Design

1. CHAPTER
8FIGURATION

2. Introduction
Representation
Gianlorenzo Bernini. David. 1623. Marble, approx. 5' 7" high.
Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy.
To shape material into a form
resembling a preexisting thing
(object or figure) is to represent it.
Representational art is commonly
referred to as realism or figuration.
Representational sculpture dates
back to prehistory and is one of the
principal modes of
three-dimensional expression.

3. Abstraction is a vast category with a
wide range of expressions, from
preexisting forms that have been
altered, simplified, or exaggerated by
their creators.
Brancusi’s interpretation of a bird in
space is an excellent example of
abstraction.
Introduction
Representation
Constantin Brancusi
Bird in Space. 1924. Bronze
4' 2 5⁄16" high.

4. The manipulation of pure form
for its own sake, is usually
referred to as nonobjective or
concrete art.
Introduction
Representation
Donald Judd. Untitled.
1980. Steel, aluminum and
perspex, 9” x 40” x 31".

5. Realism, of course,
exists across the
cultural spectrum,
from the classical
artworks of antiquity
to present-day kitsch
artifacts.
Faux food. Iwasaki Images of America.
Introduction
Representation
These plastic life-size, full-color, three-dimensional replicas have a high degree of
verisimilitude, or accurate likeness.
It is quite uplifting to see such care expressed in the fabrication of such lowly items as
restaurant displays.

6. Wire car created by a child in Malawi. Copper wire, bamboo, tin can lids. C. 1967.
Photograph: Travis Fullerton, 2010
Introduction
Representation
• This car is both a
representation and an
abstraction.
• A child in central Africa created
the wire car (a kind of drawing
in space) and it is a
representation that actually
functions as a car.
• It is a good example of the
category of objects that
attempts to represent objects
experientially as well as
visually. This homemade toy
was driven around the streets
of Malawi by its maker, using
the steering wheel to
maneuver it.

7. Illusion
Camouflage
Nature is the ultimate master of illusion.
Birds and fish tend to have lighter undersides and darker tops in order to be less visible from
below (looking up at them against the light) as well as from above (viewed against the
darker ground.) Atlantic spotted dolphins.

8. Using digital prints of the
surrounding site and
adhesive vinyl, an artist
camouflaged many utility
boxes in California.
The cell phone tower at right is completely visible, but hiding in plain
sight. It no longer looks like a cell phone tower; it now looks like a
pine tree, however out of scale it may be.
Paper clip
Illusion
Camouflage
Camouflage is also used in the built world.
Joshua Callaghan. Camouflaged utility box.
Artificial pine tree concealing cellular telephone tower.

9. Anamorphic projection is seen in an
image that is coherent only when
viewed from a single, fixed point;
from other viewpoints it appears
strangely stretched or radically
distorted.
For Robert Lazzarini’s Payphone, the
original object was digitally scanned
and electronically distorted, 3D
models were generated, and the final
piece was fabricated with the very
same materials used in the original
pay phone.
Robert Lazzarini. Payphone and two viewers. 2002. 9’ x 7’ x 4' 8".
Illusion
Art and Architecture
However, there is no vantage point from which the viewer of Payphone can account for the
visual information received

10. Looking at Cloud Gate from a view from below, at its underbelly—we are lost in a maze of
reflected distortions, and these distortions are in motion, coinciding with the movement of
people below.
This disorienting apparition stands in stark contrast with the distant view of Cloud Gate: a
minimal form with reflected blue sky and clouds.
Anish Kapoor. Cloud Gate, detail. Millennium Park, Chicago, IL. Anish Kapoor. Cloud Gate, detail. Millennium Park, Chicago, IL.
Illusion
Art and Architecture

11. One element in this spectacular and
theatrical fountain by Isamu Noguchi
appears to be a cube propelled
skyward by its trail of water,
miraculously levitating above the
surface of the pool.
In reality, pipes support the cube and
supply the water cascading
downward, hiding the trick. The other
cube disperses water from above,
becoming as ethereal as a floating
chunk of fog.
Isamu Noguchi. Nine Floating Fountains,
detail. World Expo 70. Osaka, Japan.
Illusion
Art and Architecture

12. The Klein bottle is not really
a bottle; it is a mathematical
concept that cannot exist in
real 3D space. As a one-sided
construct requiring a fourth
dimension, it can only exist
theoretically.
Nonetheless,
mathematicians have
created fascinating
representations
to approximate this
theoretical object.
Klein bottles made by Alan Bennett. 1995.
Illusion
Art and Architecture