Rene Magritte "The Portrait of Stephy Langui"
The image of Spiderman makes me feel small, whilst Magritte's painting makes me think about size constancy. Scale in an image it seems to me is more an embodied emotional response. I remember for the first time walking the streets of New York and being overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the buildings. My body felt awe at the dizzying heights I was seeing. Perhaps that's what I'm getting at, scale at an emotional level is embodied; yes the buildings were big but the impact was emotional, their size was making me feel small.
Scale is another of those vital visual elements that we use to create meaning. Scale is very different to size and although related to visual proportion, I tend to think of it acting more emotionally. Size refers to the absolute, physical measurements of an object, whereas scale is the relative size of an object compared to another, usually a standard of measurement as in the 1:72 scale that Airfix model plane kits used to be when I made them as a boy or human scale, a concept that references spaces and objects designed around the physical dimensions and capabilities of the human body. Size is objective, you can measure it, while scale is both objective and relationally subjective, for instance the 1:72 scale of an Airfix model allows you to objectively work out how big the original plane would have been, but scale can also be about the fact that the situation we find ourselves in as humans overpowers us, such as when we travel into the mountains and the scale of everything is awesome. In this case scale also could relate to the sublime, some scales being beyond comprehension. Scale is therefore about how big or small something feels within a relational context, for instance we can feel as if we are the wrong scale, as in those science fiction films that explore the consequences of miniaturisation or giantism. 
Gary Mayes: Storyboard for Fantastic Voyage story for Observer TV commercial
Gulliver's Travels is the classic text on relative scale. Thomas Morten illustrated the 1864 edition, whereby we find at one point Gulliver coming across giants, the Brobdingnagians, that make him feel very small, whilst at another point in the book, he finds himself of giant size in relation to the inhabitants of Lilliput.
On first encountering the Brobdingnagians
Gulliver in Lilliput: 1864 Edition of Swift's Gulliver's Travels
My last post was on proportion and human proportion in relation to scale is about how we physically and psychologically interact with our environment. It bridges the setting of the mathematical ratio of objects to a norm (scale) and the relative size of the parts within a form (proportion). Another way to think about this is that size is used to describe something (E.g. a woman is 5 feet seven inches high) and scale to compare one size of a thing with something else that it is related to. (The model of a train is half the size of the original) Scale can emotionally overwhelm or become attached to a feeling such as vulnerability, whilst size can be big or small, but this only becomes emotionally resonant when compared to something else and once we begin comparing we move into the realm of scale. Using a low viewpoint in drawing, such as in the scene from 'Them!' image above, is an effective technique to exaggerate scale, either making subjects appear immense, monumental and heroic or small, insignificant and dominated. This approach, often called a "worm's-eye view" or "low-angle shot," is often coupled with a bird's eye view or high angle shot in films, whereby swapping positioning is used to manipulate perspective to create a drama based on changing power dynamics.
The classic superhero view
Kings always used to have their thrones mounted on a dais, preferably with steps leading up to it. This meant that they controlled their viewing angle, being able to look down on their subjects, whilst their subjects looked up to them. Scale in this instance being to do with power and authority. On a day to day basis this might be something as simple as someone putting height-increasing insoles or heel lifts inside your shoes in order to look taller than you really are. Yes you are also actually taller, but your emotional response to the situation is related to the fact that you feel taller than someone else.
Drawing for an artist's book
We play games with scale. The small people like marks made on the drawing above are there to help give scale to the figure with a burning back. For these biro squiggles the larger figure takes on landscape proportions and they in turn can be read as both small and or normal sized humans by someone looking at the drawing.
Cosmic scale
Cosmic scale is often used to communicate a sense of the insignificance of our human scale of measurement. But as we go down in scale at some point the spaces of the quantum world open out and they can appear as immense as the universe itself.
Breathing
The image above of 'breathing' that I made some time ago, being an early attempt to embed cosmic scale into the everyday.
The cosmic human
When I was reading accounts of Chinese medicine I came across the idea of the body as being both of human and cosmic scale. In response, I attempted to fuse some of my interoceptual imagery, with a more 'heavenly' view. I do though realise that my own internal image bank still includes the figure of Eternity as visualised in 1960s Doctor Strange comics. Back as a teenager I was fascinated by Steve Ditko's invention of 'Eternity', an image that would in the late 60s be further developed by Gene Colan. The way those artists envisioned the personification of an idea like eternity, has stayed with me and as I get older, I look back on what was invented for a cheap popular medium and think that perhaps what was done then had far more significant that we ever imagined at the time.
Steve Ditko
Gene Colan
I have to acknowledge that I still find those 1960s images powerful and that my early fascination with comics is perhaps still one of the most important influences on my own image making. A conceptual fusion of Cézanne and Steve Ditko would probably underly my idea of the perfect image. Do I dare ask an AI programme to look at that?
What AI came up with
It is interesting to look at what a current AI system does with the question, I used ChatGPT. It's the first time I have tried to use AI as an image generator and although it makes a decent fist of a fusion between the two sources, it doesn't really touch upon what I was thinking about, which was much more an approach to image making than a fixed image. "Here you are" the software seems to say, offering a solution that at first sight appears to be rather sophisticated, but it doesn't have my own awareness of that uncertain certainty that lies behind human perception. Cézanne's struggle was not about a final 'look', it was a process of human engagement with looking and the materials of its capture. Ditko, unlike Cézanne who was trying to record a series of perceptions, was trying to illustrate a story. I had to write a script for the AI to work to and I suppose I could keep editing that script, but it would be hard to eliminate the "Here you are" firm 'answer' that is produced, even if I asked the AI to involve that uncertain certainty, I don't think it could actually 'know' what that was, because it is not embodied. In this gap lies the difference between fine art and illustration. The AI it seems to me loses the human scale, it has no touch, it has never climbed a mountain, not matter tried to draw one.
Scale is in my world an embodied emotional register. I find the cosmic scale that AI produced a bit too like wallpaper but it is an image that asks me questions. I'm not ready to use the undoubted fascinating properties of AI yet but I cant discount the fact that it is here and is rapidly changing the landscape within which my images are seen.
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