The circle as symbol of the creative Rhythm
from the conquest of illusion, J.J. Van Der Leeuw, 1928.
My father was fond of this graphic and asked me to replicate it with a computer back in the 1980s. Dantz had recently acquired an original Apple LaserWriter which had a PostScript RIP, so I wrote my first–and thus far only–PostScript program. He liked it so much we had it rendered on a Linotronic at about 1000 dpi–unbelievable resolution at the time.
I’ve used this graphic to illustrate my first post because it seems to capture something of my goal with this blog, which is to explore creativity with art and design as guides and engineering as the medium. Whenever people try to segregate something into a neat little circle the truth is probably more complex and more interesting.
Below is the program that generates this mandala, also available as downloadable file Mandala.ps.
%!
%% Mandala
%% Postscript code copyright 1988 by Richard C. Zulch
%%
/inch {72 mul} def
/mtrx matrix def
/ellipse
{
/endangle exch def
/startangle exch def
/yrad exch def
/xrad exch def
/y exch def
/x exch def
/savematrix mtrx currentmatrix def
x y translate
xrad yrad scale
0 0 1 startangle endangle arc
savematrix setmatrix
} def
/crescent
{ newpath
1 0 1 .98 0 180 ellipse
1 0 1 180 0 arcn
} def
/strap
{ newpath
1 0 1 360 180 arcn
} def
gsave
3.50 inch 3.50 inch translate
1.75 inch 1.75 inch scale
.005 setlinewidth
0 setgray
1 1 31 {
gsave
360 mul 31 div rotate
crescent
gsave
fill
grestore
stroke
strap
stroke
grestore
} for
grestore