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Re: What makes a fabulous tank?
On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Aquatic Plants Digest wrote:
(or was it Roger Miller?)
>A use of recognizable elements or themes in a tank - a sort of scenic
>metaphore - can give a viewer a sense of familiarity with an aquascape and
>invoke senses and emotions that originate not from the aquascape itself
>but from the viewer's impressions or memories.
Like my undersea pirate's chest with diving dogs theme? :-)
Seriously, one thing that struck me about some of the first Amano
compositions I saw (in the magazine issue on rocks?) was how much they
looked like a plain covered with grass with a mountain or hill or boulder,
i.e. a terrestrial scene--with which we're certainly more familiar.
When I was asking my girlfriend (a real artist) for layout/compositional
ideas for the tank, she also gave me a rolling-hill-kinda design with a
big tree of an E. Blehri on the top. Looked like a great place to take a
rest in the shade!
So, yeah, I think familiar scenes appeal to people. And may not be all
that bad for the fish, either. Some of my fish might like taking rests on
shady hilltops too.
------------------------------------
Elliot Williams (ewilliams at ucsd_edu)
San Diego, CA