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Thread: question/musings on composition

  1. #21

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    Re: question/musings on composition

    This is neither new nor particularly uncommon. Here's a rather famous example from the 16th century, The Fall of Icarus: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...s_-_hi_res.jpg

    Here is William Carlos Williams's poem about it:

    Landscape With The Fall of Icarus

    According to Brueghel
    when Icarus fell
    it was spring

    a farmer was ploughing
    his field
    the whole pageantry

    of the year was
    awake tingling
    near

    the edge of the sea
    concerned
    with itself

    sweating in the sun
    that melted
    the wings' wax

    unsignificantly
    off the coast
    there was

    a splash quite unnoticed
    this was
    Icarus drowning


    And here is Auden's poem:

    Musée des Beaux Arts

    About suffering they were never wrong,
    The Old Masters; how well, they understood
    Its human position; how it takes place
    While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
    How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
    For the miraculous birth, there always must be
    Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
    On a pond at the edge of the wood:
    They never forgot
    That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
    Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
    Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
    Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
    In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
    Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
    Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
    But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
    As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
    Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
    Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
    had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
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  2. #22
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: question/musings on composition

    RE, Sorry maybe I am missing something, but how does that relate?

    "That is, putting something of major interest on the edge of a photo, cutting it off partially or almost entirely? Have any of you tried this?"
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  3. #23

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    Re: question/musings on composition

    Kirk,

    I think that this is about marginalized (for lack of a better word) parts of a composition that are important to a composition. To my mind, it doesn't matter whether the visual is partly cut off or not. Indeed, it is not cut off in some of the examples that have been offered above. The placement of the small figure of Icarus in the lower right corner of the painting achieves what is being discussed here, so much so that two poems by important writers were written about the painting and the placement of the figure. I think that The Fall of Icarus, whether Bruegel made it or whether it is a copy of one of his paintings (many think the latter), rewards careful study in the context of this discussion.

    Just in case people aren't familiar with this painting and have trouble seeing where Icarus is in the image (it's clear enough when one sees the painting in person, but maybe less so on a computer screen), his legs, with torso under water, are in the lower right between the person in white and a ship. It's why WC Williams says "a splash quite unnoticed" and why Auden says "everything turns away/Quite leisurely from the disaster".
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  4. #24

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    Re: question/musings on composition

    Didn't you know Adams kept an inflatable horse in his vehicle for times like winter sunrise?

  5. #25

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    Re: question/musings on composition

    I'm thinking Kirk just missed the dude splashing into the water

    which is great for the thread

    a very good example


    OP IS in my opinion talking about the "marginalization" of important aspects
    I'm calling it secret garden


    read between the lines a bit more

  6. #26

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    Re: question/musings on composition

    Quote Originally Posted by sun of sand View Post
    I'm calling it secret garden
    I like that.

    It's necessary to really look at this painting to see what is going on. That's true of the original, and probably more true, given our propensity to look quickly, of a copy on a computer screen.

    In the case of this painting, there are a number of things going on to deflect attention. To take an obvious example, the oversized treatment of the man with a plough. The composition isn't just about the placement of Icarus, and at that only his legs sticking out of the water, in the lower right corner.

    I added the poems by Auden and Williams partly as a clue, but also to underscore the point that what Bruegel did in this painting 450 years ago got the attention of two of the great poets of the 20th century. And these are not minor poems. When I was 16, Auden's poem was required reading at school.
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  7. #27
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: question/musings on composition

    I saw the "dude" splashing into the water. The Icarus reference was hard to miss. I just didn't think it fit the OP's original question (as with some other images posted).
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  8. #28

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    Re: question/musings on composition

    Quote Originally Posted by Kirk Gittings View Post
    I just didn't think it fit the OP's original question (as with some other images posted).
    You mean like the images posted by Ken Lee, your fellow moderator, and Merge Ross, and frankly in my view Newman's portrait, that you chose not to question?

    I think that this is an interesting discussion and that it doesn't need to be straight jacketed by one phrase in the somewhat lengthy post that started the thread, especially since that post was itself ambiguous.

    However, if it is a rule of this thread that the peripheral image has to be pasted to, and indeed truncated by, the edge of the frame, then you should of course enforce the rule and delete all of the posts that have violated it.

    You can start with the posts about Bruegel's painting, which you apparently found less relevant, and I guess less interesting, than the other posts in this thread

    P.S. Sorry, just having a little trouble understanding, given that I spent some time jumping around the internet to put that post together, why I am being given the gears over it. And by the way, congratulations, because your statement "The Icarus reference was hard to miss" is untrue for most people, even with the original.
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  9. #29
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: question/musings on composition

    Get off your petty high horse. I didn't "choose" not to question those images-I had better things to do at the time. This place is not really a priority much of the time. If I spent my time here trying to correct every wrong or off subject post I would have to live here. No thanks. Nor did I delete your post so why on earth would I delete theirs? And where for heavens sake were you "given the gears". I asked you a simple question. Man you have a thin skin.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  10. #30

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    Re: question/musings on composition

    Sorry Kirk,

    The smilie was there for a reason.

    To lighten this up a bit, you might get a smile from a video that I posted here earlier today: http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=85569
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