Fourth of Four in the Series, Checkmate at Dawn
Forth of Four in the series Checkmate at Dawn
Here, the familiarity of the daytime sort of visual experience comes to eye. You might be used to seeing your way around at night and wonder what the fuss is all about, but back in the sixties -- the nineteen sixties -- when it was night time, and you were in a place without outdoor lighting, unless you had a portable light like a flashlight, you weren't going anywhere, it was so dark. Now in most areas of the World, city development is so great that the city lights refracted in the atmosphere can indirectly give you enough light to vaguely see a slight bit outdoors even if you live in the adjoining countryside. But back then, it was weird how about sundown, you had to plan ahead if you were anywhere where it wasn't lit up.
So this series also reflects the era I was living in, I guess. Back then they had night vision devices, as I found out the next year when I joined the army, but they were so cumbersome back in those days that they could only be used in fixed emplacements or when carried in a vehicle or for limited distances. In the future, they might acquire the technology of microbioluminecence to produce a device that can operate without power and is only as cumbersome as a pair of glasses.
Using the abstract expressionist technique pioneered by Kandinski, but also I used in my primitive years before I studied the other artists, I can get the image down soon enough to retain the freshness of the vision or impression and to set into the composition the color in good combination with suitable contrast and value, that gives the opportunity to experience the spontaneity of abstract expressionism with a minimal availability of the familiar frame of reference of the familiar landscape sort of viewing we all experience daily in our lives, though for many, it's a cityscape sort of view.
Click here to go to the first in the series of four, Checkmate at Dawn.
Click here to go to the Checkmate at Dawn basic page.
Click here to go to Premonitions of The Checkmate at Dawn.