This week we’re focusing on time - and ironically I’m publishing this blog and the podcast hours later than planned because when I started researching and thinking about this topic it just got more and more fascinating. And I lost track of time.
The most fascinating aspect of time for me at the moment is its power. If you’re listening to this and you have food, friends, a safe place to live and other basics sorted out, then time is probably your most precious possession. Or that one thing in your life there never seems to be enough of. Which makes you feel rushed. Powerless.
This week I’m going to focus on when and how I feel I have plenty of time - and where I feel starved of time.
And when I think about how to note and capture this it poses a very interesting challenge, which artists have been wrestling with over centuries:
How do you show the passing of time in something which essentially freezes time: a still image?
Paul Klee, Die Zeit, close-up
As a jumping-off point I’m looking at an amazing canvas by Paul Klee. It’s currently in a brilliant exhibition on Prehistory in the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
First impressions: a simple, graphic work of art - even though paint is involved it is more a collage than a painting I’d say. And it’s quite rough: this is not a polished work.
It’s a small rectangular canvas covered in overlapping gauze rectangles. Three patches, decreasing in size and positioned at oblique angles, on a being-brown background layer.
The different patches progressively lighten in colour and increase in opacity, starting with the dark, almost black background via beige brown and pink to almost white, with the final one being completely white and opaque.
Now I saw this painting hung on a black background, in a dark room, lit by a spotlight. In this setting, it immediately draws you in.
It makes me think of the clock ticking, ageing process, having no control over the passage of time despite this being such a ‘controlled’ composition. Time slips away. We cannot escape our fate.
More poignantly: Klee painted this work in 1933, the year in which he was forced to flee from Nazi Germany and return to his native Switzerland.
Now one of the things I take away from this picture is this question:
If I wanted to create an abstract picture of time, a clock, how would I do it?
This is something I’ll be thinking about and experimenting with over the coming week.
Other things I’m noticing:
This pictures shows how simple design can support complex concept
Clever use of alternating layers to add both movement and depth
Effectiveness of one single line/stroke
This week, I want you to try and observe what time means for you. And try to capture it.
If you like, you can share your own images and look for those of others using the hashtag #kramerseye on social media.
Vies today’s visual podcast