Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

RELATIONSHIPS

Horizontal










Parallel to, in the plane of, or operating in a plane parallel to the horizon or to a base line: Level . . . . Suggests the stable horizon of space . . . .


Aspects of horizontal, diagonal, and vertical space shape profoundly affect perception of the compositional characteristics. We associate such divisions of space with our overwhelming visual familiarity with the layout of things as they appear in the world, and with the cone of sight through which we see into the world. We look out into the world with two eyes, and thus with two sight lines that come together at the object on which they are focusing as they diagonally converge, and so form what is commonly termed the "cone of vision." Hence the horizontal line suggests the stable horizon of space, dividing things into up and down, sky and earth; the diagonal line implies the scope of space seen against the mountainside or cutting the angular form of objects, and so is associated with obtuse or acute energy movements; and the vertical line connotes the motion of space away from earth to a weightless and energy-possessed region escaping gravity. We cannot help but carry these existential associations with us, however abstract the images in which such space shapings appear.

Horizontal. The structural complementary of the vertical is, of course, the horizontal. A child of about three comes up with horizontals and verticals to make so-called Greek crosses, rectangles, standing figures with outstretched arms, and, a year or two later, houses, doors, and windows. We use them as partneres to describe the square, the rectangle, the cross, the post and lintel, and other peculiarly human constructs. Nature creates horizontal and vertical reticulations in the "cracking pattern" of surfaces as different in substance as paint, dried mud, and ceramic glazes.

Horizontal and vertical lines lend character and proportion to each other. They describe the essential two-dimensionality of the surface upon which they are drawn. When they interact, they create open and closed areas associated with tectonics, systems, and structures of all kinds.

[From: Open Structure. In Harlan, Calvin. Vision & Invention, An Introduction to Art Fundamentals. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986.]


R  E  F  E  R  E  N  C  E  S 
Horizontal adj [1555] 1a: of, relating to, or situated near the horizon b: parallel to, in the plane of, or operating in a plane parallel to the horizon or to a base line: Level [__ distance] [__ engine] 2: relating to, directed toward, or consisting of individuals or entities of similar status or on the same level [__ mergers] [__ hostility]

[Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition. Springfield, MA, USA: Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1995.]




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