Art | Bob Schwartz

The Art Of The Perfect Game

It looks like nothing. A string of zeros. But when you show this picture of a line score to a baseball fan, the pulse races.

Yesterday Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners pitched a perfect game. None of the batters who came to the plate reached first base. It was only the 23rd perfect game in major league history, and the very first for the Seattle Mariners.

Baseball fans, who are notoriously but justifiably obsessed with statistics, have variously calculated the odds of this happening. Variously, because over 113 years, the game and the rules have changed. This calculation also depends on whether you base it on the number of games ever played (something on the order of 200,000) or on the number of opportunities to pitch a perfect game (twice that, since every game includes two starting pitchers). For those who aren’t already lost for lack of interest, and for very rough and illustrative purposes, let’s say the odds are 1 in 20,000.

You have a much better chance of pitching a perfect game than winning the lottery or beating the house at any Las Vegas casino—if you happen to be one of the most skilled and clever athletes on the planet. Standing at a convenience store counter and handing over two bucks doesn’t take much of anything; standing on the mound, and calculating and executing every pitch without fail, takes everything.

Besides expanding the realm of statistics, baseball has also done wonders for language. This includes both great literature and the invention of words and phrases. One of those phrases is “painting the strike zone,” which means the ability to pitch the baseball 60 feet and have it move precisely how you want and place it precisely where you want. Yesterday Felix Hernandez painted the strike zone like one of the old masters.

Museums and art afficianados are sometimes mocked for making a big deal about paintings that for all appearances are mere canvases of a single solid color, big rectangles of all black or all white.

“I could do that,” people say. No you couldn’t. To the unsophisticated eye it may look like nothing. To those who know, it looks like perfection.

May 9, 2012

Logo of a Lifetime

The image above is not the new Lifetime Network logo, launched on May 2 as part of the network’s rebranding. Instead, it is from the Sci-Fi Channel, which rebranded itself as Syfy in 2009. But for a brief moment, from November 1998 to March 1999, it asked to be called SF until it could decide what it wanted to be when it grew up. This is that interim logo.

Here is the new Lifetime logo, designed by Leroy+Clarkson:

Designing logos, while it may be well-compensated work, can be a thankless job. No matter how much sophisticated research goes into the process, it is art for commerce, but definitely art, and opinions vary according to taste (even when the discussion is seemingly objective, scientific and market-based). Add to that the creation and integration of a tag line and it is amazing that the process ever ends.

In 28 years, Lifetime has had 11 logos. You can see them on parade at Logopedia.

Elsewhere you can read explanations of what the new logo and the tag line mean relative to Lifetime’s strategies and its audience. Here and now, the logo can speak for itself…though it might have been worthwhile for A&E (owner of Lifetime) to consider reaching out to NBCUniversal (owner of Syfy) to see if maybe, just maybe, the old SF logo might still be available. Not nearly as subtle, Eastomystical, or feminine as the new logo, but it would be tons of fun:

April 27, 2012

Where Have You Gone Maxfield Parrish?

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

John Keats, Ode On A Grecian Urn

Maxfield Parrish was one of the most popular and ubiquitous American artists and illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century. For decades, his work was seen and instantly recognizable in books, magazines, and advertising. His extravagant and romantic style was inimitable, and he was honored by having his signature color—now known as Parrish Blue— named after him.

A new generation rediscovered Parrish in the 1960s, and walls of dorms and apartments were adorned with Parrish posters. Eventually the appreciation spread beyond college students, and Parish prints became more widely popular. And then, like all art trends, interest died back down. Today Parrish and his work are not so well known.

His most famous series was the calendars he illustrated for Edison Mazda light bulbs (above). General Electric named the bulbs for Ahura Mazda, the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism. The religion’s central theme is the cosmic struggle between light and darkness. Parrish’s first calendar was so well-received that he continued to create it for 17 years.

A few decades ago, these luminous pictures spoke to a young generation navigating through unsettled times. Maybe it was the beauty of the pictures. Maybe it was their implicit idealism. Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was not just the promise and possibility of light, but the actuality of unseen colors that are right in front of our eyes—if we choose to see them. We could use some of that and some more Maxfield Parrish today.

Bob Schwartz

Category: Art

August 16, 2012