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Re: BIG

At 23:40 08.10.00 -0400, you wrote:
>Lukas Werth wrote:
>> ... could you, Jeffrey, explain the difference between
>> "personal" and "social"?
>
>With some further thought, one could also distinguish the differences of
>intimate, personal, and social by how much of an individual is noted and
>assessed at various distances.
>intimate - only a portion of the individual is observed at any moment
>personal - most of or the entire individual is dominating the
>observation
>social - the individual is observed as a part of a larger
>situation/environment
>
>-- 
>Jeffrey D. Mathias
>http://home.att.net/~jeffrey.d.mathias/
>

This distinction seems to me interesting, and worth further elaborating,
primarily in relation to composing images. But while to talk of intimate
aspects as a separate category of portraits, or human scenes, makes sense
to me, maybe some other characteritices, though less easy to evaluate than
pure space, can be seen as relevant. 
I don't want to enter again the question of the Arab, and in general terms
I agree with your answer that it is very useful to understand the social
codes of different cultures, ways of politeness, etcet. (I remember my
first journey to India, a long time back now, when people in Orissa made a
shaking movement with their head which meant 'yes', which I, however, was
inclined to understand as 'no'.) 
We may, however, include this question when we discuss intimacy, personal,
and other aspects: I think a picture may well include a full figure or even
several persons and still signify an intimate athmosphere:  A picture of
Echagüe come to my mind, Women of Lagartera (to be seen at
http://www.unav.es/oechague/st_work.htm 
look in "mystical Spain" - I think i refered to this site before). Two full
figures of women are shown, yet their poses convey to me a very intimate
athmosphere: the observer has the feeling of watching a glimpse of a
private note, wispered between two relatives or friends - well, if one is
prepared to see friendship as a possibly intimate relationship.

An interesting question arises for me here: how can messages from one
culture translated into another, or made general, through art? This problem
is compounded through different estetics, and different concepts of
"privacy", "intimacy", and so on.

Lukas