Nothing Says Romanticism Like "Microhip Patterns"

Romanticism was an art movement in late 18th century Europe. It was expressed by artists, musicians, writers and so on. Visually, it is characterized by dynamic, flowing compositions and sumptuous, visceral colors (see image: Joseph Turner, Slave Ship, 1840).

Romanticism was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the scientific rationalization of nature. It placed an emphasis on the power of nature and emotion, and on nationalism, local customs, and folklore.

The microchip has within it the power to harness more energy per gram per second than anything in the known universe (Kevin Kelly, Technology's Epic Story, TED 2010). All of the things the microchip stands for - the power of technology, interconnected globalization, and binary logic - are antithetical to Romanticism.

The sensuous experience that delivers Romantic inspiration and expression is antithetical to the experience that we access via the digital interface; it is, in a way, the anesthetic experience.

Finally, Romanticism spawned in collusion with the Counter Enlightenment, a period that we may now be entering relative to the Information Age.

All this being said, I submit the following:

I ran a search for “microchip patterns” looking for good reference for a drawing. I found a good one and ran an image match. You would expect something like this, pretty straightforward:

Or perhaps something a bit more interesting, in regards to the inner-workings of the image match process (notice the color/compositional relationship between the host and the match):

But instead, the first one clicked brought me this:

For a moment, I thought I was hearing voices and seeing things.

Then I realized there is a man behind the curtain here, and unfortunately it’s not as magical as it seems. This is actually not an image of a ‘microchip’ but a reference to Persian calligraphy. It lies in an article mentioning how ancient designs can look strikingly similar to microchip patterns. The similar images searched up are not, in fact, those of a Romantic-era artist, but of an artist on a page that had to be translated from Persian, so I’m guessing that’s the connection here. That’s what’s really happening.

I prefer the former, in agreement with the title of this post, “Nothing Says Romanticism Like Microchip Patterns”.