I chose this painting called “AXL II” by László Moholy-Nagy, an Austria-Hungarian artist. This painting was created in 1927, almost a century ago.
“AXL II” by László Moholy-Nagy
I found the image somehow relatable to my current position. The general shape of the central object created by four sets of lines are like two beams of light trying to light up the black dot in the middle. Or, they create a boundary for the black dot in the middle. The half-transparent colors in the middle quad create more levels to the painting, as if the painting has a three-dimension space within the quad, and the black dot is something in the middle that doesn’t belong to the same dimension. The cross next to the dot looks intrusive as if it is going to break the black dot. The painting is minimalistic yet captivating.
I want to recreate this painting in Processing, but make it with different colors so it would look more cheerful. I first set the size to 600×600, then made the background a beige. I drew the shape on paper first to approximated their coordinates. After putting the actual coordinates in Processing, I realized that the drawing will be way too small. So I doubled all the numbers so the drawing would fit the 600×600 canvas. My draft
Then I used triangles and quads to construct the basic shape, so it would be easier to fill them in with color later. I also used some lines within the shape. I changed the black dot in the middle to a transparent pink dot. I thought in this way, the dot will no longer look like it belongs in a different dimension from the beams of light surrounding it. The intrusive black cross is turned into a gray cross with no sharp edges(two lines with strokeWeight(8)), yet it is breaking the boundary. To make the colors transparent, I added the fourth constant in “fill”, and choosing from 0 to 255 to determine the transparency I wanted for particular shapes. Here is the code I used for recreating this drawing.
Code for the drawing
If possible I would make the red dot in the middle disappear or escape the trap of lights when a user drags on it.
My final creation
My final creation is still similar to the one by László Moholy-Nagy, but with changes in color, shapes to change the resulting picture from a rather depressing sharp image to a softer and colorful image. However, because I used a quad for one of the general shapes, the final result does not look like two beams of light.
