Asad Jan

I think it's interesting that we struggle now to find the shapes that make up an image;that, however, was basically how we began the process of learning how to draw. As adults we tend to miss the forest for the trees. The simple rectangle-and-circle tree is something I wouldn't think of breaking a tree down into, though it gets the idea across perfectly fine in this image.



At the same time, there are objects we see these days that are in fact made up of a composition of other shapes. A soccer ball for example is a repetition of hexagons and pentagons that makes the pattern on a perfect sphere.









Then there are far more complex images that one needs to concentrate on a lot harder to comprehend. This is a painting titled “The Card Players,” by the De Stijl artist Theo van Doesburg. Even though in real life an image of card players would have very few rectangles other than the cards themselves, I think he has cleverly emphasised the subject matter of the painting by portraying the entire thing using geometric shapes that are essentially composed of black and white rectangles. I feel that this is a good way of reiterating the fact that all objects can in fact be broken down into simpler constituent shapes even though they may not at first seem to fit at all.