Depth - Miroslav Sasek

SLASEK. I've heard the man's a legend.

WHY have I never looked at his work before today?

I always get his name mixed up with Sendak. Maurice Sasek. Miroslav Sendak. Wot.

Anyway. Not Sendak, he's a top dog too, but today I'm talking Miroslav.

In this week's session of Visual Language we explored the concept of DEPTH within illustration. Depth is the illusion of distance and space within an image. There are several techniques that illustrators can use to achieve a sense of depth, such as overlapping. Overlapping is the process of placing one object in front of another, thus making the object in front closer to the viewer and the object behind farther away. Another technique use to create depth is the size of elements in the image. As a simple rule of perspective, the closer something is to the viewer, the bigger it will be, and the farther away an object, the smaller it becomes. Illustrators may make elements in the foreground larger in proportion to the smaller details in the distance, nearer the vanishing point.

Back to Slasek.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/e0/cc/79/e0cc790715a8fecd0c8cf202e5974c59.jpg

The image above is one of the ones we analysed in session. Sasek has created a sense of depth by drawing a crowd of people whose figures overlap, demonstrating that these figures are stood behind one another, so the platform has depth in that it has space to accommodate for this crowd.

The figures get smaller as they reach further to the back of the platform and towards the tunnel (the furthest point from the viewer and the vanishing point of the image). The largest figure in the foreground (the man in the bottom left) is the closest subject to the viewer, so his face is larger in proportion to any of the other figures. Illustrators also use size to place importance on elements that they want to highlight, so this man could also be of significance to Sasek.

This image has several lines of sight, though I am not sure which one (if any) Sasek intended. The viewer is directed instinctively to the facial features of the largest figure, and then we follow the direction of his gaze across to the right, where there is a train track but no train. The line of sight could follow the dark train track up to the vanishing point in the tunnel, but the way I see it it moves straight to the wall and bounces across to the other coloured wall. The walls concave and confuse the eye with their bright colours. Perhaps the intention of this was to create a chaotic tone to suit the commotion of the busy scene.

I think that this image is really poking fun at the ridiculousness of our human behaviour. Of waiting and watching, and not interacting. We stand at stations and stare at walls of adverts.

Sasek's illustrations are sophisticated, commenting on real life situations and people. This makes his work relate-able for the audience. I think his illustrations are timeless. Even though the outfits suggest a little about the time of production, the intense colours he uses and the style of his characters are still appealing and trendy today.