Composition

"It is the essence of composition that everything should be in a determined place, perform an intended part, and act, in that part, advantageously for everything that is connected with it.

Composition, understood in this pure sense, is the type, in the arts of mankind, of the Providential government of the world.[245] It is an exhibition, in the order given to notes, or colours, or forms, of the advantage of perfect fellowship, discipline, and contentment. In a well-composed air, no note, however short or low, can be spared, but the least is as necessary as the greatest: no note, however prolonged, is tedious; but the others prepare for, and are benefited by, its duration; no note, however high, is tyrannous; the others prepare for and are benefited by, its exaltation: no note, however low, is overpowered, the others prepare for, and sympathise with, its humility: and the result is, that each and every note has a value in the position assigned to it, which by itself, it never possessed, and of which by separation from the others, it would instantly be deprived."

From John Ruskin's The Elements of Drawing

Numbers in the Dark

ITALO CALVINO – THE FLASH

It happened one day, at a crossroads, in the middle of a crowd, people coming and going.  I stopped, blinked: suddenly I understood nothing. Nothing, nothing about anything: I did not understand the reasons for things or for people, it was all senseless, absurd.  And I started to laugh.

         

What I found strange at the time was that I'd never realised before.  That up until then I had accepted everything: traffic lights, cars, posters, uniforms, monuments, things completely detached from any sense of the world, accepted them as if there were some necessity, some chain of cause and effect that bound them together.

      

Then the laugh died in my throat, I blushed, ashamed.  I waved to get people's attention and "Stop a moment!" I shouted, "there is something wrong! Everything is wrong! We are doing the absurdest things. This cannot be the right way. Where can it end?"

        

People stopped around me, sized me up, curious. I stood there in the middle of them, waving my arms, desparate to explain myself, to have them share the flash of insight that had suddenly enlightened me: and I said nothing. I said nothing because the moment I had raised my arms and opened my mouth, my great revelation had been as it were swallowed up again and the words had come out any old how, on impulse.

        

"So?" people asked, "what do you mean? Everything is in its place. All is as it should be. Everything is a result of something else. Everything fits in with everything else. We can't see anything absurd or wrong!"

      

And I stood there, lost, because as I saw it now everything had fallen into place again and everything seemed natural, traffic lights, monuments, uniforms, towerblocks, tramlines, beggards, processions; yet this did not calm me, it tormented me.       

"I'm sorry," I answered. "Perhaps it was I who was wrong.  It seemed that way. But everything is fine.  I'm sorry," and I made off amid their angry glares.

Yet, even now, every time (often) that I find I don't understand something, then, instincitively, I am filled with the hope that perhaps this will be my moment again, perhaps once again I shall understand nothing, I shall grasp that other knowledge, found and lost in an instant.  

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