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"Moments of depth"
https://aeon.co/essays/what-makes-a-memorable-image-q-a-with-stuart-franklin-of-magnum?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5ee2a8ee63-Daily_Newsletter_7_June_20166_7_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-5ee2a8ee63-68622033You’ve probably looked at millions of images in your professional life, and you’ve taken many, many thousands. What makes some of them stand out?
It’s not just photographs. You have to think why pictures stick, why we remember some of them so well, and others less well. Think of the Vermeer painting Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665): a portrait of a girl just looking round. Now, why, of the millions of portraits that have been made, is that one memorable? Why is the Mona Lisa (1506) memorable? Why are quite a lot of Van Gogh’s paintings so memorable: The Starry Night (1889), Sunflowers (1888), The Night Café (1888)? They just stick, and it’s possibly because they are haunting, that kind of green colour of The Night Café: there’s something that tickles the cognitive processes that allows us to remember it. So, quite clearly in the canon of the history of art, there are paintings, more or less the same ones for everyone, that we remember. Why is this?...
It’s not just photographs. You have to think why pictures stick, why we remember some of them so well, and others less well. Think of the Vermeer painting Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665): a portrait of a girl just looking round. Now, why, of the millions of portraits that have been made, is that one memorable? Why is the Mona Lisa (1506) memorable? Why are quite a lot of Van Gogh’s paintings so memorable: The Starry Night (1889), Sunflowers (1888), The Night Café (1888)? They just stick, and it’s possibly because they are haunting, that kind of green colour of The Night Café: there’s something that tickles the cognitive processes that allows us to remember it. So, quite clearly in the canon of the history of art, there are paintings, more or less the same ones for everyone, that we remember. Why is this?...