Expansion & Compression

Above, Lyonel Feininger’s Yachts (Source:Moma.org), has a composition that appears compressed horizontally, while his composition below, Sailing Boats, is compressed and expanded vertically. Source: picasaweb.google.com

Expansion is an expanded, dilated, or enlarged portion or form of a thing: and compression is the reduction in size of data.  Gerald Brommer, in Creating Abstract Art, applies the ideas of Expansion and Compression to the division of space. Designing three areas of space - large, small, and medium - together can create an intense amount of attention to the constricted area (2009). Lyonel Feininger’s 1929 abstract painting Sailing Boats has space treated in this way.  I tried this concept by using a grid, essentially a distortion grid, but only treating the space as distorted, not the lines themselves.  First, I divided the composition into thirds, based on the cup shapes which seemed to be a natural separation.  Then I drew another grid, this time defining small, medium and large in horizontal bands, only wanting to compress the height, not the width. Just as in the distortion grid, the lines from inside the grid spaces on the original simplified drawing were transferred to the corresponding spaces on the expanded/compressed grid.  This could also be applied to expand and compress the width.  

Favorite Things, Expanded and Compressed. 2011 Joan Kresek
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