Equality

Equality deals with the complex interplay between freedom and security. The picture represents what I see as the more or less successful interplay of both values in the Western world over many years.

Unfortunately, I see this balance increasingly threatened by various social developments that occurred at the end of the 2010s. Therefore, Equality honours the balance and makes me realise what a great privilege a balance of openness and security is.

The picture was taken at the end of 2022 in the unshakable hope that, given the one-sidedness, cancel culture and censorship I perceive, it is not a solemn swan song of liberal democracy. My thesis is that freedom and plurality are essential guarantors of social security. Those who endanger these will inevitably accept a much higher propensity for violence and aggression. In my view, a disturbance of the balance provides the breeding ground for conspiracies, social division and nationalism. I locate the consequences in the burgeoning wars that we are unfortunately having to experience again in Europe at the time of writing.

The surreal artwork "Equality" by Friedrich Siever shows a section of an architectural structure with a view of the sea.

In the front part of the detail, 6 steps can be seen leading to a minimalist gallery of the building. At the end of the gallery, which can be seen straight ahead, is a wall with a door-high opening in the round-arch style, which offers a view of the sea. To its left, the staircase is bordered by a wall that ends just above the staircase. This wall does not extend vertically to the end of the gallery, leaving a gap between it and the wall seen straight ahead. The wall to the right of the staircase goes all the way to the end and is at right angles to the wall seen straight ahead. Like this wall, it also consists of round arch openings. There are a total of 8 openings in the right wall, which in this case are round-arched windows.

The windows, seen from below, start at about the same height as the opposite wall. They are about the same size as the opening of the adjacent wall seen straight ahead. However, since the openings start higher up, they go correspondingly higher. The walls on the left and the wall straight ahead are also connected to each other at the top by a roof.

From the left side, light falls onto and into the architectural building. The shadow from the roof falls at an angle that is like a straight extension of the roof. Although the roof itself is not slanted, it is given a perspective angle by the viewer's angle of vision, which is continued by the shadow. This shadow falls over the wall that can be seen straight ahead as well as over the right wall. Matching this, the shadow of the left wall runs over the staircase and part of the gallery, creating a slight jagged pattern on the staircase. While the view through the left windows is not possible due to the perspective of the picture, the sea and the horizon can be seen on the left side due to the half-height wall.

In terms of colour, the image consists of a combination of white and blue-white tones for the building and the shadows seen there and the clear blue tones of the sea and horizon. The horizon has a blue tone with 72% blue, 100% saturation and 70% brightness in the darkest parts with Absolute Zero (Crayola). The gradient of the sea also ends in a very similar shade, but starts more intensively with the almost turquoise shade "Spiro Disco Ball". This has a 44% green and 49% blue component with 86% saturation and 89% brightness.

Equality is a painting from the series "Breath" and was created as a digital painting by artist Friedrich Siever in February 2022.