Sources of inspiration
We talked about two important points of the work method.
One is learning how to look, learning to see.
And, also,
applying some of the principles of perception
that I am going to tell you about.
To begin with, I'm going to give you a series of models.
I'm going to talk to you a bit later about some examples
of how artists have applied them
and I'll show you my inspiration notebooks.
I have collected these over time
and they are of particular visual interest to me.
These notebooks are from 2000, 2002, 2003.
At that time, I looked at images that interested me,
and I kept a record of them.
Each one has interested me for a number of reasons.
Here, I was interested in the orderly chaos.
Here, you can see how they've used typography.
This was the time of deconstruction of typography.
It was a very different time compared to today.
Even though I don't believe in fashionable graphics,
I like being close to things.
For me, graphics isn't something
that keeps up with fashion;
it should be above fashion.
But this has turned out to be
a very useful story for me,
because one thing has led me to another.
And I've done it since...
For example, this notebook is closely related to typography,
and with graphics,
and here I've used many elements to make
Hushed Writing and other projects.
Also, in a more or less obvious and more informal way,
and more related to the image,
closer to the time of Shipwreck,
we have these images which are not related to graphics.
As you see, many images are repeated.
This is one of Chillida's, whom I will tell you more about.
There is always an admiration
and an interest in a number of authors.
This notebook is more figurative.
Here are etchings by Chillida and Picasso
and Matisse that interest me a lot for the liveliness of the lines.
The expressiveness of the clean lines.
How a single line or stroke can be so expressive.
In that sense, I really liked when I found out
that Chillida did his drawings with his left hand
to eliminate the complete control he had of the pencil
and to show a bit of clumsiness,
which lends expressiveness to the lines.
This is what I look for
when I collect broken items or expressive elements;
not regular or pretty, but expressive.
The same thing happens with the lines.
Now that we've glanced at this type of materials,
and I encourage you to look at it from all angles,
from kitchen dishes
to the most incredible material that I can recommend,
I'd now like to start telling you about some examples
and things that some artists have given me.
For example, Mondrian has always been a very important artist for me.
Mondrian's greatest contribution to the world of graphics,
because he has made great contribution,
it to value and distribute spaces.
Mondrian does not leave a single futile space.
For Mondrian, it is a kind of puzzle;
what you use is just as important
as what you leave out.
It's very close to layout.
Later we will see how,
when we are laying out a page,
we must consider all space as useable space.
Nothing must be left out.
Everything is essential to the composition.
Here we have another example
of how the space has been managed.
This work is perhaps not as tranquil
as the distribution of space by Mondrian.
It's more unsettling, but it's still interesting.
It is perhaps more expressive than Mondrian's.
Another artist who has worked a lot with the distribution of space;
he has many works about distribution of space.
He adds a very important thing, which is texture.
For me, TÃƒÂ pies is a master of texture.
I've always been interested in his materials
and how his works are done.
Another interesting way to do it is that of Paul Klee.
Just like Mondrian's work, he does it in a more expressive way.
He distributes the whole space,
he makes use of the whole space,
but his work is very expressive, he makes a kind of labyrinth
of winding shapes.
I think his work and method are very interesting.
We also observe this in photography:
how this simple line,
and the limits of our perception,
how the photo with a single line, suggests the rear of the model.
The purpose of the photo, leaving it practically blank;
it's just a line on a plain background.
It has a lot of power and visual interest.
The same happens in architecture.
This work is very similar to Mondrian's work.
Everything is used on the facade, nothing is left out.
Every element of the facade is important.
He plays with textures
and plays with the direction of the materials.
Here we begin to talk about weight.
This is a Moholy-Nagy piece.
This piece is very interesting
because it uses two very simple elements,
a strip and a circle, and it manages to tell a story.
It manages to tell the story of a circle
that has been placed at the top,
and it's on the edge of the springboard.
It's supported by yellowish or pinkish lines
and it gives the impression that it is falling.
It describes a situation using two very simple elements.
He manages to place the heaviest weight at the top,
while balancing it on the red line,
which means the object weighs heavily on the springboard.
And it's about to fall;
he manages to create a falling movement.
With one, two, three, four, five,
with five elements, he tells a story.
The same happens in Calder's work.
How he energizes and elevates,
how he works with weight,
how he creates an interesting upward visual journey,
how he simplifies, repeats and reduces the shape
until it almost goes to infinity.
It starts off on the ground
and the visual journey gets lost in infinity.
In this architectural piece
it appears that someone
is pulling it from above.
Instead of weighing down, the building appears to be rising.
It's about to rise up into the air.
In this piece, Malevich uses the same technique and resources.
All the heavy items are placed at the top,
and the frame, the top of the square,
pulls the weight up and leaves the smallest,
simplest parts, at the bottom.
All the weigh is shifted to the top.
It's like a type of magnet
that keeps attracting the metal elements
and they stick to the top.
And then here, we have the resources of Modernism and Art Deco.
The idea of slenderizing
and carrying the weight on top,
how it stretches the shapes
and how the top part carries the weight.
It's the same with this piece of furniture.
The shapes are very slenderized
and the end carries the weight,
which creates a feeling of weightlessness.
Like this house that is elevated.
It creates a feeling of weightlessness; visually, it is very powerful.
Here in this piece, what we are seeing
is how the artist takes advantage of the oblique line tension
as well as making full use of the space distribution
combined with the inclination,
and the tension exerted by the oblique line,
and how the yellow color creates depth,
how he creates interest and visual power
with the repetition of black lines
and the subtlety of adding a white line.
You can hardly see it because it's much further back.
How he creates atmosphere
with just one light shade at the back.
This use of sloping lines
is also used a lot in architecture.
This is the Library of Alexandria.
It's a splendid building
that uses inclination to add movement to the entire facade.
It's a huge, tall weightless building that's elevated;
it's a fragment that seems that it continues into space.
Here, the photographer has made use of the inclinations of the shadows.
He's used a very simple element
to create a very powerful visual interest.
He has created these lines that converge
with incredible power and purity.
Casal used this a lot in all his pieces.
Here, everything is concentrated in the lower right corner.
He has centered the whole image
and the movement is created by the magnet that the angles create.
Everything is a pure multiplication of angles
in this lower right corner.
Then, the interest of fragments.
This armchair consists of a fragment of a circle.
By fragmenting something
it creates interest and we try to complete the whole circle.
The shape and the tension of the curve straightens out
and the force created by the angle
creates and interesting rhythm.
Then we have MirÃƒÂ³. MirÃƒÂ³ has an enormous capacity
to convey emotion from the simplest of elements.
I think he's an admirable artist
and a very important character.
As we see in these pieces,
I have seen them in real life and they are huge.
They measure two meters by two meters.
This mural is about six or seven meters or more.
And how it contains, apart from the textured background,
how the lines contain tremendous energy
and how he simply uses the placement of the lines,
how one is facing down, the opening is below,
the other one is facing right
and the last is wide open and much higher;
each one has a very different feeling of weight.
The one on the left is completely heavy
and weighs a lot.
Also, the red dot is outside the circle.
The second one is centered;
he has placed the line and its expressiveness
and the point is centered in relation to the format.
The one on the right is far more open,
much smaller, much higher.
It appears to be rising up.
These pieces have an accumulation of visual interest.
He connects the three pieces by telling us a story.
The same happens with the appreciation of this bonsai.
This bonsai is very close to the painting we just looked at.
The line is not exactly a line, it's a branch.
But it's based on the same force
and the same energy as the line.
Here we see the same on the typeface line.
It's based on the same thing:
on the curve and the irregular, powerful line.
Or the lines of Chillida.
Here, Chillida uses the same resource,
but here he begins to close it;
he starts working with blank spaces that are more powerful.
MirÃƒÂ³ works with lines
and Chillida starts working with the open gaps.
He works more with figures and background,
he plays with ambiguity.
Then we have Arp, with his circles,
and round, irregular shapes.
He manages to squeeze the circles.
Almost all of his work is based on the distortion of circles.
He builds up tension.
It's pure investigation on the distortion of circles.
It has also been applied to architecture.
Here, these shapes are based...
I think it is a very similar exercise to Arp.
This is another three-dimensional work by Arp.
The build-up of tension and how it creates expression.
This can also be applied to furniture.
These pieces of furniture are just as expressive as sculptures.
They are based on the same principles.
Arp's sculpture and the piece of furniture.
This chair is very interesting.
It's like this piece but without the distortion.
This is the tranquil expression
which is the regular form.
And this is the expressive form, the irregular form,
the most expressive form.
We also see how Picasso uses this same resource
to distort the circle
in a very tormented way for his observations,
and then he used it in Guernica
to work on the heads of the characters.
He uses the shape and the counter-curve
and uses the triangle for the tongue, which makes it incredibly dramatic.
But the principle is the same as Arp's work,
which is the distortion of a circle.
Then we go on to movement.
The system of working with movement in photography,
the research that was done, which cannot be seen in this photo,
they were done earlier, but Ãƒâ€°tienne-Jules has made us modify,
and made artists try to represent movement
using this repetition of forms,
this movement of form and transformation.
Futurism has used this resource a great deal.
Both in a figurative way, as we can see here,
as well as more abstract forms,
but it creates the same effect of movement.
MirÃƒÂ³ had a very delicate way
of creating movement in order to tell us a story.
For me this is a very important piece.
The piece structures space very well.
It is a piece that creates movement
based on the repetition of some very simple shapes.
It also manages to change the logical order
from the start of the viewing point, which would be the top left,
and it makes you enter from the right side.
And this visual route pauses on something
which is the dramatic point of the composition, the red vertical bar,
which is a bit slanted, but still vertical
and how the space of the painting closes
between an L and a rectangle.
It is a very basic piece, but extremely interesting.
And also in architecture,
we'll talk about the visual path later on,
depending on the forces and how you organize them,
they mark the visual path through the work.
In this architectural example it's very clear.
It's like a tape that takes you from top to bottom.
Or the photographs of Chema Madoz,
which are extraordinarily well constructed.
Here, there is a very clear visual path.
Apart from the suggestion
and the surreal image that he presents,
there is a flawless construction of a visual journey.
The image is very powerful because it's so clear.
The distribution of spaces, the visual journey,
importance and categorization, and so on.
And finally, as I mentioned before, we reach a point
where Chillida works a lot on the background and the form.
Here, we can't tell which is the background or the figure.
The duality of the two pieces is an example
of excellent harmonization of space.
Apart from the expression of curves and counter-curves.
Calder did this in a very interesting way.
In this piece, Calder is working on those white dots
at the top; particularly the ones at the top.
We don't understand if it's the background or the shape.
The movement and curves are very well done
but he also works very well with the duality of background and form.
Later, we will talk about another interesting piece by Calder
where you don't know if the piece is the background, the landscape,
or if the work is what determines the landscape.
Well, I've told you a bit...
first, the work method,
and I've just told you a bit about my sources of inspiration.
How some artists have used these principles of perception
which I find very important and interesting.
Let's move on now
to applying
and working on each of the principles.
See you soon in the next lesson.