The Art of Looking Sideways

An inexhaustible "guide to visual awareness." This is a concoction of anecdotes, quotes, images, and bizarre facts that offers a wonderfully twisted vision of the chaos of modern life. Fletcher is a renowned designer and art director and describes his book as "a journey without a destination," He captures the sensory overload of a world that simply contains too much information. In one typical section, entitled "Civilization," the reader encounters six Polish flags designed to represent the world, a photograph of an anthropomorphic handbag, Buzz Aldrin's boot print on the moon, drawings of Stone Age pebbles, a painting of "Ireland--as seen from Wales," and a dizzying array of quotations and snippets of information, including the wise words of Marcus Aurelius, Stephen Jay, and Gandhi's comment, "Western civilization? I think it would be a good idea." Fletcher's mastery of design mixes type, space, fonts, alphabets, color, and layout combined with the strange and profound to produce a stunning book that cannot be read, but only experienced. Thought provoking and inspiring, this book is a rambling artist journal of tidbits he has found interesting over his long creative career.

Here are some quotes that I jotted down;

'Triumphs of imagination such as the person you love is 72.8% water'

'How to think by jumping. Never wait for yourself. A word in your eye. The art of looking sideways... By the way, what’s it like living with a paper bag over your head? Not referring to you of course – the uncommon exception to universal bondage.'

'Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created'

And a lot on the philosophy of vision;

If you do not raise you eyes you will think you are at the highest point
The most important instrument of thought is the eye
Every period has its own optical focus
Images have had a great influence on realities
Love comes in at the eye
Every man mistakes the limits of his vision for the limits of the world
To gaze is to think
One hundred tellings are not as good as one seeing
Originality is simply a fresh pair of eyes
To unveil is to enchant
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye
A monk asked his teacher ‘what is myself?’ he answered ‘something hidden within yourself’ the monk asked what this was and the teacher opened and closed his eyes.
Man is a seeing creature who sees with his thoughts and thinks while seeing
The entire course of our life depends on our senses, of which sight is the most universal and noble

What is originality – to see something that has no name.. hence cannot be mentioned although it stares us in the face.

Goethe thought thinking was more interesting than knowing, but not so interesting as looking. Certainly when confronted by a boring conversation my concentration is inclined to fold its arms and divert itself by observing the visual dialogues of my surroundings: the chit chat between dappled sunlight and a chint fabric, the point of contact between the edge of a near chair and the silhouette of a far lampshade, the dissolving outline of a face as it passes in front of a bright light. As Georgia O Keefe pointed out, nobody sees the flower, really, it is so small, we haven’t time, and it takes time to see, like to have a friend takes time.

We tend to reduce our environment to visual muzak – a perceptual symphony of colours, shapes and patterns. Blinkered by habit we glance around rather than look with acuity. In effect the eye sleeps until the mind wakes it with a question.

This has been really good research for my dissertation and given me a lot to consider further