Patterns And Textures In Our Everyday Life Essay Examples

There are many elements of art. For example, one can easily look into and appreciate art just by looking at the size of an object, its color, its edges, or in this case, the patterns and textures that have been used in its creation. The truth is, in reality, each person or a group of people has a unique way of appreciating art. The objective of this paper is to discuss how patterns and textures affect our everyday life and how I, as the author, gets to appreciate art forms or even architectural works simply by looking at the qualities of patterns and textures used in presenting them.
There are two extremes when it comes to texture. A texture can be rough or it can be smooth, depending on how the one who created a particular art work wanted it to be. Using a real-life example, a texture can be as smooth as a highly polished mirror or as rough as the land forms and mountain ranges that one can see when riding an airplane. For this particular part of the paper, I want to focus on how unique textures of nature are when viewed from afar and how they tend to change, if at all, when viewed closely via the naked eye or when magnified using special tools of course such as a magnifying glass or even a kaleidoscope.
For man-made artworks that are uniquely textured, it may be safe to say that the person who crafted the artwork intended the textures of that particular work to have a unique quality because humans tend to have this natural inclination to be fascinated by things such as art works that have a unique texture. To sum this argument up, textures can significantly affect a person’s interest either positively or negatively, that is without having to change the color or shape of the object. One of the weaknesses of texture, however, is that simply modifying an object’s texture may not create a strong enough element to be useful for affecting the work’s impression or composition unlike colors and shapes . Basically, textures only work as a perk.
There are two kinds of texture: there is a tactile and a visual texture . Tactile texture is the type of texture that can be felt by touch. It is mainly the actual three-dimensional feel of a surface. Visual texture, on the other hand is the type of texture that stimulates the sense of sight. Basically it is a less complicated form of texture than tactile texture because it exists only in a two dimensional plane. What is surprising about the presence of these two general forms of texture is that they can be used to create an illusion, either intentionally or unintentionally. For example, there are leaves of plants in the forest that may appear rough textured at plain sight but are actually smooth once a person touches them.
Another example would be the mountain ranges that may be viewed from above by a person riding an airplane. From way up above the sky, the mountain ranges would certainly appear to be flat and smooth, as if they were perfectly contoured to form an object that is as smooth as the surface of a glass only that it is colored brown and green. However, in reality, these mountain ranges are rough, even rugged if you will. These mountain ranges are not flat either, they are rather pointy and in reality, there is no pattern that dictates how pointy one aspect is and how relatively pointy it is compared to the others. So to speak, when viewed closely, these otherwise perfectly textured and patterned image of a mountain range from afar, does not actually hold a pattern. A pattern, on the other hand, is nothing more than a regularly repeated motif .
Let us use the abstracted figure above as an example of how textures tend to stimulate our senses. Of course, the visual type of texture is what we will be referring to in this case. What is presented above is a sculpture created by Henry Moore. It is located in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. What is interesting about this sculpture is that instead of the typical stone or clay from which most sculptures are made of, this one by Henry Moore is made of bronze . From afar, it certainly looks like a stone, or a clay, or even wood for some people with picky eyes but upon touching it, one would certainly know that it is not made of any one of those materials because it is made of copper. What made the sculpture look the way it is now is the oil rubbed with polishing materials, which explains why it is shiny and appears so smooth, from a two dimensional view that is.
The illustration above is a rather more unconventional example of how texture can be manipulated to distort our perception of some objects. The shape and composition of the objects in the image above depicts that of a cup and spoon placed in a small plate or saucer. It may be safe to say that these three things are objects that most, if not all people especially the ones who frequently drink tea and or coffee, encounter in their everyday life. This artwork was made by Meret Oppenheim . It was featured in a modern art exhibition called The Erotic Object: Surrealist Sculpture from the Collection.
Notice how the modification of the three objects in the image changed or even distorted our preconceived notion that cups and plates or saucers must be made of smooth objects like glass or ceramic and not of often rough but soft objects like fur; and that a spoon must be made of shiny and smooth objects like silver or any other material such as a base metal, as in the case of this image. What this image offers, is an interesting and at the same time, unique perspective on how textures and patterns could work to fool the human mind or even change one’s perspectives about things that people see in nature or see and use in their everyday life such as the examples used in this paper: mountain ranges, leaves of some plants in the forest, the stone or clay looking sculpture that was rather made of bronze; and the image of a cup, saucer, and spoon that was made or at least covered (completely) by fur.
In the end, we stand by the argument that textures can work wonders when the aim is to make a unique or different impression but the shape or composition of the object almost always remains the same. They may also be great tools that one can use to modify an object in a way that it would generate more interest or create a more unique impression from those who would see the object.

References

Jirousek, C. "Art Design and Visual Thinking." 1995.
Lamp, L. "Elements of Art: Texture." Sophia.org, 2015.
Moore, H. "Henry Moore Reclining Mother and Child." Minneapolis Sculpture Garden Gift of the T.B. Walker Foundation, 1963.
Oppenheim, M. "Fur-Covered Cup, Saucer, and Spoon." Museum of Modern Art Purchase, 2011.
Saw, J. "Textures and patterns." dapthne.palomar.edu, 2002.