I am inviting you to invert images today in honor of the recently deceased Georg Baselitz, who said, as I quoted below, "The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement, one we have all got used to, but one that we absolutely do not have to believe in."
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Isn't it funny how at first it makes ya dizzy.
Your inner ear would like a quiet word.....
Baselitz may not be the most quotable painter but the images speak volumes for him, the German postwar condition comes through with brio.
Am I weird to really like these?
I think the inverted image is what appears on the retina and the brain has had to work to "see" the image as "right side up."
""The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement"
It's more than that.
"I think the inverted image is what appears on the retina and the brain has had to work to "see" the image as "right side up.""
True, but that's because the lens inverts the image, not because the sky is really down.
It's like inverting the curvature of the earth. It's a freaky scene.
Flat earth water flips are easier because we are already used to the reflection trick.
It's not so much an inversion as it is a 180-degree rotation. Left/right also swaps.
When I was very little, I wondered if that’s the way the world looked in China (on the opposite side of the earth).
It is true that the objects in the night sky (constellations, planets, the moon) are "upside down" when viewed from the southern hemisphere. If you know the sky well, it's kind of a disturbing effect.
Canis Major with his head in the dirt is just wrong.
Rocco - ha.
Ann's art found a name. Springtime in China.
"The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement, one we have all got used to, but one that we absolutely do not have to believe in."
So reinforcing of Northern Hemisphere primacy. People down South are reminded of their inferiority every time they look out their windows and see their trees and plants depicted as "upside down".
""The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement"
It’s how we define the word “down”. All language requires that kind of agreement. If you don’t like it, shut up. Cool pics, though.
“So reinforcing of Northern Hemisphere primacy. People down South are reminded of their inferiority every time they look out their windows and see their trees and plants depicted as "upside down".
People down south are inferior because walking around upside down all the time damages the brain.
Flip the sunrise paintings upside-down and you can imagine the lake as a strangely clouded and turbulent sky and the sky as a very placid lake. It wouldn't work as well for a landscape or cityscape or portrait.
If there is something already "abstract" and featureless about a picture, as in Baselitz's tree or the sunrise lake pictures, flipping works well. Less so if there are recognizable figures and features. Or maybe it just works in a different way.
People on the MacKenzie plateau in New Zealand say they are going "up" to Christchurch. Christchurch is north of the MacKenzie plateau. We heard it several times when we were there recently and each time it sounded wrong to me. It took awhile for me to understand why. My brain wanted Christchurch to be "down" because it is at a decidedly lower elevation. But it's also north and all their maps follow the convention of having north as up, so "up to Christchurch" makes sense in that regard.
"The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement." A tiresome, clever-sounding sophistry. The speaker is invited to fall into the sky.
Gravity defines up and down. Up is the direction objects fall away from. As it happens, the sky coincides with this direction.
If inverted trees are the game, Knuth has you covered. In early editions of TAOCP, he had trees rooted at the bottom. Nobody else did that, and in later editions he rooted them at the top, as nature and reading custom dictated. He confessed that his original choice had been upside down.
Changing profile pic for today. Wife does watercolors, I do the framing. She does a lot of wild life, single animal on white background. I really liked this one, use it for another email avatar. Wife told me I had framed it upside down.
Hey. Cool. Anyway...
When up is down, sucks. One of the tricks my vertigo plays on me. Requires much awareness and caution among avid mountain hikers - "Nope. Not this trail. Not today."
Thanks Rocco! I thought when it was January here it was July down under.
"I thought when it was January here it was July down under."
In kinda is. I just got back from autumn.
Is “Up” higher status or is “Down”?
James Brown said to Get On Up, but Disco told us to Get Down.
Peachy said...
“Ann's art found a name. Springtime in China.”
Idea for a new play by Franz Liebkind: Springtime for Xi in China.
"Blue grass, shining on me;
Nothing but blue grass do I see.
Blue grass—I say blue grass and green sky—that’s right;
Tell me, where the hell am I?"
--First movement of Blaues Gras, a cantata by PDQ Bach.
German readers note that in the original the last line has 'Teufel' not 'Hölle'.
Really nice photos, Ann. Very nicely done.
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