A line

November 12, 2024 6:49 PM

Rhythmical Lines "When he was eighty-five, Wacław Szpakowski wrote a treatise for a lifetime project that no one had known about. Titled “Rhythmical Lines,” it describes a series of labyrinthine geometrical abstractions, each one produced from a single continuous line." [via]
posted by dhruva (11 comments total)

I've been studying Polish for a few years and following the travels of friends from Poland. There's something about this that feels quintessentially Polish, as I've experienced it at least—to quietly, over a long period of time, pursue an independent life of the mind and develop one's artistic ideas with a sophisticated series of works made via deceptively simple means. I'm specifically reminded of the dedication of a somewhat solitary, independent Polish photographer friend, and how his work has evolved over time.
posted by limeonaire at 7:27 PM on November 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

Wow, beautiful work, thanks for posting.
posted by effluvia at 7:40 PM on November 12, 2024

Some of these are like "Wait, that's clearly not one line" *traces it* oh...

Amazing work.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:49 PM on November 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

Szpakowski yesssssss
posted by cortex at 8:11 PM on November 12, 2024 [2 favorites]

I love the freedom of the proto-abstract period, when all kinds of wonderful artists on the margins created strange and insistent art. Hilma af Klint and George Ohr are obvious parallels to Szpakowski, but in a way so are Erik Satie, Arthur Rimbaud and Emily Dickinson. There had been walls around what art was, and suddenly the walls came down. Eventually new walls were built, but a few people managed to make unique art while there were no walls.
posted by Kattullus at 12:09 AM on November 13, 2024 [7 favorites]

These are beautiful and amazing, and somewhat reminiscent of Arabic/Islamic geometric patterns. Simplicity becoming complicated
posted by chavenet at 2:16 AM on November 13, 2024 [6 favorites]

Brilliant. Thank you.
posted by the sobsister at 8:33 AM on November 13, 2024

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_curve was the first place I went. Simplicity yields complexity, as chavenet noted.
posted by adekllny at 1:32 PM on November 14, 2024 [2 favorites]

Of which, one of the most delightful and human bits of trivia about Knuth and the dragon curve is his admission, late in this Numberphile video, that his wall-sized tile rendering of same has an error in it. As a serial artistic hand-iterator (but not inventor) of many fractal forms, this is my fucking nightmare, and he just chuckles about it, and god bless him.
posted by cortex at 8:30 PM on November 14, 2024 [3 favorites]

This is neat to see and reminds me of the Dunedin (NZ) artist Martin Thompson, we met this gallery owner a few years back and he told us a lot about the artist. All of Thompson's work was with ink pen (ballpoint, and feltpen I think) on fine graph paper. Well worth reading the narrative on that page to give some idea of what drives someone to work like this.

A long interview with Martin on Pantograph - an Aotearoa arts blog I haven't seen before, but it looks like they lost their government funding and are on hold.
posted by unearthed at 10:29 PM on November 14, 2024 [2 favorites]

Mod note: [What a great find, dhruva! We've added it to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:22 AM on November 17, 2024 [1 favorite]