Creating a Modernist Image and Mindfulness

I have written previously on how to use Mindfulness with Modernist artwork to help with Mindfulness. This time I take that process a stage further.

Mindfulness is essentially accepting that a troubled and stressed mind often cones from the mind spending time building up the negative elements by concentrating on thinking about things that have happened in the past, allowing these thoughts to grow and weigh down on the individual. The same is true of planning and anticipating the future - what might go wrong. Mindfulness encourages the mind to concentrate in the now - homing in on the realities of what is currently happening to your body and the environment it is in. A big part of this is what is visually happening right now. This is where this video comes in.

In my previous article I described how staring at a Digital Modernist image and really concentrating your thoughts on the detail of that image ( call it meditating if you like ) can help with mindfulness. The better option is of course to spend time concentrating on the visual as you create such a piece of digital imagery. Not everyone can do this, however. Lack of experience, skill and software are three obvious reasons why this is not going to be practical for many people. For many the solution will be for you to watch such a piece of artwork being created and concentrating on the changes as each step in the creation is worked through on the screen. You simply watch the changing image as it develops on your screen.

When doing such mindfulness activities it is important to do this in the right "frame of mind". This means getting your mind ready and open for the level of concentration that will be most helpful. 

• Make sure you start by breathing slowly and deeper than usual. 
• Try to notice where you are feeling the effect of this breathing ( on the chest as it expands, air going through the nostril or mouth, stomach rising and falling, etc )
• Keep this up for a minute or so.
• Now try to stay aware of the breathing but shift some of your concentration on the changing image on the screen.
• Watch the screen very carefully as the images slowly changes and develops
• Try to identify where there are changes - no judgements, just observation
• keep checking in on your concentration by picking up changes in colour, movements of elements of the image etc
• When the image stops changing you will see a black dot starting to appear. As that happens go back to really concentrating on your deep breathing.
• Keep this breathing going until you feel ready to go back to everyday life in a much calmer condition.

Here is the video ready for you to start being visually mindful....

To view in full screen go to the YouTube video in a new tab. 

Click here

(YouTube Video)

More of these videos will be created as time goes by. Please subscribe to keep up on all new Mindful videos from The Digital Modernist. See more articles on the Digital Modernist website

A Journey through (Modernist) Art History

A Journey Through (Art) History

Just as an exercise in taking an almost totally random approach to viewing some of the best pieces of art in the Modernist era, I have produced a video that highlights some of the best during the Modernist styles from Impressionism in the 1870s through to Bauhaus developments up to the 1960s.

The Covered Lane by Paul-Auguste Renoir

The Impressionists started a reaction against the orthodoxy by criticising the French Academy of Fine Arts because they consistently rejected their works by not allowing them into the Galleries. Eventually they created their own exhibition of "rejects". This started a lot of discussion about the hold that very traditional art "experts" were having on limiting creativity. It was also the start of Modernism - a movement to disrupt the centuries old stifling strangle hold on what was acceptable by a small elite of artists and dealers.

It was only a few years before art 

of the Cubist style was acceptable

Cubism was such a startling move away from the Classical "Realism" of the pre 1870s. Georges Braques and Pablo Picasso worked in partnership to create a completely new approach to art - Cubism was born.

By 1927 the Bauhaus movement had made

Design and Art very close and Art was seen 

as a way to influence the way people lived.

By the 1920s the De Stijl movements and Bauhaus had moved abstract artwork into the mainstream and popularised it. They built Bauhaus furniture, built Bauhaus buildings and created fonts for printing. It was Art for a purpose.

To see more pieces of artwork in this journey take a look at this short video :

Italian Futurists and Digital Modernism

Futurism was a style of art that grew in the early part of the 20th century and was centred on Italy, especially Northern Italy. It used techniques of abstraction in the same way as the earlier Cubists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque had done, but it added a sense of motion. The way that it did this was by repeating the examples of a static object - usually some kind of machinery - to create the illusion of motion.

Here is an example of Futurist Art.

Tullio Crali  -  Bombardamento Aereo (1937)

You will see that in this picture there is another element of Futurism and that is the militaristic focus. The movement was very much a standard bearer for Power - both the power of machinery in all its forms and for the power of the state in a military conflict.

Felippo Tomasso Marinetti - Factory

Ivo Pannaggi - Speeding Train

When studying this group's work in the 21st Century I wanted to created a form of Futurism that used the same stylistic components, but applying them to the very much changed new century. At first I concentrated on the way that current methods of creating images had changed what is possible in terms of the artworks created. For example how could the manipulation of images using Photoshop make a difference to what could be created ?

Futurist 1 by Peter Leech

This image used Photoshop to create what are now called Fractals - repeated patterns of an image to create a composite image that adds to the original basic shape. There is a lot more cynicism about the effects of War in this century and people are far more sceptical about the benefits of State Power. That element has now, therefore, been played down.

Here is a further example of this :-

Futurist 2  by Peter Leech

The second part of the development of this early 20th century style was to concentrate the focus more on the power of machinery. The most common and easily recognisable piece of machinery is probably the car. Whilst these were not unknown in the original Futurist period, applying modern digital techniques allows the artist to consider single elements in a vehicle rather than simply the overall shape. Individual panels can be selected and manipulated to form new shapes, still deriving from the original automobile part. Lights are probably the biggest single design feature of the differences between modern cars and these also can create a range of new dynamic shapes to build into a total piece of artwork.

Here are a few examples :-

Audi A1 Exhaust Pipe and rear Lights by Peter Leech

Futurist Mini Cooper S by Peter Leech

Mitsubishi Mirage Fish by Peter Leech

Mitsubishi Mirage  by Peter Leech

My plan is to extend this idea and build up a whole collection of Post Modern Futurist Images of the power of the modern automobile as a classic piece of technology. Watch out for more details.

Please feel free to write comments to the blog about the ideas and the images shown in the articles.

Mindfulness Through Modernist Art

Modernism is, by its very nature an abstract set of art styles. It does not try to recreate a realistic view of visual reality. This makes it very useful for Mindfulness.

Throwing yourself into creating a piece of Modernist art can focus your mind on the changing detail that you see as you create. You are forced into concentration on both the big picture and the tiny details. They are not simply visual recreations of what you see around you - they are abstract shapes and relationships that appear on the page. You become immersed in in colour and shape and placement of these shapes.

This does not restrict Mindfulness to those who create Modernist art. You can study a piece of this art to allow your mind to set aside thoughts of the past and worries of the future. Make the artwork the "here and now" to get your mind into thinking about the present. Many sources suggest watching a brightly coloured butterfly to achieve the same thing. Modernist art has the additional advantage that it is not a moving creature in its own environment. It does not allow your mind to start to think things such as " Does this mean more caterpillars on my plants ? "; "Why are there less butterflies this year than last ?"  and so on.

Instead of a colourful butterfly, try concentrating on this Modernist image. 

( A larger version of this image can be found here. This can be downloaded for free.)

• Start by breathing a little slower than you normally would. Feel the breath come into your body. Breath through your nose and feel the breath come in through the nostrils and leave the body on the out breath through the nose too.

• As you are doing this start to really look hard at the image above. Look carefully at the centre and then let your mind slowly move the attention to the next shapes moving out from the centre. All the time keep trying to feel the slow breathing inside your nostrils. 

• As you are studying the image try to think of the colours. How many different ones can you see ? Do the colours feel calming or exciting ? Then concentrate more on the lines. First of all try to identify all of the patterns based on straight lines. Do the colours clash with the lines or do they compliment them ? Are the curved lines more attractive to you than the straight lines ? Which colour is your favourite ? 

 

• Ask your self other questions that come into the mind as you study it. 

• When you feel that you can't get any more out of it just carry on breathing slowly through the nose, but slowly let your eyes closed so that you can only sense the breath coming in and out of your body through the nose. 

• Count the breaths in and out - 1 for in 2 for out, 3 for in 4 for out, and so on until you get to 10. Then count breaths down from 10 to 0. Open your eyes and get on with the rest of your day - feeling calmer and more relaxed.