Ah bounce yuh wall

A decorative wall painting in a mechanic shop, Trinidad, West Indies

This creative wall painting says it all about speed, perspective and shadow. The typography, "We Install All Parts" is due to the driver picking up a skid and careening through the blue brick wall. Not only does the artist show his skill for the visual three-dimension look, but he also gives the shadow underneath the car a dimension to ponder as he struggles with where it should fall. Painters such as Leonardo da Vinci would be pleased that the lessons in the study of shadow and perspective were overlooked, thus entering a new field of observation called; What the hell is it?.
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PERSPECTIVE by Leonardo da Vinci

1. The vertical plane is a perpendicular line, imagined as in front of the central point where the apex of the pyramids converge. And this plane bears the same relation to this point as a plane of glass would, through which you might see the various objects and draw them on it. The different converging pyramids produced by the objects, will show, on the plane, the various sizes and remoteness of the objects causing them.

2. All those horizontal planes of which the extremes are met by perpendicular lines forming right angles, if they are of equal width the more they rise to the level of eye the less this is seen, and the more the eye is above them the more will their real width be seen.

3. The farther a spherical body is from the eye the more you will see of it. A simple and natural method; showing how objects appear to the eye without any other medium.

4. The object that is nearest to the eye always seems larger than another of the same size at greater distance.

5. How every large mass sends forth its images, which may diminish through infinity. The images of any large mass being infinitely divisible may be infinitely diminished.

6. Objects of equal size, situated in various places, will be seen by different pyramids which will each be smaller in proportion as the object is farther off.

7. Perspective, in dealing with distances, makes use of two opposite pyramids, one of which has its apex in the eye and the base as distant as the horizon. The other has the base towards the eye and the apex on the horizon. Now, the first includes the [visible] universe, embracing all the mass of the objects that lie in front of the eye; as it might be a vast landscape seen through a very small opening; for the more remote the objects are from the eye, the greater number can be seen through the opening, and thus the pyramid is constructed with the base on the horizon and the apex in the eye, as has been said. The second pyramid is extended to a spot which is smaller in proportion as it is farther from the eye; and this second perspective [pyramid] results from the first.

8. Simple perspective is that which is constructed by art on a vertical plane which is equally distant from the eye in every part. Complex perspective is that which is constructed on a ground-plan in which none of the parts are equally distant from the eye.

10. No surface can be seen exactly as it is, if the eye that sees it is not equally remote from all its edges. When an object opposite the eye is brought too close to it, its edges must become too confused to be distinguished; as it happens with objects close to a light, which cast a large and indistinct shadow, so is it with an eye which estimates objects opposite to it.

11. In all cases of linear perspective, the eye acts in the same way as the light. And the reason is that the eye has one leading line (of vision) which dilates with distance and embraces with true discernment large objects at a distance as well as small ones that are close. But since the eye sends out a multitude of lines which surround this chief central one and since these which are farthest from the centre in this cone of lines are less able to discern with accuracy, it follows that an object brought close to the eye is not at a due distance, but is too near for the central line to be able to discern the outlines of the object. So the edges fall within the lines of weaker discerning power, and these are to the function of the eye like dogs in the chase which can put up the game but cannot take it. Thus these cannot take in the objects, but induce the central line of sight to turn upon them, when they have put them up. Hence the objects which are seen with these lines of sight have confused outlines. The relative size of objects with regard to their distance from the eye.

12. Small objects close at hand and large ones at a distance, being seen within equal angles, will appear of the same size. There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the
eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

13. Among objects of equal size that which is most remote from the eye will look the smallest.

14. Why an object is less distinct when brought near to the eye, and why with spectacles, or without the naked eye sees badly either close or far off [as the case may be].

15. Among objects of equal size, that which is most remote from the eye will look the smallest.

16. No second object can be so much lower than the first as that the eye will not see it higher than the first, if the eye is above the second.

17. And this second object will never be so much higher than the first as that the eye, being below them, will not see the second as lower than the first.

18. If the eye sees a second square through the centre of a smaller one, that is nearer, the second, larger square will appear to be surrounded by the smaller one.

19. Objects that are farther off can never be so large but that those in front, though smaller, will conceal or surround them.

20. This proposition can be proved by experiment. For if you look through a small hole there is nothing so large that it cannot be seen through it and the object so seen appears surrounded and enclosed by the outline of the sides of the hole. And if you stop it up, this small stopping will conceal the view of the largest object.

21. Linear Perspective deals with the action of the lines of sight, in proving by measurement how much smaller is a second object than the first, and how much the third is smaller than the second; and so on by degrees to the end of things visible. I find by experience that if a second object is as far beyond the first as the first is from the eye, although they are of the same size, the second will seem half the size of the first and if the third object is of the same size as the 2nd, and the 3rd is as far beyond the second as the 2nd from the first, it will appear of half the size of the second; and so on by degrees, at equal distances, the next farthest will be half the size of the former object. So long as the space does not exceed the length of 20 braccia. But, beyond 20 braccia figures of equal size will lose 2/4 and at 40 braccia they will lose 9/10, and 19/20 at 60 braccia, and so on diminishing by degrees. This is if the picture plane is distant from you twice your own height. If it is only as far off as your own height, there will be a great difference between the first braccia and the second.

22. A second object as far distant from the first as the first is from the eye will appear half the size of the first, though they be of the same size really.

23. If you place the vertical plane at one braccio from the eye, the first object, being at a distance of 4 braccia from your eye will diminish to 3/4 of its height at that plane; and if it is 8 braccia from the eye, to 7/8; and if it is 16 braccia off, it will diminish to 15/16 of its height and so on by degrees, as the space doubles the diminution will double.

24. Begin from the line _m f_ with the eye below; then go up and do the same with the line _n f_, then with the eye above and close to the 2 gauges on the ground look at _m n_; then as _c m_ is to _m n_ so will _n m_ be to _n s_. If _a n_ goes 3 times into _f b, m p_ will do the same into _p g_. Then go backwards so far as that _c d_ goes twice into _a n_ and _pg_ will be equal to _g h_. And _m p_ will go into _h p_ as often as_d c_ into _o p_.

Although the objects seen by the eye do, in fact, touch each other as they recede, I will nevertheless found my rule on spaces of 20 braccia each; as a musician does with notes, which, though they can be carried on one into the next, he divides into degrees from note to note calling them 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th; and has affixed a name to each degree in raising or lowering the voice. Let _f_ be the level and distance of the eye; and _a_ the vertical plane, as high as a man; let _e_ be a man, then I say that on the plane this will be the distance from the plane to the 2nd man.

The differences in the diminution of objects of equal size in consequence of their various remoteness from the eye will bear among themselves the same proportions as those of the spaces between the eye and the different objects.

25. Find out how much a man diminishes at a certain distance and what its length is; and then at twice that distance and at 3 times, and so make your general rule.

26. The eye cannot judge where an object high up ought to descend.

27. If two similar and equal objects are placed one beyond the other at a given distance the difference in their size will appear greater in proportion as they are nearer to the eye that sees them. And conversely there will seem to be less difference in their size in proportion as they are remote from the eve.

28. This is proved by the proportions of their distances among themselves; for, if the first of these two objects were as far from the eye, as the 2nd from the first this would be called the second proportion: since, if the first is at 1 braccia from the eye and the 2nd at two braccia, two being twice as much as one, the first object will look twice as large as the second. But if you place the first at a hundred braccia from you and the second at a hundred and one, you will find that the first is only so much larger than the second as 100 is less than 101; and the converse is equally true. And again, the same thing is proved by the 4th of this book which shows that among objects that are equal, there is the same proportion in the diminution of the size as in the increase in the distance from the eye of the spectator.

29. The practice of perspective may be divided into ... parts. The space for the number is left blank in the of which the first treats of objects seen by the eye at any distance; and it shows all these objects just as the eye sees them diminished, without obliging a man to stand in one place rather than another so long as the plane does not produce a second foreshortening.

30. But the second practice is a combination of perspective derived partly from art and partly from nature and the work done by its rules is in every portion of it, influenced by natural perspective and artificial perspective. By natural perspective I mean that the plane on which this perspective is represented is a flat surface, and this plane, although it is parallel both in length and height, is forced to diminish in its remoter parts more than in its nearer ones. And this is proved by the first of what has been said above, and its diminution is natural. But artificial perspective, that is that which is devised by art, does the contrary; for objects equal in size increase on the plane where it is foreshortened in proportion as the eye is more natural and nearer to the plane, and as the part of the plane on which it is figured is farther from the eye.

31. And let this plane be _d e_ on which are seen 3 equal circles which are beyond this plane _d e_, that is the circles _a b c_. Now you see that the eye _h_ sees on the vertical plane the sections of the images, largest of those that are farthest and smallest of the nearest.

32. Natural perspective acts in a contrary way; for, at greater distances the object seen appears smaller, and at a smaller distance the object appears larger. But this said invention requires the spectator to stand with his eye at a small hole and then, at that small hole, it will be very plain. But since many (men's) eyes endeavour at the same time to see one and the same picture produced by this artifice only one can see clearly the effect of this perspective and all the others will see confusion. It is well therefore to avoid such complex perspective and hold to simple perspective which does not regard planes as foreshortened, but as much as possible in their proper form. This simple perspective, in which the plane intersects the pyramids by which the images are conveyed to the eye at an equal distance from the eye is our constant experience, from the curved form of the pupil of the eye on which the pyramids are intersected at an equal distance from the visual virtue.

33. This diagram distinguishes natural from artificial perspective. But before proceeding any farther I will define what is natural and what is artificial perspective. Natural perspective says that the more remote of a series of objects of equal size will look the smaller, and conversely, the nearer will look the larger and the apparent size will diminish in proportion to the distance. But in artificial perspective when objects of unequal size are placed at various distances, the smallest is nearer to the eye than the largest and the greatest distance looks as though it were the least of all; and the cause of this is the plane on which the objects are represented; and which is at unequal distances from the eye throughout its length. And this diminution of the plane is natural, but the perspective shown upon it is artificial since it nowhere agrees with the true diminution of the said plane. Whence it follows, that when the eye is somewhat removed from the [station point of the] perspective that it has been gazing at, all the objects represented look monstrous, and this does not occur in natural perspective, which has been defined above. Let us say then, that the square _a b c d_ figured above is foreshortened being seen by the eye situated in the centre of the side which is in front. But a mixture of artificial and natural perspective will be seen in this tetragon called _el main_ that is to say _e f g h_ which must appear to the eye of the spectator to be equal to _a b c d_ so long as the eye remains in its first position between _c_ and _d_. And this will be seen to have a good effect, because the natural perspective of the plane will conceal the defects which would [otherwise] seem monstrous.

What he know? - Leonardo Da Vinci

This is a painting taken in a drinking bar in Trinidad and Tobago, the work was produced nearly fifty years ago and it shows a time when Trinidad was the idyllic place it once was.

A painter ought to be curious to hear the opinions of everyone on his work Certainly while a man is painting he ought not to shrink from hearing every opinion. For we know very well that a man, though he may not be a painter, is familiar with the forms of other men and very capable of judging whether they are hump backed, or have one shoulder higher or lower than the other, or too big a mouth or nose, and other defects; and, as we know that men are competent to judge of the works of nature, how much more ought we to admit that they can judge of our errors; since you know how much a man may be deceived in his own work. And if you are not conscious of this in yourself study it in others and profit by their faults.

Therefore be curious to hear with patience the opinions of others, consider and weigh well whether those who find fault have ground or not for blame, and, if so amend; but, if not make as though you had not heard, or if he should be a man you esteem show him by argument the cause of his mistake. - Leonardo Da Vinci notebooks 1452-1519 ................................................................................................................................................................

When Leonardo Da Vinci devised his thoughts on the ethics of paintings, we should consider that in regard to the judgment of a painter's work, the opinions of others is based on the representation in terms of rendering the (person or thing) as close to the forms in reality. A painted apple should take on the appearance of the fruit in weight, texture and perspective space. The artist ability to do so would be critique if his work failed and an open ear may give answers to the work's inaccuracies. The artist should take this as constructive criticism rather than to mull over the faults of the viewer.

When we think of twentieth century art and the looser forms of art expression devised in modernism, the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), for an example simplified the (person or thing) to mere shapes and outlines. This could be seen as a cop-out but make no doubt, Picasso could formally paint. The question here is how do we judge this form of representation and what references do we have to compare it with other than an abstraction of it.

Luis Buñuel - Un chien andalou - The right to imagine

Somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination - Luis Buñuel


I wonder what this box contains?

The Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel believed that memory was coherence to our reasoning, feelings and action. Without it, he said, we were nothing. In 1929, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali both produced the film Un chien andalou sparking the very notion of voyeurism, delusion and shock.

Un chien andalou is a journey into fetishism from a hallucinated-dream state brought to life by the moving picture, and by Salvador Dali's subconsciousness. His inner urge to express these layering motifs are reconstructed by Luis Buñuel's beautifully orchestrated cinema photography particularly with his play on shadows. The sixteen minute silent film is considered a cinematic masterpiece with its surreal imagery capped with a sadistic deviancy. Un chien andalou shows the power of thought and the possibility of truly duplicating the lines between reality verses falsehood, and toying with the desires of, What if.

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Pertaining to the object of painting, photography and film, these art forms survive in the human consciousness because of its seductiveness to replicate a memory closes to reality. Film, for an example can draw in the viewer into a place where his emotions can be triggered by a similar experience. Only the sensory of touch is missing.

Azure sky - Leonardo Da Vinci

The blueness we see in the atmosphere is not intrinsic colour, but is caused by warm vapour evaporated in minute and insensible atoms on which the solar rays fall, rendering them luminous against the infinite darkness of the fiery sphere which lies beyond and includes it. And this may be seen, as I saw it by any one going up to the peak of the Alps which divide France from Italy.

The base of this mountain gives birth to the four rivers which flow in four different directions through the whole of Europe. And no mountain has its base at so great a height as this, which lifts itself almost above the clouds; and snow seldom falls there, but only hail in the summer, when the clouds are highest. And this hail lies there, so that if it were not for the absorption of the rising and falling clouds, which does not happen twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice would be piled up there by the hail, and in the middle of July I found it very considerable. There I saw above me the dark sky, and the sun as it fell on the mountain was far brighter here than in the plains below, because a smaller extent of atmosphere lay between the summit of the mountain and the sun.

Again, as an illustration of the colour of the atmosphere I will mention the smoke of old and dry wood, which, as it comes out of a chimney, appears to turn very blue, when seen between the eye and the dark distance. But as it rises, and comes between the eye and the bright atmosphere, it at once shows of an ashy grey colour and this happens because it no longer has darkness beyond it, but this bright and luminous space. If the smoke is from young, green wood, it will not appear blue, because, not being transparent and being full of superabundant moisture, it has the effect of condensed clouds which take distinct lights and shadows like a solid body.

The same occurs with the atmosphere, which, when overcharged with moisture appears white, and the small amount of heated moisture makes it dark, of a dark blue colour; and this will suffice us so far as concerns the colour of the atmosphere; though it might be added that, if this transparent blue were the natural colour of the atmosphere, it would follow that wherever a larger mass air intervened between the eye and the element of fire, the azure colour would be more intense; as we see in blue glass and in sapphires, which are darker in proportion as they are larger.

But the atmosphere in such circumstances behaves in an opposite manner, in as much as where a greater quantity of it lies between the eye and the sphere of fire, it is seen much whiter. This occurs towards the horizon. And the less the extent of atmosphere between the eye and the sphere of fire, the deeper is the blue colour, as may be seen even on low plains. Hence it follows, as I say, that the atmosphere assumes this azure hue by reason of the particles of moisture which catch the rays of the sun.

Again, we may note the difference in particles of dust, or particles of smoke, in the sun beams admitted through holes into a dark chamber, when the former will look ash grey and the thin smoke will appear of a most beautiful blue; and it may be seen again in the dark shadows of distant mountains when the air between the eye and those shadows will look very blue, though the brightest parts of those mountains will not differ much from their true colour. But if any one wishes for a final proof let him paint a board with various colours, among them an intense black; and over all let him lay a very thin and transparent white. He will then see that this transparent white will nowhere show a more beautiful blue than over the black, but it must be very thin and finely ground. Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks (1452-1519)

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Pertaining to the study of meteorology and atmospheric phenomena, it can be deduced that Leonardo Da Vinci used this method as a colour chart to accurately match the time of day he wished his paintings to be set. In Western Art, no other than the painter William Turner, 1775-1851, expressed the beauty of the elements of nature with his landscapes of water, fire and air. Above, from thebookmann series of classic Gods; Zeus and Venus superimposed over the Caribbean skies.

The deadly sins in Art

Nothing we make or do can last for eternity

As it is reported, a man climbed over the guardrail of the chapel of the Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica and wheeled a hammer to the Madonna's left arm, it sheared off. He also smashed the nose and left eyelid of the marble sculpture. A work which took a toll of the young Italian sculptor for over two years.

Michelangelo's feat was that he encased both figures as one piece and the marble's grain had to be precise in every aspect so that the Virgin's lap was the center of balance. Here is were her son lay.

Yet, in the frenzy, in the assailant's quest for infamy, his actions proved the power which art possess, that is of its beholden truth, in its self sacrifice, in the blisters and weeping nights. From a block of stone, the form, the expression and weight conceptualized in the mind before Michelangelo wheeled at the marble with his chisel. The man found that by attempting to destroy an irreplaceable masterpiece, it could reflect on the fragility of man, and his man-made objects. In seconds, parts of the sculpture was reduced to dust. Nothing we make or do can last for entity.

The damaged Pietà by Michelangelo, 1499
Marble 68.5 × 76.8 in
St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

Left: The 33 year old assailant striking the Pietà, in May of 1972 at the St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

Albrecht Dürer's perspective

Albrecht Dürer is much known for his copper engraving, but he also devised the means in which the line, geometry and perspective were an essential part of composing. The devisions of the human body could be calculated mathematically and Dürer stressed that with drawing any object, the proportion and weight was needed to give a realistic sense of what was observed.

With these superimposed portraits painted between the period 1493 and 1500, Albrecht Dürer viewed himself as an noble man, equating himself to the deity of the Christian faith. Yet, it is in his work, in the simple life of the peasant, and the representation of his Deutschland that bequeaths his legacy.

The futurist - Leonardo da Vinci

The futurist
What would Leonardo da Vinci think of the world today? Or did he ever envision the future in five hundred years? How would we describe, the photograph, the moving images of film, the era of television or the internet to him? What would he think of art today, and of the overwhelming resonance in his work centuries later?

Leonardo da Vinci believed in observation. He sorted out the habits of living things in nature and drew a conclusion.To fully understand he dissected every object to see its structure of which he could build upon it. And like the seed that resembles a helicopter, he envisioned the possibilities of flight by duplicating its form. He looked at a turtle's shell and saw the possibilities for protective armored cart. He saw that life gave all the answers to the mystery of man in his need to define himself above all things yet not flight.

In art, painting brought the pleasure to capturing a moment of perfect bliss, the sitter relayed in their temptation for immortality. As with the portrait of Lisa Gherardini, he manged to merge a part of himself with the sitter as if he painted her from memory. It was a portrait of her, through him. And this is where Art is, as it shall to capture the human spirit, and stop time for eternity.

In Light, shading and stillness, cloaked from the darkness into light an Artist must protect all things dear to him. if one sees and believes what is truth.

And so for the answer, what would he think? Man has not changed in his quest for more.

Mona Lisa
La Gioconda,
Leonardo da Vinci, circa 1503–1506
Oil on wood
77 × 53 cm, 30 × 21 in
Musée du Louvre, Paris

Note: The most beautiful part of this painting is the left hand

What makes Art good?

Between sex and temptation, self-destruction and compassion for his subjects, a man records his existence and purpose.

If you do not know this image, take a guess as to when it was made. 2006, 1960’s, 1990’s ? How about 1886. This is the work of Henri Toulouse Lautrec, a truly prolific painter and graphic designer, immortalized in the film Moulin Rouge a few years ago, starring Nichole Kidman. This painting of his looks as though he is still alive and painted it yesterday, and that, above all else is one of the ingredients to making Art not only good, but GREAT!

This work single handedly says to artists to follow your passion for what you do. Try not to get too steeped in all of the hype and technology, unless it really can propel your work forward, This work tells us about honesty with media and material, about unselfconsciousness, about working for yourself because you want to. Lautrec did not live a sanitized life, and this, his “Red” may have contributed to his early death by a sexually transmitted disease. However, of his many, many masterful works, this is a gem.

I first saw it in black and white in an art history book and my heart raced as though I had been running. The atmosphere or sfumato, invented by Leonardo Da Vinci is very present in the piece. It looked like a photograph and not a painting at first. Then it looked so contemporary that I had to study it further. I practically found myself nodding and smiling like someone who discovers some hidden money in a coat pocket. I was so jolted by its delightful simplicity, directness and beauty. He has captured her in turning, the gesture as intimate as if she were unclothed. The proportion of the body in regard to its space and the colours used, so controlled, yet seemingly effortless brushstroking, the dark of the glass behind her back, the light looking forward on the other side…such poetry, such artifice and in a word, sublime. - Adele

Where art speaks truly to us -

Where art speaks truly to us - a when a man gave his life to it.....

Incomplete, Pietà Rondanini, 1564. Marble. Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy.

The bookman came across his archives of photographs which in 1994, he photographed Michelangelo Buonarroti’s last incomplete sculpture, the Pietà Rondanini at the Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy. This shows the desired which Michelangelo believed that one should never stop at what they are beholden to. Unlike the urge of sex which kept Pablo Picasso's desire for art going, but soon withered after his lost his virility.

A mother and child Michelangelo, love for sculpture, not painting.

Michelangelo could carve his sculpture from a single block of marble and he could alter the form as he visualized it in the process.

Michelangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti

Shitting stones


David in pampers, St. James, Port of Spain, Trinidad

In the vaults below Bill Gates' estate, in his vast collection of journals and notebooks from artists from the Renaissance, a square leather crafted handbook once belonging to Michelangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti highlights his crowning achievement. Written in the margin, the Italian sculptor writes;

“To my achieving act as God’s abiding servant, shall the heart of man bring forth, my humblest statue David shall be transformed to the island of Trinity, there he shall be clothed, only then shall God rest.”

Believe it on not, Michaelangelo’s intolerance to the hypocrisies of clergymen allowed him to immortalize their portraits by cleverly disguising the their faces into his fresco paintings as the penis heads of the male nudes not clearly visible from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.


The statue of David, clothed with what appears to be a packed and soiled Preveil Protective adult pamper.

Michelangelo once remarked, "The accuracy of carving feet posed his greatest challenge". Placed outside the Palazzo Vecchio, the sculpture stands at 14' 3'' tall.

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What is astonishing about this billboard is that some thought must have taken place to fuse these three elements together.

1. The statue of David
2. A young female model #
3. One large pamper

#. Bed-wetting not only affects the aged, but the young, the beautiful and the feminine. The woman in the sign is simply comfortable with the garment bunched around her waist.
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This sign does not exist anymore