Many claim that art has evolved immensely over the years, but what aspects of it has actually evolved is the question; because if one looks at it closely, the underlying philosophy remains untouched – perhaps.
Recently, I was invited by the Hungarian Embassy to interact with the works of the 20th century Hungarian artist Miksa Róth and his renowned glass paintings called ‘Colour Drenched Sunshine.” His artwork was so intricate and beautiful that it almost seemed like a modern day pixelated photograph, which led me into thinking how glass art is nothing but a collection of magnified pixels.
Pixel, the Picture Element (pix-el), is the smallest unit of a digital image that can be displayed and represented on a digital display device. Many pixels together combine to form an image. If you keep zooming in on an image, you will see it appears to be connected by small squares.
Glass painting became a famous form of art from the days of Renaissance, while also becoming a key element in the architecture. Today, we see them in abundance in churches, museums and historical places. Artists of that era used big square glasses and combined them together to create a mesmerising painting.
I wonder if Miksa knew he was somehow part of the foundations of digital imagery and what else that may come hereafter.
Even though the technology and medium differs, what remains central between hand or computer generated art is the philosophy on how to put together an image, in this case, as a collection of squares.
Thus, the question arises – to what extent has art transformed or has it at all? Below I pixilate the glass:
And finally, the man himself – Miksa Roth:
