Mere Pattern

Wendy Steiner. The Colors of Rhetoric

It is the norms of pictorial realism that allow us to see process in pictures; without them we see mere pattern.

This takes on a certain coloration when one considers the earlier considerations on chance and its psychological dimensions:

If we accept pure randomness we risk appearing as bewildered ignoramuses; if we insist on finding the allegorical system behind it all we become dreary pedants […] The double threat of exhaustion and boredom continually stalks the reader of nonsense.

Voilà - the connoisseur of nonsense like the fancier of pictures is at home in mere pattern and in process.

And so for day 1836
23.12.2011