Piero della Francesca or
>Leonardo... four seconds. Yep! Of course people like
>me drag the time out a bit, but the average human views
>the average masterwork for four seconds.
Greetings dear Andrew,
I think it is because they try to appreciate the masterpiece structurally
rather than operationally. Obviously, we cannot blame them for the fact
that they do it. Should we want to blame anyone, we should blame ourselves
for not helping them how to admire art operationally.
I myself try to stay away from any art exhibition because once I have
entered it, I lose all track of time. I become so absorbed in following
the processes which each artist made use of to get definite outcomes that
I even forget to move to the next masterpiece.
Thank you very much for telling us with words how painters try to
articulate "Strength" and "Weakness". I wish it was possible for all of us
to sit next to you, each with brush and pallete in hand, experimenting
what your words try to tell.
>At a root of this tree is asymmetry...and I like the
>asymmetry if this thread so i added my own...now
>you might know I am a painter...
My mother and my second daughter, both named Jeanette Martha, are painters
among the many other things which they do. I have not heard one of them
ever speak of asymmetry, but their paintings are rich in it. I myself
painted two landscapes some thirty years ago trying to capture objectively
the physicist Herman Weyl's idea of symmetry breaking with them. The one
of a sunset over a lake was extremely difficult for me because of
presenting dramatic as well as subtle asymmetries in one and the same
painting.
Yes, the breaking of symmetry as operation and the resulting asymmetry as
outcome is one of the most intrigueing phenomena known to me. It can be
observed in the hard-core sciences like chemistry and physics, althought
it requires deep concentration to be seen there. But once it emerged into
the richer facets of the biological sciences, it is almost taken for
granted. That is one of the reasons why I love to explore deserts.
Sometimes they hit out at you right in the forehead with their often
shocking asymmetry. But on other occasions they present you with such a
subtle asymmetry that only the heart can pick it up.
Perhaps the best scenery to me of such subtle symmetry breakings is some
10km west of a small town called Pofadder (the name of a snake). Looking
westwards over the solitary Bushmanland is a feast for the eyes. I have
often tried to capture it with a camera, but it is impossible. It needs an
artist to accentuate just a little bit what the eyes feast upon, but what
the camera cannot tell. The reason? The camera tells merely the
"outside-world". The eyes tell "outside-world" relating with
"inside-world". The camera cannot match this wholeness of the eyes -- or
the truth as Goethe would have said.
This reminds me of how artists deal with asymmetry. Some present it
persistently by schocking contrasts. Others have developed the capacity to
break symmetry so subtle that it becomes a soft breeze carrying the heart
to heaven.
Sometimes I think that the term "operational definition" is a misnomer.
The word definition comes from the Latin "de-"=off, "finis"=end. It means
to set the end (limit) of the definans. However, the "operational
definition" sets the beginning of the definans rather than its end.
Perhaps the phrase "operational inauguration" would have described better
what it does ;-)
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.