Weight

Fra Bartolomeo, Adoration of the Christ Child, 1499, Galeria Borghese, Rome

        “Intrinsic interest” has been found by Puffer [1] to be a factor of compositional weight.  An area of a painting may hold the attention of the observer either because of the subject matter – for example, the spot around the Christ child in an Adoration – or by formal complexity, intricacy, or other peculiarity.  (Compare the multicolored bouquet of flowers in Manet’s Olympia.)   The very tininess of an object may cause a fascination capable of compensating the light weight that would otherwise go with small size.  Also, recent experiments have suggested that perception may be influenced by the observer’s wishes and fears.  It would be interesting out whether pictorial balance is changed by the introduction of a highly desirable object or a frightening one.

 

Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863, Musee d'Orsay, Paris

        Isolation makes for weight.  The sun or moon in an empty sky will be heavier than an object of similar appearance surrounded by other things.  On the stage, isolation is known as a means of emphasis.  Star actors often insist on not being approached too closely by others during an important scene.

Arthur Dove, The Moon and the Sea, 1923, Curtis Galleries, Inc.

John Gielgud as Hamlet, 1944

[1]  Puffer, Ethel D.  Studies in symmetry.  Psychological monographs, 1903, vol. 4, pp. 467-539.

From Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, A Psychology of the Creative Eye.  Berkeley and Los Angeles. University of California Press, 1969.

The Fallen Idol, 1948 (starring Ralph Richardson; director Carol Reed)

The Third Man, 1949 (starring Joseph Cotten; director Carol Reed)

Disappointing. (Kim Philby In Moscow 1963-88)

          

Kim Philby, 1955, "Third Man" press conference, London

(Click on link to view excerpt.)

          On his defection to Moscow in 1963, Philby had been dismayed to discover that he held only agent status in the KGB, did not hold officer rank and was not even allowed to set foot  inside the Lubyanka.  For the first five years of his Moscow exile, however, he was kept occupied by long debriefing sessions, helping to ghostwrite the memoirs of Konon Molody (published under his alias “Gordon Lonsdale”) and writing a sprightly, but tendentious memoir of his own career as a Soviet agent inside SIS, published in 1968 under the title of My Silent War.   Philby made no mention of the disappointments of his life in Moscow.  Instead, he claimed that , “As I look over Moscow from my study window, I can see the solid foundations of the future I glimpsed at Cambridge.”  Philby concluded his preface with words which were intended to inspire others:

"It is a sobering thought, that for the power of the Soviet Union and the Communist idea, the Old World, if not the whole world, would now be ruled by Hitler and Hirohito.  It is a matter of great pride to me that I was invited , at so early an age, to play my infinitesimal part in building up that power… When the proposition [to join Soviet intelligence] was made to me, I did not hesitate.  One does not look twice at an offer of enrollment in an elite force.”

Kim Philby photographed on the street in Moscow, 1970s

Lubyanka, KGB Headquarters (originally built as All Russian Insurance Company), before 1917. Click on photo to enlarge.

:

Kim Philby, USSR commemorative stamp, 1990

Excerpt: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB.
by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, New York, Basic Books, 1999, page 415.

This Man He Weeps Tonight -- Dave Davies Birthday Tribute

I wish that you could see
All the things that I have seen.
This mind of mine is making life worthwhile.
I wish that you'd have known
Of all the plans I had in store for us,
Laughing, dancing, traveling the world on our own.

I thought our thing would last,
'Cause it said so in my horoscope,
The days have gone and past while dreaming away.
The lighting here is dim,
And the room closes in around me.

Your picture's hanging loose on a rusting nail.

And this man, he weeps tonight
And his head is bowed with sorrow,
But what can you do, sitting there,
And you let him cry tomorrow,
Yes, you'll let him cry tomorrow.
Yes, you'll let him cry tomorrow.

Note to reader:  Click on link in first line of last stanza.