Repetition in speaking or in music intensifies the feeling conveyed. Ferdinand Hodler, a Swiss painter, wrote of how it does the same in nature and in painting:
By parallelism I understand every form of repetition. Every time that I am stimulated in the most vivid manner by things in nature, I am effected by their unity.
If my path leads me through a pine forest, where tree on top of tree strives upwards towards the heavens, before, beside and behind me I see trunks rising up like innumerable pillars.
A straight line which repeats itself many times surrounds me.
Whether the bright trunks separate themselves off from an ever brightening background, or whether they strive heavenwards; it is always the same, oft-repeated line which combines into a beautiful unity.
The cause of this unity is parallelism.
The innumerable, vertical lines create the effect of a single, enormous vertical or of a great surface.
If we allow our eye to roam across a meadow in which a single sort of flower blooms in abundance, as for example, dandelions in spring, where the vivid yellow is set off against the soft green of the grass, we experience a sensation of a great unity which delights us to the point of sheer jubilation.
And here we need to observe that the impression is all the stronger if only one sort of flower adorns the meadow, and that it would be weakened were the meadow strewn with flowers of different colours and forms. [. . .] If the appearance of something is pleasing to us, its repetition will serve to strengthen the delight we take in it; if it is expressive of sorrow and pain, this suffering too will be increase by repetition. On the other hand, if something is ridiculous or vulgar repetition will make it unbearable.
Repetition, then, results in an increase in intensity; it gives the object the greatest possible added emphasis. (Quoted from pages 1062-1063 of Art in Theory 1815 - 1900, edited by Charles Harrison, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger. Oxford U.K.: Blackwell Publishers. 1998.)
To see some images of Ferdinand Hodler’s paintings, click here. And for a brief biography of Ferdinand Hodler, click here.
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