FORM GENERATION – AN EXAMPLE

Modernist paintings can be great form generators.

Two months ago, we questioned why the iconic modernist painters were content to manipulate two dimensional forms on a two dimensional picture plane.  See the page Modernist Form Givers.  The forms in a typical Picasso Cubist painting are essentially flat.  The shapes that LeCorbusier painted on his canvases are most assuredly flat.  With rare exceptions (Duschamp Nude Descending), they painted flat.

Just because they were content to paint flat shapes does not mean that these paintings are of no interest to us.  Far from it, in fact.  These flat paintings can be amazing form and space generators, if we employ transparency on our papers.

The drawing at the top of the page was generated from this painting, titled Pink Angels, by DeKooning.  Lately, I have become enchanted with the fluid improvisational feelings of his paintings.  And his drawings are just as amazing.  You might check out a sampling of DeKooning’s drawings at this general location.

To generate the forms in my drawing, I was particularly interested in the lavender shapes in the painting.  I used these dominant two dimensional shapes as three dimensional form generators.  I drew some of the lavender shapes near the top of my paper as if to give a suggestion to the ceiling and how light might enter the space.  And I drew some of the lavender shapes on the lower part of my paper.  I also employed the general colors and tones of the painting, using principally lavender and orange.

I was able to generate a drawing with a series of forms and shapes which I would not have done otherwise.  Did I draw a coherent space?  No.  Yet just as there are dominant forms in DeKooning’s painting, I also was able to establish primary forms in my fantasy space.

So while my perspective above did not yield a coherent and rationalized form and space, my drawing from drawing below did yield a coherent assembly of shapes.

I utilized the primary forms that I generated in the top drawing.  And then I focused on the creation of a rationalized enclosure and form.  There is no doubt that this could be a building.  And if built, there would be a fresh set of forms with a unique layering.

So in this last drawing, I am utilizing some of the core methods of Transparent Drawing.  We are generating fresh forms.  We are keeping our Design Quotient high.  We are revealing the provenance of our forms. We are drawing from drawing.

In summary, we started with an interesting modernist painting that was an arrangement of two dimensional forms.  We used the basic geometry of the painting to generate a unique yet unresolved interior space.  And then we used what we learned from the interior drawing to create a resolved building enclosure.