Scale

Scale is important in art. A large painting has a different impression than a small painting. An artist works in minute details, or with broad strokes. Personally, I have always been more enthralled by large scale works. I'd rather look at huge painting on the wall then have to examine the tiny etchings of a jewelry box. Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is a piece that really impressed me in scale and conception.

In Japanese painting, I feel scale plays a very important role as both a physical object and within the image itself. Images like this render from a birds-eye view, the scale is not in the figures, but the amount of activity within the image. Theres a lot to look at. Other images, like this one, use scale as a contrasting element. We see the traces of man, set against the overwhelming presence of nature. As a physical object, there are large-scale folding screens, wall hangings, smaller works, and all sizes in between. At school, most students work at a fairly large scale. Obviously it's up to the artist, but 1) large-scale action, 2) large-scale physicality, and 3) scale-within image contrast, are all patterns I continue to recognize when I look at Japanese art.