The Eye of the Beholder

 

 The Taj Mahal in Agra, India, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, are two of the world’s most iconic buildings.   They both evoke passionate emotions, even love, despite being  on opposite ends of the historical and architectural spectrum. 

 

 

Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Built with translucent white marble and inlaid with gems from China, Tibet, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and the Arabian peninsula

 

 In both buildings shape, size, scale, proportion, texture, color, and light  work together to spectacular effect, but very simple structures can also be designed to bring aesthetic pleasure.

 

 

Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain
Constructed with a steel frame covered with titanium sheathing

 

What makes things pleasing to our eyes, and how can the design of everything from majestic buildings to simple utilitarian structures bring delight?

 

 

Kyoto, Japan

 

For centuries, there has been documented evidence that people have preferences for structures in the built environment and in the natural environment that have certain geometric  proportions known as the golden ratio or golden proportion. 

 

 

Red Fort, New Delhi, India

  

  The ratio of length to width of approximately 1.618  appears not only in art and architecture, but also in natural structures.

 

 

Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet

 

 

 

 

Junagarh Fort, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India

 

 

 

Step Well, India

 

 

Kimberly Elam’s book,  Geometry of Design: Studies in Proportion and Composition, points out that things in nature as different as
the human body, the pine cone, and the trout all share natural proportioning systems that provide the foundation for all art, architecture, and design.

 

 

Summer Palace, Beijing, China

 

 

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is

recognition of the pattern. 
 - Alfred North Whitehead, Mathemetician

 

 

Jodhpur, India

 

  

Gujarat, India

 

 

 Jaipur, India, 2008

 

 

 On photography and geometry:

“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to “give a meaning” to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry.” 
- Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

 

“Let no one destitute of geometry enter my doors.”  -  Plato 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Way it Was

Steam Train, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India, 1983

The art historian, Geoffrey Batchen, in writing about photography, said that one of the missions of photography is to represent and memorialize.

 

Fishermen, Weligama, South coast, Sri Lanka, 1995

These pictures could not be taken today.  In the past couple of decades the landscapes and cultures have changed.

Rice paddy fields, Banaue, Philippines, 1985

It is my hope that these images will provide a record of  lost moments of culture.

Women Working in Fields, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India, 1996.

These fields are no longer being cultivated. Some of these pictures are a “last look” at much that stands for cultural identity around the world.

Railroad line inspector being pushed by a retinue of workers to check for wear and tear on the tracks, Agra, India, 1983

Farmer separating the wheat from the chaff. Baluchistan, Pakistan, 1980

The  beautiful and sublime is going to disappear.  It has already.

A view looking downtown towards the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan, New York City, 1994.

It is more common to see a baseball hat and a Chicago Bulls jersey than traditional clothing in nearly every place I travel.

Tibet, 2000