Dynamic squares - Teaching art with art - art projects

Arts & Activities, April, 2003 by Guy Hubbard

There's really no other shape that is like a square. There's nothing like it in nature--nothing that has four equal lengths, straight sides and four corners that are equal to each other, that is, right angles. The shape had to have been invented by people.

Yet, because we know what squares are and see them all around us, we take them for granted. What we often don't realize is that, in some parts of the world even today, people are not accustomed to seeing straight lines and right angles. That is because they live away from towns and cities, and their homes do not have any straight lines in them.

Because of the unique qualities of squares, most of us think of them as useful shapes, although we may not have too much interest in them to be used in art: they seem unmoving and rather dead. Until about 100 years ago this was largely true.

Squares had been important for centuries, of course, in planning the shapes of buildings and monuments. They were also central to the construction of mosaics because each individual piece of tile, or "tesserae," is usually square. Floor tiles, many of which were beautifully decorated, were also mostly square. Textile designers have also used squares extensively for centuries in decorations of such things as carpets and clothing.

But, as important as square shapes have been, rectangles--square-like shapes with two sides that are longer--have been much more heavily used in art. For example, buildings, windows, doors, pictures and many other objects were--and still are--mainly rectangular.

Squares, then, have a special place in the world. Unlike most shapes that can be squeezed, stretched or bent, squares cannot be changed if they are to remain square. The sides must always be straight and also be of equal length, with all four corners having equal angles. Nevertheless, many artists have discovered that things can be done with squares to create lively works of art.

A number of squares may be used in a single artwork. They may be the same sizes or sized differently. Outlines to the shapes need not always be lines, but may be made in different ways. Squares may be painted or drawn, or they may be cut out and turned into relief sculptures. Surfaces may also be textured differently. And, most importantly, compositions made up of squares may be colored in different ways. In other words, despite the restrictions about the shapes that squares have to be, they offer opportunities for artists to explore. It's because of their shape, that squares must remain square.

The importance of squares in art, together with other basic geometric shapes, changed with the arrival of Modern Art about 100 years ago, especially Cubism. This change caused painters, sculptors and printmakers to become excited about the creative possibilities of all kinds of geometric shapes.

From almost the beginning of Modern Art, some artists became very involved with ideas using shapes that were entirely geometric, and were especially creative with square shapes. As time went on, some artists came to delight in visual effects that teased people's eyes by presenting geometric shapes in ways that were more like visual puzzles.

Because of the visual games, these artists played this kind of art called "Op Art" or "Optical Art." Op Art didn't last very long in painting, but the ideas of these artists continued to influence advertising designers, textile designers, and more recently computer graphics artists.

Students can learn about the presence of squares and other geometric shapes since the beginning of Modern Art 100 years ago--and especially the Op Art of the 1960s--by studying reproductions. To save time and a lot of disappointment, students should be encouraged first to find out what other artists have already discovered about using squares, especially since some artists have used their talent and their lives in learning to explore this shape creatively.

The best way of doing this is to make photocopies or drawings of interesting artworks and for students to add their own notes for later use. To help them get started, this article includes several ideas by well-known artists who have focused their creative powers on the often-misunderstood shape of the square and have arrived at very different solutions. Later, students may want to apply what they have learned to explore the creative possibilities of squares themselves in the creation of pictures, sculptures, textiles, printmaking and graphic design.

Interested students may also want to go a step further and find out about the artistic applications of cubes, that is, the use of three-dimensional squares. That is a subject for some other article, although there is no reason why students should wait.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

ANUSZKIEWICZ'S ART IS A REACTION to the extreme kinds of art of 50 years ago. His work is carefully planned, in contrast to the accidental paintings of the Abstract Expressionists who were popular at the time. It is symmetrical rather than asymmetrical. And it does not try and tell about the artist's personal feelings as the other art does. Not least, Anuszkiewicz uses great technical skill in his work, compared with the almost absence of discipline among Abstract Expressionist artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.