Fahim,
"Simple"?
As President Clinton's analysis of the word, "is" famously reminds us, it depends what you mean by the word. In fact, I'd argue, the word simple is in itself one of the most complex ideas one could put forward and itself richly branching with meaning. So it's the intent of the artist here that counts. So we each can guess, but that in itself is not simple and there's the irony of it!
I'm glad to have someone else look from a different angle. That's what eventually might make for a fuller understanding.
A child feels..texture. A child sees light, color.
Not that the infant should be the arbiter of the word, "simple", but here, note that the most delicately formed parts are the shadows. They do the work of claiming territory for the objects here. This is likely not to be noticed by the child as it's exploration will be to approach it and put it to its mouth. Things are being defined as objects to like or not. The library of references is being built up.
We, OTOH, have our rich references stores to bring to the image.
the immature visual development at this stage has to be
by necessity limited.
The child sees well. Its cataloging capability is immense and that shows by two a child might even speak two languages with complex ideas such as "IF, x THEN y"
Hence I am a serious proponent of cropped images. Meaning filling the frame with only the essence of something.
The guys who make money running workshops and seminars, (who are all not really artists), push that! However, it's really not a
requirement of art to have a tightly filled screen. Rather it's a fashion. Empty white or black space can act as simple but powerful elements serving to draw out from our own libraries, rich ideas to explain and populate the artwork. Moreover, the very finest transitions or suggestions of lines, textures and shading can be more easily glimpsed and grasped at for meaning within generous space.
Ultimately simplicity might even demand an empty canvas and even that has been done!
The shell is complete. Nothing for the imagination to think. It is identifiable, immediate and loses my interest after a few glances.
To me, it's different. Surprisingly you see this as something merely concrete, albeit somewhat beautiful in form. I see this with the shadows as a complex abstraction, as symbolic. You see a mere shell with no sustainable draw for your interest. To me, however, the whirls of the shell are reminiscent of the piroutting ballerina, the matador prancing and the Dervish dancers twirling. Is it because I have watched so many dancers? Or am I more distracted to loosely linked ideas? Perhaps.
It's indefinite nature allows endless continued speculating.
So it seems here that you can so easily speculate on incompletely explained objects, (and find that interesting) but not at all the ethereal poetics of smudges of color and shade that I find so engaging.
Asher
