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w a t c h i n g   t h e   r o s e

"The notion of infinity is our greatest friend.
It is also the greatest enemy of our peace of mind."
--James Pierpont
 

It’s been said that all great discoveries begin, on some level, as mistakes. My personal discovery of the fractal-art craft is certainly no exception: to make a long story short, capricious chance waved the wonder under my nose until I finally took notice and began to explore. The next thing I knew, there were three different fractal generator programs on my computer and I was spending much of my free time roaming the depths of the Mandelbrot set. Now, looking back on the beginning of my obsession, I find myself wondering what it is about fractal art that so beguiles me. Where do these images find such allure?

Certainly everyone has noticed the beauty of these images. Their surreal landscapes capture the eye and lead it on a playful chase over marvelous territory. With a little gradient-work, an alluring bit of some fractal set can be accented and sharpened, thrown into brilliant relief: the spirals and mountains, the elephant-noses and bright bridges and deep tunnels, are all so spectacular that their sheer aesthetic value alone makes them absolutely priceless.

Perhaps it’s also the sense of visual déjà vu I experience as I swim through a fractal. So many natural structures exhibit fractal characteristics that almost everyone, whether they know it or not, is very much used to seeing sub-infinite fractals. Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of modern fractal science, has even suggested that there may be a circuit in the brain specifically adapted to deal with self-similar structures. This would certainly account for the pleasant start of recognition felt when a fern or a cloud or a forest rises out of the chaos.

Both of these feelings certainly play a part in the entrancing quality of a fractal: however, even together they can’t account for the whole thing. If sheer beauty is all they have to offer, why doesn’t more conventional art elicit quite the same feeling? Why are the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa and the enigmatic depths of the Mandelbrot set such different branches of the same tree? And if visual déjà vu is the explanation, why is the special thrill of fractal exploration greater than the wonder of simply browsing a gallery of someone else’s static fractal art?

The thrill of discovery must be the answer. Each fractal—Mandelbrot, Julia, Newton, or any other—is literally infinite in its variation and its detail. Given a powerful enough computer and an anti-aging brew, I could cruise their depths until the stars grow cold and never see it all. Every square inch of the wonders could be magnified to cover a square parsec, and every square inch of that parsec would be no less marvelous than its progenitor. On the computer screen, the window of that generator program is a portal to another world. I’m not only an artist, but also an explorer: the world that opens before me is as vast as our universe yet as personal and exquisite as a rose blooming in my hands. I can open that flower forever, petal by petal, and it will never stop spilling forth its sweet brilliance.

Fractal art, then, is as Michaelangelo would have described it. The magnificence is already there: the art lies in coaxing it forth, it teasing the rose into blossom. As David burst from that block of marble, so wonders can burst from my computer screen, or from yours.

There’s a rose in this garden for anyone willing to cup it between her palms. Come join me--come watch yours unfold.

Website, web design, and fractal art copyright 2004 admin [at] fractalhaven.com.