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Oct. 16th, 2009 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogWhen I was a pup and did a great deal of playing with Legos, I was obsessive about symmetry. I built all these spaceships and submarines and things like that, but they had to be symmetrical. The same pieces on each side, even down to the color of the individual bricks. It was very frustrating not to have the right pieces I needed to match one side to another.
(On a tangent, I miss my Legos and I wish I knew what happened to them.)
Symmetry has always been viscerally appealing to me. But as my tastes changed and grew, I find the juxtaposition of perfect symmetry with an asymmetrical element or two is extremely satisfying, aesthetically, as well. That's why I like this picture so much.
This is a doorway in downtown St. Louis. What first grabbed my attention about it was the sign painted onto the brickwork, because that's another thing I really like the aesthetics of. (See this picture.) On top of that, there's the appealing symmetry of the arch above the door with the little boxes under it for text. At the same time, the sides are dissimilar in that the text in those boxes is different, and the sidewalk is skewed from horizontal. Plus, the shadow cast by the side of the recessed doorway is asymmetrical.
But even the shadow has elements of symmetry (most of it goes right up the middle of the door) and asymmetry (it veers off from the middle at the top and the bottom, making sort of a question mark or yin-yang shape on the door. Those are all elements of why this image really works for me. Your mileage may very (especially if you don't have bizarre and inexplicable ideas of what you find visually satisfying).
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I got a really lovely massage from the equally lovely![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moiracoon last night. Thanks sweetie; I still feel wonderfully squishy.
And tomorrow,posicat and I will be working on his car again, this time with the help of Mechanic Juan and his power tools of awesomeness +5. We're going to start early and disassemble down to where we were last time so that hopefully, Juan can just come in, kick ass on that last stuck bolt on the broken control arm, and be done in no time. That means I have to get space in the garage for a car cleaned up today since, quite understandably, Juan refuses to work outside in the rain. Funny that....
(On a tangent, I miss my Legos and I wish I knew what happened to them.)
Symmetry has always been viscerally appealing to me. But as my tastes changed and grew, I find the juxtaposition of perfect symmetry with an asymmetrical element or two is extremely satisfying, aesthetically, as well. That's why I like this picture so much.
This is a doorway in downtown St. Louis. What first grabbed my attention about it was the sign painted onto the brickwork, because that's another thing I really like the aesthetics of. (See this picture.) On top of that, there's the appealing symmetry of the arch above the door with the little boxes under it for text. At the same time, the sides are dissimilar in that the text in those boxes is different, and the sidewalk is skewed from horizontal. Plus, the shadow cast by the side of the recessed doorway is asymmetrical.
But even the shadow has elements of symmetry (most of it goes right up the middle of the door) and asymmetry (it veers off from the middle at the top and the bottom, making sort of a question mark or yin-yang shape on the door. Those are all elements of why this image really works for me. Your mileage may very (especially if you don't have bizarre and inexplicable ideas of what you find visually satisfying).
-----------------------
I got a really lovely massage from the equally lovely
moiracoon last night. Thanks sweetie; I still feel wonderfully squishy. And tomorrow,
posicat and I will be working on his car again, this time with the help of Mechanic Juan and his power tools of awesomeness +5. We're going to start early and disassemble down to where we were last time so that hopefully, Juan can just come in, kick ass on that last stuck bolt on the broken control arm, and be done in no time. That means I have to get space in the garage for a car cleaned up today since, quite understandably, Juan refuses to work outside in the rain. Funny that....
