Went to see Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color at the Cooper Hewitt and learned a lot, in particular how to conceptualize a bit about color and color qualities. Writing in the NYT, Roberta Smith comments that about exhibitions at the Cooper Hewitt that “brim with somewhat arcane information embodied by visually dazzling objects.” Thinking about things relating to my own work concerning the imagination in religion and art, what caught my attention were things like iridescence, fluorescence, simultaneous contrast, and “after image,” and then this bit on complexity and textile conveyed in these extraordinarily intelligent thoughts below in the slideshow from this video of master weaver Richard Landis talking about his craft. The idea that God’s beauty dazzles the eye goes back to al-Farabi and Maimonides. For this reader, the structure of complexity and comfort in complexity is pure Talmud.
