In this stimulating, thought-provoking guide, a noted sculptor and teacher demonstrates how to discover a rich new design source in the abstractions inherent in natural forms. Through systematic study of such properties as line, form, shape, mass, pattern, light and dark, space, proportion, scale, perspective, and color as they appear in nature, students can learn to utilize the infinite variety and diversity of those elements as a wellspring of creative abstraction. The author invites students to learn the necessary techniques through a series of projects devoted to exploring and drawing plants, animals, birds, landscapes, seascapes, skies, and more. Lines of growth and structure, water and liquid forms, weather and atmospheric patterns, luminosity in plants and animals, earth colors and lightning are among the sources of abstraction available to the artist who is aware of them. This book will train you to see and use these elements and many more. An intriguing blend of art, psychology, and the natural sciences, Abstraction in Art and Nature is profusely illustrated with over 370 photographs, scientific illustrations, diagrams, and reproductions of works by the great masters. It not only offers a mind-stretching new way of learning and teaching basic design, but deepens our awareness of the natural environment. In short, Mr. Hale's book is an indispensable guide that artists, teachers, and students will want to have close at hand for instruction, inspiration, and practical guidance.
Liskov (engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Guttag (computer science and engineering, also at MIT) present a component- based methodology for software program development. The book focuses on modular program construction: how to get the modules right and how to organize a program as a collection of modules. It explains the key types of abstractions, demonstrates how to develop specifications that define these abstractions, and illustrates how to implement them using numerous examples. An introduction to key Java concepts is included. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Architectural form reconsidered in light of a unitary conception of architecture and the city. In The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, Pier Vittorio Aureli proposes that a sharpened formal consciousness in architecture is a precondition for political, cultural, and social engagement with the city. Aureli uses the term absolute not in the conventional sense of “pure,” but to denote something that is resolutely itself after being separated from its other. In the pursuit of the possibility of an absolute architecture, the other is the space of the city, its extensive organization, and its government. Politics is agonism through separation and confrontation; the very condition of architectural form is to separate and be separated. Through its act of separation and being separated, architecture reveals at once the essence of the city and the essence of itself as political form: the city as the composition of (separate) parts. Aureli revisits the work of four architects whose projects were advanced through the making of architectural form but whose concern was the city at large: Andrea Palladio, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Étienne Louis-Boullée, and Oswald Mathias Ungers. The work of these architects, Aureli argues, addressed the transformations of the modern city and its urban implications through the elaboration of specific and strategic architectural forms. Their projects for the city do not take the form of an overall plan but are expressed as an “archipelago” of site-specific interventions.
The research reported in this book advances the art of designing programming languages. It sets forth some design principles for abstraction mechanisms and demonstrates their power by showing how they led to improvements in the design of Ada, a new language devised for the Department of Defense and one that will be wisely used in DOD-related projects. The author was a full-time consultant for the preliminary Ada language design and his suggestions for revising it were remarkable in that of the many revisions proposed, his were among the few that proved effective. The book also considers the likely outcome of even more substantial changes to the current version of Ada. In focusing on the effects of abstracting or generalizing the definitional mechanisms of a particular language, the author notes that these effects are manifested in two ways: in the complexity and expressive power of the language, and in the expected performance of programs written in it. He concludes, with regard to the first effect, that proper design of the abstraction facilities of a language can simpify it and icrease its utility to programmers, and wiht regard to the second, that abstraction mechanisms need not involve.
Learn How to Design Effective Visualization SystemsVisualization Analysis and Design provides a systematic, comprehensive framework for thinking about visualization in terms of principles and design choices. The book features a unified approach encompassing information visualization techniques for abstract data, scientific visualization techniques
"This book addresses the topic of software design: how to decompose complex software systems into modules (such as classes and methods) that can be implemented relatively independently. The book first introduces the fundamental problem in software design, which is managing complexity. It then discusses philosophical issues about how to approach the software design process and it presents a collection of design principles to apply during software design. The book also introduces a set of red flags that identify design problems. You can apply the ideas in this book to minimize the complexity of large software systems, so that you can write software more quickly and cheaply."--Amazon.
This book explores the development of abstraction from the moment of its declaration around 1912 to its establishment as the foundation of avant-garde practice in the mid-1920s. The book brings together many of the most influential works in abstractions early history to draw a cross-media portrait of this watershed moment in which traditional art was reinvented in a wholesale way. Works are presented in groups that serve as case studies, each engaging a key topic in abstractions first years: an artist, a movement, an exhibition or thematic concern. Key focal points include Vasily Kandinskys ambitious Compositions V, VI and VII; a selection of Piet Mondrians work that offers a distilled narrative of his trajectory to Neo-plasticism; and all the extant Suprematist pictures that Kazimir Malevich showed in the landmark 0.10 exhibition in 1915.0Exhibition: MoMA, New York, USA (23.12.2012-15.4.2013).
Would you love to take your art in a new direction? In Abstract Art Painting, you will enter a realm of tactile, intuitive excitement, combining pastel and acrylic to achieve results as unique as you are. You'll learn how to explore the use of color theory in abstraction and to use underpainting to bring structure and depth to your art. In addition you'll begin to understand how to work in a series and how this can help you develop your own personal style. A sampling of what you'll add to your creative toolbox: • Pastel and acrylic techniques to use to complete your own paintings • The benefits of expressing your ideas abstractly • How to loosen up by using your nondominant hand and drawing to music • Ways to express emotions through mark-making • Using color and symbolism for expression • Working with photos for inspiration • Tips for using color studies Step into your own abstract frame of mind today!
A groundbreaking study of the women of abstract art and their works, presented as a richly illustrated visual history. Women in Abstraction reevaluates the work of women abstract artists, changing the story of modern and contemporary art. A tie-in catalog to a major exhibition at Paris’s Centre Pompidou, this volume explores the fundamental role women artists played in the development of abstract art in the twentieth century. In this rich, sweeping collection, editors Christine Macel and Karolina Lewandowska bring together more than one hundred artists in painting, sculpture, dance, applied arts, photography, film, and performing arts. Understanding that abstract art must be looked at in the light of the artists’ political and personal surroundings, this volume dives into the creation and reception of these artworks over time. From the symbolist abstraction of Hilma af Klint, now widely regarded as the first abstract artist, and the sensual abstraction of Huguette Caland, to the purist non-objective approach of Verena Loewensberg, each artist’s relationship to abstraction is examined. These artworks are presented with thought- provoking essays by esteemed critics, contextualizing and exploring the subjects and themes of the movement. Ultimately, this volume questions the legitimacy of the notion of “female artists” and presents this group as simply artists, full of complexities and paradoxes.