Leann Davis Alspaugh at Acroteria:
Recently, I read “The Pleasures of Patterns in Art” by Samuel Jay Keyser, a theoretical linguist at MIT. This essay, adapted from Keyser’s book Play It Again, Sam: Repetition in the Arts, is an engrossing mix of art appreciation, art history, and visual theory—an unbeatable combination for an art critic and designer.
Keyser opens by writing about how repetition and variation work in Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877). You don’t have to have a degree from MIT to figure out why this painting is great—that is patently obvious. Caillebotte could paint interiors and exteriors, country gardens and Parisian vistas; my favorites are his paintings of crews refinishing the hardwood floors of a Paris flat. He was considered an Impressionist but, unlike some of his peers, Caillebotte aimed for psychological realism, depicting modern life through snapshots of intimate moments with distinctly individual protagonists.
More here.
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