“8 – 260” (number tags)

003

Primed cardboard, 40х50 cm (15.75”x19.69”)

Oil

Аrithmism

Kyiv, 2011.

Chessboard is no doubt a good pretext for separate research. It must have come to the scene at times when square matrices, as well as many other objects of the kind had mysterious, symbolic and sometimes even sacred meanings.  But only its “geometrism”, two-colour orderliness and modest, rhythmic aesthetics are extant. Other meanings are extinct. By the times we live in, chessboard is only a board for playing several popular table games.

Nonetheless, arithmism of chessboard can at least be useful to demonstrate that some deeper meanings were there, if not to extract them. Spectator’s mind might be slightly pushed in right direction with the help of some simple artistic devices. In some way or other, chessboard is 8x8 matrix corresponding to magic square of numbers from 1 to 64. Vertical, horizontal and diagonal sums are the same and equal to 260. In “celestial spheres mechanics” this square is connected to Mercurius.

Let us take usual number tags from 1 to 64 and lay them out on chessboard forming magic square matrix. It is a funny thing – simple, unitized, numbered objects create rhythm and order, and somewhat strange but quite self-consistent pattern. Mathematic meaning, transphenomenal at first sight, can be relatively simply pulled out of this pattern by some calculations. Here we see it again – numbers are hiding behind phenomenons…

Simplicity, and to some extent even deliberate pruning of the artistic means applied, help to better address the spectator’s mind with the idea: let us first try most simple tools and methods to find out some more complicated and unobvious meanings hiding in the diversity of the world that surrounds us.