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Strange Pixels:
The Life and Times of the Dot
The Art History of the Dot -
From the Big Bang to Me
Caveats
Dots vs. Pixels
Fractal vs. Afractal
Points vs. Lines, Circles, et al.
Big Bang
-13e9 Universe as BIG dot.
Hot (10e13°K)
Dense (10e14gm/cc)
Evolving Universe
Galaxies - fuzzy dots
Stars - hot dots
Planets - dots with atmospheres
Eggs - dna dots
Eyes - retinal dots
Lascaux, France
-13e3 Cave painting of horses
This is representative of the earliest art we know of.
It is very accomplished.
Either humans went from not making marks
to spontaneous virtuosity,
or there was earlier art of which we have no record.
Petroglyphs
Polynesian
Native American
These marks are much more recent
than art like that found at Lascaux.
However I believe they are indicative
of what undiscovered human protoart looked like.
Mosaic
same problem as early drawing and painting
problem of intent
3000 BC Sumerian Facade
300 BC Pella, Macedonia, The Lion Hunt, Pebble Mosaic
1c BC Pompeii, Portrait of a Lady
2c AD Rome, Medusa (Op Art)
530 Rome, Cosma e Damiano (Exceptional Dither)
547 San Vitale, Ravenna, Justinian / Theodora
1727 Benedict XIII, Permanent Papal Workshop, 28,000 shades
1953 University of Mexico Library
Fox Talbot
English Amateur Scientist, Inventor and Antiquarian (1800-1877)
(the father of modern photographic chemistry)
1852 English Patent no.565 (the halftone)
Claude Monet
French Impressionist Painter (1840-1926)
although active before Seurat & van Gogh,
his work before the 1880's
does not contain fractal manipulations
Benjamin Day
American Journalist and Inventor (1838-1916)
1878 Benday Dot
Frederick Ives
American Inventor, Photographer & Printer (1856-1937)
1881 halftone screen
1884 Harper's Magazine
Georges Seurat
French Post Impressionist Painter (1859-1891)
1884-6 Grande Jatte
Vincent van Gogh
Dutch Post Impressionist Painter (1853-1890)
1889 Starry Night
Wassily Kandinsky
Russian Modernist Painter
(the father of non-objective painting) (1866-1944)
1906-7 Couple on Horseback
1926 Some Circles
1926 book: Point and Line to Plane
1930 Thirteen Rectangles
Arthur Mole
American Photographer (1889-? )
1918 portrait of Woodrow Wilson (21,000 officers & men)
1918 United States Shield (30,000 officers & men)
Piet Mondrian
Dutch Modernist Painter (1872-1944)
(pure abstraction - Neoplasticism)
1919 Composition with Grid 8
1942-3 Broadway Boogie Woogie
Journal of the Institute of Electrical Engineers
1934 first use of term "Raster"
Salvador Dali
Spanish Surrealist Painter, Set Designer & Writer (1904-1989)
1935 Mae West's Face
1951 Raphaelite Head Bursting
1959 The Dream of Columbus
1963 Portrait of My Dead Brother
1963 Royal Tiger
1976 Lincoln in Dalivision
Ellsworth Kelly
American Hard-edge (Abstract Geometric) Painter (1923- )
1951 Seine
1965 Green Red Yellow Blue
1971 Blue Yellow Red III
1990 Orange Red Relief
Roy Lichtenstein
American Pop Artist (1923-1997)
1961 Look Mickey
1963 Magnifying Glass
1964 Nurse
1979 Go for Baroque
1986 Mural with Blue Brushstroke
1988 Reflections Nurse
Sigmar Polke
German Pop Painter and Photographer (1941- )
1963 Dots [Punkte]
1963 Raster Drawing (Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald)
1965 Girlfriends
1966 Bunnies
1971 Nude with Salamanders
MOMA
1965 The Responsive Eye
Phillip Guston
American "Abstract Impressionist" Painter (1913-1980)
1966 interviewed by Harold Rosenberg:
"The trouble with recognizable art
is that it excludes too much.
I want my work to include more.
And 'more' also comprises one's doubts about the object,
plus the problem, the dilemma, of recognizing it."
Carl Andre
American Minimalist Sculptor (1935- )
1967 64 Steel Square
1968 100 Copper Square
1969 144 Magnesium Square
1969 37 Pieces of Work
1971 32 Part Reciprocal Invention
1973 25 Blocks and Stones
Bridget Riley
British Op Artist (1931- )
1968 International prize for painting at Venice Biennial
Science Magazine
1969 first use of term "Pixel"
Nam June Paik
Korean-American Performance and Video Artist (1932- )
1970 quote in Newsweek:
"We are moving in tv away from high fidelity pictures
to low fidelity. From Giotto to Rembrandt
the aim was fidelity to nature. Monet changed all that."
Leon Harmon
American Cyberneticist ( ? - )
1971 reductive portrait of Abraham Lincoln
Scientific American
1973 Article: The Recognition of Faces
(Leon Harmon, cyberneticist, Bell Labs)
1975 first use of term "Fractal"
( Benoit Mandelbrot, mathematician, IBM)
Vija Celmins
Latvian Realist Painter and Sculptor (1939- )
1974 Desert-Galaxy
1991 interviewed by Chuck Close:
"the image is just a sort of armature
on which I hang my marks"
Chuck Close
American Photo-Realist & Minimalist Painter (1940- )
( date approximations)
1968-79 Pure Realism
1976-86 Fractal I (fingerprints, grids)
1986-91 Fractal II (paint dots)
1988 Spinal Incident
1989-95 Fractal III (paint 'lozenges')
I am not aware of any Fractal III paintings before 12/88
Jennifer Bartlett
American Post Modern Painter (1941- )
1976 Rhapsody
1978 Sad and Happy Tidal Wave
1980 In the Garden
1984 Atlantic Ocean
Stan Herd
American Land Artist (1951?- )
1976 Discovery of "Tractor Raster"
1978 saw documentary on Running Fence
1981 Kiowa War Chief Santana (160 acres, "intaglio")
1983 Will Rogers (160 acres, "Crop Art")
1986 Sunflower Still Life (crop art)
1988 Saginaw Grant (30 acres, intaglio)
1992 Little Girl in the Wind (4 acres, "Prairie Art")
1997 portrait of Amelia Earhart
Tony Cragg
British Postmodern Sculptor (1949- )
1977 4 Plates
1979 New Stones - Newton's Stones
1980 Self Portrait on Chair
1982 Green, Yellow, Red, Orange, and Blue Bottles II
1982 Palette
1990 Paul Schimmel:
"He seems to feel that both science and art
find their essence in man's attempt to decode the real."
Elizabeth Murray
American Postmodern Painter and Printmaker (1940- )
1981 Art Part
1985 "I finally realized the meaning of shattering
and putting an image inside the shattered parts
that would make them whole again."
1986 "The image inside is trying to form the pieces
whole again."
1988 Up Dog; Down Dog
Glenn Zucman
American Postmodern Painter and Printmaker (1955- )
1989 Wendy Freeland portrait
1991 Cyndi Liston portrait
1993 Fractal Beth
1994 Bad Lines
1996 The Fun House
1997 Drewbris
Rob Silvers
American Digital Photomosaic Artist (1968- )
1995 portrait of Nicholas Negroponte
1996 portrait of Marilyn Monroe
1997 book: Photomosaics
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