Red Trees at Katz, and Reverse Pointillism

The Katz law school building, directly across the street from the Arboretum, is one of my favorite buildings on campus. It may look like an airplane hangar from the outside. But the inside is lovely; all angles, lines, and light. The law school library, with all those books, books, and more books, is a favorite place.

But I went there on this morning for the trees. When I was at the Arboretum last week, I noticed the trees in front of Katz were beginning to change colors. There is a pretty little stand of them, all the same type of tree and about the same size. And better yet, now they are turning RED!

So above you may see some of the pretty red trees by Katz building. The spot in front of me was a little outdoor seating area, but the umbrellas were all closed and nobody was sitting there because it was still chilly yet. I think there must be food service buildings nearby; all I could smell was a sweet smell of baking, maybe something like cinnamon rolls. My tummy growled at the enticing scent.

And then I went inside the building, and I took some photos in the law school library, and saw the best view of Beaver Stadium I know of. And then I suddenly looked at the windows themselves and noticed that the gray dots they put on them to help manage the sun glare could be used to create art!

I immediately thought of it as reverse pointillism. You are all familiar with pointillism, the style of painting invented by Seurat and others (famously applied in A Sunday on La Grande Jatte), in which tiny dots of color are placed on a painting to create a gentle impressionist effect.

Well, my reverse pointillism is an approach in which the gray dots appear in the foreground, and the colors appear AROUND the dots. You can see what I'm talking about by looking at a second photo of the red trees (and one golden yellow one in the upper left), taken from inside Katz looking out; it appears in the extras.

The song to accompany this posting that includes not just one but TWO very different photos of red trees is this one: Warrant, with I Saw Red. Here is the original music video, and here is a second, acoustic version.