Focal zones
This activity belongs to the GeoGebra book Voronoi Paintings.
In this article, we will focus on images corresponding to pictorial works. Like any other artistic expression, a pictorial representation is the result of a process in which the author has an intention and uses a series of resources to convey it. A painting, therefore, is the final outcome of multiple choices and executions. Before it, the viewer must engage in an interpretative exercise in the search for the author's original intention.
For our purposes, we will consider the painting itself as a flat image, generally rectangular, where on a base—usually canvas or wood—brushstrokes of color appear. In this sense, there is, for example, no difference between an abstract painting and a figurative one, or between a Baroque painting and a hyperrealistic one.
We must understand that, by considering the painting only as a set of color patches, we are opting for a flat view of the painting. This is important, because our natural tendency is to interpret paintings, especially figurative ones, as representations of three-dimensional reality, which often leads us to be swayed by the perspective or illusion of depth that seems to appear in the scene. However, here we will consider only the (flat or nearly flat) space of the painting’s surface.
We will not be interested in qualities that may be very important in analyzing many paintings from a design perspective, such as color harmony or balance.
Instead, we will focus on focal zones, that is, the areas of the painting that most capture the viewer's attention. More specifically, as we will see, we will focus on the silhouettes of these areas. In recognizing and isolating these shapes, such as the profile of the man in Figure 4, elements like our prior knowledge, perspective, light, color contrast, etc., may come into play. But once these focal areas are detected, all these elements will no longer be of interest to us.
Authors of the activity: Rafael Losada & Tomás Recio.