How art can help to enhance your skills in High Tech industry
Oleksandra Pervunina, QA Engineer at Wix.com
Image by You X Ventures on Unsplash
How does High Tech influence Art
We all know how nowadays High Technology influences art. Under the word “art” I mean everything — literature, cinematograph, music, pictures, sculpture and even some hand crafting. It has impacted art widely. For example, now every artist can use an iPad to paint some pictures and sketches; use an e-book to read a favorite novel; use Photoshop to make photos more beautiful. We now have graphic design, paintings, music and even poems and fairytales, generated by AI.
Definitely, technology made an impact on art. Artists now have more opportunities than they had in the past. We know a lot of examples of creating the most famous masterpieces by artists who were not able to afford even good and expensive paints. But with technology these possibilities became bigger. Music, painting, design, performances in the theater, movies have all changed because of High Technology and AI.
But what about vice versa — the opposite point of view? How can we use our classic knowledge about art in our daily life at work? Especially when we are working in the High Tech industry, as QA Engineers, Developers, Product Managers, Web Designers, HRs, etc.?
How can art influence our skills at work?
Working in High Tech we all need to have hard and soft skills, which are very essential and can impact our promotion, salary and increase our professionalism. Let’s look around some skills that we must have in some positions and how our interest in art can help make our job better and more effectively.
I am working as a QA Engineer, so I will start from this position. For us it is very important to have “careful eye”, meant to have a detail-oriented skill to be able to find more issues. What about famous pictures that can help you to enhance this ability? I like to look at pictures of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. This artist is very talented. To understand his pictures we need to spend a lot of time looking into the many details inside the pictures. Look at pictures of Pieter Bruegel “Children’s Game” or “Netherlandish Proverbs”.
Look at them. You will need at least 1 hour to find all Netherlandish proverbs that were encrypted in this picture. Or did you find around 230 children’s games in the first picture? So, if you solve these tasks, you will increase your skill of attention to detail for sure.
What about hard skills that are essential for Web Designers? Will you agree with me that the most important skill is to know composition and color theory? And for sure art can increase these skills! All Designers know about Itten color wheel. The Itten invention is also known as the twelve-part color circle. It’s a graphical scheme that consists of geometric shapes of different colors. Here’s how it looks:
Itten suggests using this circle to build harmonic color chords, combinations of colors that will look best together. So, what about famous painters that for sure lived earlier than this talented Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher? How did they use these rules and how web designers can learn by looking at their works?
Look at pictures of Jan Vermeer. How he used a combination of blue and yellow color, that are very harmonic together by Itten’s theory.
And what about another famous Holland painter — Vincent Willem van Gogh? Look how he combines blue and yellow.
Is it beautiful for you? I am betting, for sure. Your web sites, created by these principles, can be very colorful, talented and good-looking as well.
Another way to increase your skill of “good eye” is watching movies that are iconic examples of “nice frame” and “pretty pic”. For example, my favorite film is “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” — a 1961 American romantic comedy directed by Blake Edwards, adapted from Truman Capote’s 1958 novella of the same name, and starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in the main character. This movie has very aesthetic colors, frames and scenes. I really recommend you watch this movie to enhance your aesthetic taste.
Problem-solving skills and critical thinking are very important soft skills for Software Engineers. So, they need to love solving some difficult tasks and puzzles, find quick solutions and be open-minded for unusual solutions. Do you know that almost all known masterpieces of painting have their own mystery? Mystery of creating or mystery encrypted inside the picture? To have the possibility to quickly find the puzzle inside the picture and solve it will be very useful at your developer’s job!
Look at the picture of Hieronymus Bosch “The Garden of Earthly Delights”.
Do you know the most famous mystery inside this picture? Look at the right side of the picture, on the sinner’s buttock. Do you see musical notes? One student from the USA wrote this melody and played it on the fortepiano! This melody can be found on Youtube.
Another type of mysterious pictures are pictures with mirrors. It is very interesting to look inside it and try to find some plot, symbols and what the artist tried to tell us.
Look at a picture of “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez.
The mystery of this picture lies in the fact that if you look closely, it becomes clear that the artist is not painting the people who are posing for him. That is, the little infanta is clearly posing in the picture, but the artist is standing behind her. But in the mirror behind the artist, we see the reflection of the royal couple. The canvas, which is larger than human height, in front of which Velázquez is standing, is clearly designed for a ceremonial portrait of the king and queen. But we see their beautiful daughter with her entourage, the artist at the easel and two more spaces (in the mirror and behind the door through which the valet comes out).
Look at another picture with “mirror mystery” — “The Arnolfini Portrait” painted by Jan van Eyck.
This is the painting from which Velázquez borrowed the trick with the mirror. Van Eyck’s most famous painting shows us a married couple: the Florentine merchant Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife. Perhaps the painting depicts their home in Bruges. There is a version that Arnolfini’s wife died (a candle went out above her head) and the husband ordered a family portrait as a sign of loyalty to his wife. This statement is supported by the image of a dog.
But also pay attention to the beautiful mirror in which two people are visible. It is probably Jan van Eyck himself with his brother Hubert or with his student. This is not the only van Eyck painting where these two appear. The mirror is decorated in a frame with an image of the Passion of Christ in medallions. And here Panofskyi (a leading art historian and theoretician who studied the iconology of old masters’ paintings) finds another proof that the woman depicted in the painting is dead. The passions on the part of the man tell the story before Jesus’ death, and on the part of the woman — after the crucifixion.
The art can be very mysterious and sophisticated! And by learning it, you will be able to learn how to solve and find all these puzzles!
What are the essential skills for Product Managers? For sure, it is creativity, empathy and curiosity.
Art itself, visiting museums and art-galleries can enhance these soft-skills and broaden our horizons. Making creative photos, doing some hand-crafted things can influence your productivity, wide thinking and finding the most unusual solution in your Product or Project that you are working on.
What about soft skills that Human Resources should have? For sure, there are communication skills, mentoring, empathy, negotiation, teamwork and motivation. Which knowledge can gather all these things? It is people’s psychology knowledge. Where can we dig this knowledge? I guess, reading a variety of books and watching movies, where you can learn about types of people’s personalities, etc.
So, for implementing these knowledge to your daily routine at job you can start with:
- Try to love visiting museums and art galleries in your native city and worldwide.
- Find interesting books and movies about art, art history and try to spend free time reading and watching them.
- Try to find creative and unusual hobbies that you will like — it can be some hand-crafting, painting, photography or even acting courses.
- Try to always find some “background story” — about some famous picture, sculpture, movie or book.
- And for sure be always open minded — to new knowledge, experience, interesting people around you.
I really adore art. And I hope that this article can make you fall in love with art as well. Before asking yourself why you need some “boring” museum on your vacation, remember that any art can broaden your worldview, give an inspiration, change at least your “picture”, make important questions to you, give some aesthetic pleasure, good memories and for sure a bit of admiration. And (!) enhance and influence your hard and soft skills in High Tech. Enjoy;)
