Inspired by Paul Cezanne, The Turning Road, c. 1904.
The main concept of our final design was inspired by the painting, Route Tournante, painted by Paul Cezanne. The painting looked abstract from the distance, however as you move closer to the painting, you start seeing the smallest details, such as cottages and vegetation. The painting appears to look rather scruffy and messy, due to the thin layers of the brushstrokes. Furthermore, it looks as if Cezanne left large white sections in the painting, which we thought looked quite strange but still interesting. We assumed that the painting was left unfinished, perhaps due to Cezanne’s old age, as this was painted only two years before he died. We really liked this painting because it looked so abstract and were drawn to the vivid colours (blues and greens) that Cezanne used. Blending the cottages in with the landscape looked really relaxing, it calms you straight away.
Working from the two themes, abstract and fragmentation, we produced our own interpretation of the painting. The idea that the beauty of nature is unbeatable, that you don’t necessarily need to show every detail of the landscape to show its true beauty. We wanted to avoid the recreation of the painting using photography, but instead try to look at contrasting themes. For example, we explored the idea of city life vs. nature, and then combined the two to create a final piece. In order to help us develop our ideas, we studied the works of Thomas Demand and David Hockney. We liked how Demand uses geometric shapes within his images, but also vibrant colours, we found it really powerful. Hockney also does similar work. However his technique of distorting the images by taking a series of photographs then rearranging them to imitate, perhaps a puzzle or a jig saw, is slightly different.
By combining the techniques, we came up with a final design idea, which is about distortions of images. We took pictures outside and edited them using a digital camera and worked with filters. By cutting and rearranging them in random sections, we created a rather confusing final piece. This produces an abstraction, similar to the Route Tournante.
