Friday, March 6, 2015

Above it all 1.0 Missing info

incised clay fragment 13-14c BCE map of Nippur (in Iraq)
Maps (plans) show how one piece of real estate is related to another. They typically show 2 dimensions. This worked to describe space for thousands of years. It's fun to look for ways image-makers have tried to weave in a third dimensional matrix into a plan view: height, the future, the afterlife, kinship or social hierarchy. We invented all kinds of systems for representing a 3rd dimension! Where we can't know the hierarchy between objects in images from distant times or unfamiliar cultures, we can only speculate why an image was created. Below is an early representation of all 3 dimensions around a body of water. 
The Garden, fresco from Nebamun tomb, originally in Thebes, Egypt, now in the British Museum, London, U.K. Painting on plaster, 72 x 62 cm.
In a similar image-type, we read depth cues in the overlap between human figures, shore, water, and pottery for a short visual narrative about extracting something from the pond. See below.
Nina de Garis Davies' reproduction of Rehkmire Tomb image,1500-1200 BCE


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