Mondrian and Nicholson: Parallel Lines in 300 Words

The last two visits we’ve paid to the Courtauld have coincided with London Fashion Week, which has its pavilion in Somerset House courtyard. There seemed to be little interest from the fashionistas outside in the paintings upstairs (although Mondrian’s line and form seem very relevant) but the basement cafe was like a packed sauna.

The Courtauld is a pretty small gallery punching above its weight, and this special exhibition only takes up two large rooms at the top. It’s good to see focussed smaller exhibitions though, and this is no exception.

The thesis is pretty self-evident and provable- Mondrian and Nicholson corresponded, so their abstract styles were well-known to each other and developed alongside. The exhibition basically has two aspects- a large amount of biographical items (letters, photos) and the pictures themselves.

I’d never seen a Mondrian abstract before, and I found them pretty shocking. The balance is key in Mondrian’s work- some of the canvases are so stark that the remaining elements hit the line between a strangely-harmonious balance, and feeling so close to toppling over I almost felt they could jump off the wall. I think having one around the house could give me vertigo.

Nicholson, on the other hand, has a much softer approach. There’s no lack of geometry, but I found them soft in their curves and tonal approach. I’ve never seen a Nicholson I didn’t like, even the hand-cut early circles are rather charming. Nicholson seems to be more intuitive in his shapes and the 3d forms than the almost oppressive empirical purity of Mondrian. I’ve no idea how either of them worked in a conceptual capacity, but they’s the feeling I got standing in front of them.

This exhibition had two of the key characteristics of both works- a rather humble purity and discipline.

Skyrim: I used to be an adventurer...

...but my flow got broken.

My experience with Skyrim has been long and protracted, but it’s always ended up in the same place- a feeling of dissatisfaction. I can appreciate the work done, but there has been a transition when it stops being fun.

So what is this transition? Have I not been playing it right? It’s taken four serious plays to identify the moment- and what the difference is.

Initially, Skyrim has been extremely immersive, but it gets to the stage when small elements overwhelm the large- and these small elements become busywork instead of fun. I’ve got a massive amount of satisfaction from the exploration, combat and many narrative elements. But these is a moment when this gets taken over by overcomplexity, repetition and suspension of disbelief problems- but it’s a subtle transition. I’ve found that what starts as an exciting quest chain subtly morphs into a fetch and carry, or progress slows until some other element is done. What should be a stroll around town becomes a jog to go to all sorts of different points, to perform various menial tasks. This forces quick travel- which in turn detracts from the fantastic experience of seeing the world- so it ends up as a series of loading screens, interspersed with bouts of selling goods/disenchanting/smithing/mining/the occasional fight.

In short, it stops being a fun experience.  Instead of giving me a feeling of satisfaction, discovery and challenge it feels like an endless task list.

And the crossover point is subtle. In fact, I didn’t even notice the first few times. I just felt, well, that it stopped being worth playing. I stopped wanting to do those things in my quest log.

So isn’t the answer, for me, to just do what I like. Well, yes and no. To do these things involves doing the other parts- until they chip away at the experience. To get the more exciting narrative, you need to go through the factional quests. To explore the areas, you need equipment and skills which cost gold, which needs gathering. To feel fully in control of combat requires levelling and perks. The internal satisfaction of the experience is replaced by the game patting you on the head for completing tasks- a shift from the intrinsic experience to the extrinsic.

If this was an art gallery experience, it would be like seeing the pictures, then being forced to see reproductions of those paintings over and over again- the superfluous eventually overwhelms the impact.