[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin ars, art-; see ar- in Indo-European roots.]
Synonyms: art1, craft, expertise, knack, know-how, technique
These nouns denote skill in doing or performing that is attained by study, practice, or observation: the art of rhetoric; pottery that reveals an artist’s craft; political expertise; a knack for teaching; mechanical know-how; a precise diving technique.
According to thefreedictionary.com, I think that the skill in study, practice or oberve something has an imply meaning: be concious of what you are doing and be able to say thanks to everybody around you.
Each person and his/her point of view (right or wrong) is an input. Any kind of input is IMPORTANT for you an for you art. While you are working on your art, if there is a hitch, you will fall back on the input you received. That’s why you have to say THANKS to everybody.
Art, as life, is good enough when you are able to say THANKS.
Doubts, excessive conscientiousness, are all factors of real communication, then real art. Designers may know what I mean. But, who really cares about are the ones able to discern communication (money) from real communication (art). Read my topic Art, Marketing & Art of Marketing. Being evergreen.
History, as you know, teaches us how to move nowadays. That’s why I will tell you a story:
In 1513 c.a. Michelangelo Buonarroti was called by Pope Julius II to create a marble sculpture including the Biblical figure of Moses. Michelangelo started working on the project and, few years later, Pope Julius II interrupted the commission for unexplained reasons.
After the Pope’s death, Michelangelo was called back by the della Rovere family in 1542 to bring the work of art to an end. They changed the original project (7 figures instead of 40) and decide to place the sculpure in the minor church of San Pietro in Vincoli instead of the St. Peter’s Basilica.
Michelangelo, peeved for the bad treatment, decide to complete the work but with some “little changes”. The Moses, which probably embody Julius II, has been “decorated” with a pair of horns and some “shaped gashes” under the inferior lip. (There are 2 different school of thought about. The ones who think horns are because of a mistranslation of Exodus; the ones who STRONGLY UNDERSTAND the artist hobson’s choice).
Well, many designers may know what I’m talking about.
In fact, you have to change your original idea approximately on each project, because of your creative director or your agency marketing department or, all the worse, your client.
They are going to twist, change, distort your so perfect and artistic idea. And there is no way, if you want your money, you have to do it.
BUT, here is what I want to say:
If Michelangelo’s Moses was pure and perfect as he wanted in the original project, the story was different. Instead, thanks to the changes, Michelangelo was able to obtain both the payment and the personal satisfaction. Furthermore, his work is famous for its horns that create debate and attention.
Similarly, thanks to your creative director / marketing / etc. your work of art can be used as a incisive communication. In that way the product became a selling product.
That’s the reason why to be a good designer you must be able to discern art and communication. Be grateful to the ones who gives you inputs. Prefer self-criticism to regret.
Inspired by your tasty comments, posted on my article “Cooking is Art: creativity between food and technology“, I used them as suggestions for a brand-new cooking article & food design idea.
The first comment, posted by Jhon was “squid and zucchini”. That’s a good combination!
Here is a “gnammy” italian recipe: Squid Stuffed with Zucchini!
INGREDIENTS (2 persons):
4 Big Squids
2 Zucchini
Grated Parmigiano (Parmesan) - a half cup
Breadcrumbs - 3/4 tablespoonful
Olive Oil
Salt & Ground black pepper
PREPARATION:
Wash the squids and remove the tentacles. Wash the zucchini and slice them into rounds. Put the zucchini in a hot-oiled pan till they are half-cooked (slightly coloured). Blend them with the Parmigiano, Breadcrumbs & a pinch of salt and black pepper.
Stuff 3/4 of each squid with the mixture and close them with a toothpick. Put the stuffed squids in a oiled pan and observe them while the mixture inside starts ooze. Put them immediately on a plate. Have a good meal! (Buon appetito!).
And… before you eat, just have a look on this video! :P
I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!
Ok, here I am. Why did I put the “cooking” tab into my blog?
While surfing on youtube, I hit on a video by Corey Vidal*: “Blend Your Own Adventure! (INTERACTIVE)”. IMHO he’s the first one who used the youtube’s “link to another video” feature in a creative way. How? You can “play” with his videos and create different adventures. This is something like the Role-Playing Books of the 90s, in which everyone choose his own way to reach the finale.
Have a look on it!
I loved it. OK, now… Thanks to Corey, I can easily explain why Cooking is Art. Art means: to try, to mix and to play until you are satisfied. Sure, in the video the result is always nauseating (but funny!!!). Now, let’s go behind and try to keep your concentration into the word RESULT. While you are in the Kitchen your result, to be a successful result, has to be a TASTY RESULT. That’s the key.
Mix, play and try every kind of ingredient until you find the taste you like. Use some recipe as basis, never as a RULE. Get creative and share your own experience.
Just try, and let me know your own experiment. Leave a comment with your winning food combination!
Sometimes happens your clients look at your job in a different way.
In that case you have to ask yourself:
1. Am I wrong?
2. Are they really the clients I want?
Well, relax. You are always right! The case I’m talking about is the answer to the point 2! Let’s make it easy.
Your husband/wife/mummy/flatmate ask you to buy some juice. You go to the supermarket and, while looking to the juice shelf, you decide to buy Coop-Orange juice (the one in a plastic bottle). You go back home and put the brand-new Coop-Orange juice in the fridge. 10 minutes later (while you are laying on the sofa) your husband/wife/mummy/flatmate tells you: “What is it?”. You kindly answer back: “The Orange juice you asked for…!”. -”Coop? What’s wrong with you? Coop it’s a cheap brand”. You say: “Ok, sorry. But next time tell me you hate Coop”.
1 WEEK LATER. Your husband/wife/mummy/flatmate ask you to buy a Yoga juice. You go to the supermarket and, while looking to the juice shelf, you decide to buy Yoga-Orange juice in a plastic bottle. At home, some minutes later… “What is it?”. You kindly answer back: “The Orange juice you asked for…!”. -”Orange juice? What’s wrong with you? I prefer RED Orange juice”. You say: “Uhm. Ok, but this is a Yoga-Orange juice in a plastic bottle!” - “It doesn’t matter. I asked for a Red Orange juice”.
2 WEEKS LATER. Your husband/wife/mummy/flatmate ask you to buy a Yoga-RED Orangejuice. You go to the supermarket and, sure of your choice, you buy a Yoga-Red Orange juice in a plastic bottle. “What is it?”. - “The Orange juice you asked for…!”. -”Ok. I think we are not able to communicate. I’m depressed since yesterday, I need some alcohol and ABOVE ALL I hate plastic bottle”. Here’s your face: -.-°
The story so far: You spent 9$ for 3 different orange juices, you spent 5 minutes talking with your husband/wife/etc. (+5 minutes in the supermarket) and YOU ARE FRUSTRATED.
Now, what about your job?
Yoga or Coop brand means WRONG TARGET; Orange juice or Red Orange juice means WRONG PRODUCT; plastic bottle means WRONG SALES CHANNEL. Alcohol instead of Orange juice means WRONG COMMUNICATION btw your client and you.
Husband/wife/mummy/flatmate means a client already in your portfolio.
If you are in a similar circumstance with a brand-new client it’s YOUR FAULT. You have to ask more in the first meeting.
If not, it’s your client fault. This usually happens when:
Too many persons are part of a meeting (too many points of view);
Your client change the brief during the project.
What to do:
Stop the project immediately and cross the client out from your contact list. (YOU’VE LOST JUST 9$+10MINUTES).
Freeze the project and wait for a new brief. After that, estimate a new budget for the job (including the work you already done). (YOU’LL BE FRUSTRATED CUZ YOU WILL BE UNDERPAID).
Freeze the project for a while, have a new meeting and buy him a bottle of alcohol!!! (YOU ARE LOOSING A LOT OF MONEY, TIME AND GOOD CLIENTS WHO ARE LOOKING FOR YOU).
And believe me I’m STILL ALIVE.
(I think I prefer to stay inside) atm.
One of my favorite songs, one of my favorite games. Great video… “Suddenly I understood that thinking is for stupid people, while brains use the inspiration” (Alex in “A clockwork orange”).
I was wondering on facebook until an adv get my attention. I clicked. minispace.com - mini space design competition #4 “always open”. A design contest by Mini Cooper.
I read the briefing and realized that they want you to create a background for the minispace website.
The main topic is “CREATIVE USE OF SPACE” and according to it the brief says: <<think creatively, but also logically [...]. Keep in mind that the left side of each uploaded background will always be covered up by MINI Space content. Think about how your design can work with the format of the site and fit with the content that is already there. We want your designs to be seen clearly by all our users>>.
After that, looking the backgrounds already submitted from other users, I break out: “Are they able to understand what covered up by mini content means?”.
In addition I pick up on the background: (repeat-x:none, background-color:#000). I guess 80% of them didn’t know what a wide-screen monitor is.
Ok, let’s have some fun! I signed up.
I opened up Photoshop, Firefox and IE7. Left click on Firebug and a quick look at the source code and here we go.
Too many restrictions to be creative in a “always open” way. That’s not minispace.com web-designers’ fault. Of course they made a great job. BUT… to be creative in that kind of space, you must understand the layout and the way your background will be visible to other users.
IN SUMMARY: Most designs of that contest are cool. ON PAPER. Let webdesigner design the web. Or if you are a “PAPER-DESIGNER” learn mark-up basis and usability basics! I’m sick of unnavigable websites.
That’s not easy to talk about this topic, expecially if 80% of world population nuts on the first sentence I used in my <h1> (Photoshop tutorials) and I want to focus on the latter (Photoshop virtuosity).
Here, as usual, comes the marketing. First of all, why did I used the sentence I love less as main one in my title? SEO, SEO, SEO. Well, if you are reading this, and you are part of the 80% I told before, you may don’t know what SEO means. Here you are: Search Engine Optimization, and that’s enough for you.
Instead, if you are part of the 20% you may know what I’m talking about.
Ok, now go backward: let’s focus on photoshop virtuosity.
Suppose that you want to show everybody that beauty doesn’t mean perfection but means harmony.
What are you going to do to promote your thought?
You publish a video/illustration/photo/photomanipulation in which you show that beauty is an harmonious person. YOU ARE DOING WRONG. Why? Because nobody knows you, what you are able to do and, above all, nobody will find you. (It feels familiar to you? Please have a look on my article Art without Marketing)
As first step, you publish a video/illustration/photo/photomanipulation in which you show that Photoshop is used to turn ugly people into pretty. You use as subject of your work a VIP.
As second step, once your previous video/videos (or whatever) gives you an audience, you publish a video as in point 1 of this list. YOU LEAD. YOU REACH A CATCHMENT AREA. How? Keywords and thumbnails. Let’s say again SEO, SEO, SEO. Keywords as “tutorial” or (eg.) “Christina Aguilera” are victorious.
This screenshot of Google AdWords surely explain better than words the keyword’s trends.
I also have a shot at doing my test on youtube.
These videos have been added in the same week. The first one called “Christina Aguilera Photoshop Makeover (wallpaper)” has been visited 200 times in 4 days. Instead, the one called “Blond girl - Extreme Photoshop Makeover (Natural skin)” has been visited 20 times in 4 days. What’s interesting? 15 of 20 visits come from the link “Other videos of the same author” from Christina Aguilera’s video page. What about the feedback?Christina Aguilera’s video has been commented 4 times. 2 negative, 2 positive comments. I don’t mind about the negatives. I’m happy that it has been commented. It means audience.
The “Virtuos Video” has been commented 3 times. 3 positive comments. That’s my real feedback. I care about it.
IN SUMMARY:A good idea/product/service MUST corner the market just before the REAL REALEASE of it self.
The Golden Ratio has been (and is) interpreted in different ways, depending on the period, the country, the religion etc.:
The Golden Section as “Universal Harmonic Ratio“
5th century b.C.
The mathematical concept of proportion, meant to relation of parts, has been introduced first by Pitagora (Pythagoras of Samos, a great mathematician, mystic and scientist), who combines balance with mathematic. Pythagoras and his followers (the Pythagoreans), re-created the composing principles of musical harmony to obtain a kind of “universal harmony”, in order to obtain a stable equilibrium.
18th - 20th century A.D.
The concept of “the Golden Section as Universal Harmonic Ratio” has been used, in classical music, by great composers as Bach (fugues), Mozart (piano sonatas), Beethoven (Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67), Schubert (Piano Sonata D 959), Debussy (La Mer) and Strawinski (Le Sacre du Printemps - Symphony in Three Movements). These pieces carry the music back to its pythagoric orgin: by mathematical nature, in which the Golden Ratio is the core of the opus.
The Golden Section as “Pleasant-looking Ratio“
3rd century b.C.
In the Euclid’s Elements (a mathematical and geometric treatise) the shape of the triangle is one of the most important, in particular the sublime triangle.
The sublime triangle is a isosceles triangle. It can be formed by the conjunction of two diagonals starting from the vertex of a pentagon. The side of the regular pentagon is the Golden Section of the sublime triangle (its base). Triangle inscribed into a regular pentagon form into a star. The golden star.
16th century A.D.
In 1509 has been published the De divina proporzione ( The divine proportion - a treatise on mathematical and artistic proportion, especially the mathematics of the golden ratio and its application in architecture) written by Luca Pacioli, an italian mathematician and franciscan friar and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci. The adjective “divina” (divine) used in the title of the treatise referes to two deity’s characteristics: the golden section is UNIQUE and TRIPLE as the Trinity ( indefinable, irrational and invariable ). Luca Pacioli has been probably the first who used the term Sectio Aurea (Golden Section).
18th century A.D.
The concept of formal beauty has been increased by Kant (German philosopher), who introduced the category of sublime in the aesthetics experience. His main claim is that the mathematic judgments are synthetic a priori. Synthetic because the result expand the knowledge; a priori because the geometric and mathematic judgments are valid also without experience. According to Kant, the Sublime is endless (synthetic demonstration of Space as geometrical space and synthetic demonstration of Time as arithmetic series).
The Golden Section as “Holy Ratio“
9th century b.C. - 3rd century A.D.
The Golden Ratio has been highly used in holy symbolism, as in the Pentaculum Salomonis, in the Sigillum Pythagorae (symbol of health), in the Templar Cross and, in Germany, in the Druidenfuss (druid’s foot). Some of these symbols were considered diabolic; others, as the golden star, symbol of union between God and the human being.
The Golden Section as “Mathematical Ratio“
12th century A.D.
In the Liber Abaci (Book of Abacus) of Fibonacci, Italian mathematician, he introduces a problem involving the growth of a hypothetical population of rabbits. The solution is a sequence of numbers known as Fibonacci numbers. This sequence can be found in natural phenomenon: ray of light’s optics, male bee’s genealogical tree, fire genealogy and so on.
In the Fibonacci sequence, each number is the sum of the previous two. The higher up in the sequence, numbers divided by each other will approach the Golden Ratio: 1.618 (phi).
IN SUMMARY: The Golden Section can be found in lots of fields and it is conceived in different ways. By the way, it is symbol of harmony and perpetual perfection.
There is someting more! Have a look on the <art>IMHO</art> main menu on top. The philosophy button is showing part of the Luca Pacioli’s De divina proporzione. I’ve a copy of the real manuscript. It’s really amazing! I will try to share part of it with you, later.
Ancient populations (far apart in distance and time) are linked one to another by a mistery, upon which archaeologists, astronomers, mathematicians, artists, psychologists, historians etc. are still working: the Golden Section.
The Golden Section, also called Golden Ratio, is usually defined as it follows: “two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio between the sum of those quantities and the larger one is the same as the ratio between the larger one and the smaller.” (Wikipedia).
It means that AM:MB=MB:AB. Its value is about 1,618.
The Golden Ratio module has been used by the Ancients Egyptians in the Giza pyramids (ratio between the height and the base); in the Stele of Get in Abydos, Egypt (the ancient city were framed in a square built in the shortest side of the Stele, which were in Golden Ratio with the whole walls).
In the 5th century b.C., Fidia built the Parthenon, a temple of the Greek goddess Athena, on the Athenian Acropolis with the orthogonal projection of the rectangular front size included in the ratio between width and height F:1 (same as the Golden Ratio).
The Golden section has been used as proof sheet in:
fresco paintings (Etruscan necropolis of the Baron, Tarquinia)
architectural works (the Notre-Dame cathedral, Paris; the ONU building, New York)
Renaissance canvas paintings (the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and the Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci; the Flagellation of Christ, Piero della Francesca; the Birth of Venus, Botticelli and so on).
IN SUMMARY: The Golden Section has been and is used in art as “guideline” and/or cryptic message. It follows mathematical constant relative to a never-ending spiral: the Logarithmic Spiral. It also has something to do with armony, nature, esthetic standards, religion and astronomy.
Welcome in my way of being! A "geeky" way to see the fine art that sorrounds us, but not everybody are able to see. I'm Mirta, Art Director of Symbiotic Project, in Rome. This blog represents me and I hope you will enojoy its content. Suggestions are welcome!
More about me...
How to contact me? Easy!
E-MAIL ME! Or meet-up @ 41.91 - 12.46 from 15:00 to 21:00 CET :D
is usually defined as it follows: “two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio between the sum of those quantities and the larger one is the same as the ratio between the larger one and the smaller.” (Wikipedia).
