Shadows is much more than just a black/grey spot. There is much more behind this dark side of every objects. Every object has his own shadow and every shadow is different according to the form and geometry of it. The perspective of the shadow depends also of the sun and it changes at the same time as the sun changes its position. The shadow changes also if the object has a convex form or if it is round or square for example.
There was more to say about shadows than expected. I learned a lot of things about it and I didn’t expect at first to learn that much only about shadows. It is something which I personally don’t really pay attention to when I see a monument or an Object but in fact, shadows are everywhere. And now I’m seeing them everywhere too. It’s almost the first thing that I see when I’m observing an object.
I didn’t really have problems with the book because I also speak French so it wasn’t really a problem to understand what was written inside. Also if sometimes it was old French, it was a little more complicated to understand but in general it was understandable. The only little problem that I had with it was to see it. I had to take an appointment to met it. The book is quiet old. It is an erara-edition and that’s why it was a little more complicated to met it and to read it. But in fact at the end it was a pleasure to read it because I love old books. The touch of it is different and the smell of the pages are also different.
Also the fact that images and text are so related astonished me. The text and images are necessary to understand and explain the art of shadows. One can not be understood without the other. The two of them goes together. The text has the same importance than the drawings. The images and illustrations are in foldout spreads and that’s also something that we don’t see very often. It is quiet rare to find this kind of pages in a book.
I have never analyzed such a book and also not that much in details like we needed to do for this exercise. It was a first for me and I think that it was a nice experience. It was much more interesting because it is an old book and we often forgot the importance of the old books even if they are the beginning of freedom of expression.