Wolfgang Metzger’s “Laws of Seeing” is an important ordeal to read. Within the confines of his book, he explores the areas of thought process designers use, balanced with perceptual appearance of how the viewer interprets the designed artwork. I wish I had a tangible copy of this book for future reference, and so that I could have highlighted portions for consultation purposes later. Metzger rapidly engaged me with multiple graphic examples of his theories and research upon perception, illumination, Gestalt, Spatial proximity, and shape. By far I felt that a great majority of the book was dealing with a basic but important Gestalt principle of proximity. “ We can also test which is more important for grasping the words, the meaning or the in-between space.”(Metzger page 29) Time and again he emphasized proximity as major influence upon design and in turn perspective. It is like red bricks in a pile. All alone they are clutter, but with proper arrangement, you can build a walkway, barbeque, or even a house.
Specific “aha” moments I had during the reading mostly came in chapter 5, when dealing with Gestalt Laws serving as camouflage. I think in about fourth or fifth grade we learned about chameleons and other animals in nature that have the ability to hide them selves in their natural environment. I guess I never really thought about how widespread and calculated throughout nature this actually is. It is mind boggling to think about the animals that have adapted individual portions of their bodies for specific environments, as is the case with the common seagull, which has body patterns for both his upper and lower body. Also interesting was the animals with reverse adaptations to conventional cloaking through gestalt. I think he specifically mentioned apes, which do not retain the similar color as their surrounding, but utilize the space between plant and tree, finding security in the absence of bright bold colors. This in turn makes me view the military’s strategy for color application in a different light. I came across a factoid years ago, regarding a similar use of borderless color camouflage. During World War II, American and British fighter planes, painted their underside either sky blue, or murky gray depending on the actual location of the mission so as to appear invisible when viewed from below.
The Pragnanz Tendency, which dealt with solid objects becoming transparent almost to a point of invisibility, also interested me. While reading Chapter 8, I could not help thinking of Adobe Illustrator and In Design specifically (though other Adobe programs utilize transparency, I am most familiar with these two). I also thought of the spinning paintings you used to be able to create at the Puyallup Fair. I can’t believe I never really understood, how proximity and balance could greatly affect the transparency of an object, as was the case with the “blobs” on page 126. Though two separate pieces when placed properly they become one cohesive object, and skewed slightly become two. Though it is obviously logical that a whole design appears as one object, the use of shadow boxes can make multiple objects show depth, contrast, and movement while appearing as one whole when viewed straight on.
Because we read so very much in a short time I cannot keep all the individual subjects separate from each other, but I can easily see how “Seeing Black and White” (Alan Gilchrist) and “Ways of Seeing” (John Berger) work in conjunction with each other. All three authors touch on the meaning and applications of perspective in design, but for some reason I found Berger to be a little easier to understand Berger he has an excerpt from a 1923 article by Dziga Vertov, who said “I’m an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it.” Although Metzger purported this, it took Vertov to make me understand it. It is easily evidenced throughout history as perception according to the artist, and not always to the client requesting the work.
Da Vinci began an early example of this when he “finished” the Sistine Chapel, only to spread white paint over his work, and spend years up on a scaffold creating a masterpiece he thought more fitting that what the church had originally envisioned. When reading Metzer and then Gilchrist I came to understand the difference between illumination and light. Illumination is the reflectivity of light upon a surface, while light is our eyes perception of the illumination. Now I really want to go see a laser rock show and cogitate on my findings.
