Visual Components
The most interesting concept for me in this reading was the progression of complexity presented in Chapter 1. The rest of the reading seemed pretty straightforward and common sensical. It was a good review of the fundamental elements of images, and offered some basic insight on how to utilize these elements in my own work.
Cézanne
I found this piece fascinating. I love the idea of sight being a "personal phenomenon." What every person sees is different from what is really in front of them. Cézanne's paintings, which were technically just spots of color on a canvas, become a full image once studied by the mind. The brain processes the plots of color (which are, in essence, dots of light) and creates a complete picture. I don't think I'm doing a great job of conveying how amazing this concept is, but I promise you it's awesome.
Cézanne, way ahead of his time in understanding this process, was a hipster of sorts ("I was a post-impressionist before even impressionism was cool"). His work was considered "unnecessarily abstract," and was even ridiculed by impressionists. But now, hundreds of years later, we can fully appreciate his work and the crazy things it does to the viewer's mind.
My favorite part of the reading was the comparison of painting and photography. My favorite passage: Painters believed "the camera...was a liar. Its precision was false. Why? Because reality did not consist of static images. Because the camera stops time, which cannot be stopped; because it renders everything in focus, when everything is never in focus. Because the eye is not a lens, and the brain is not a machine."
