The Clean Background Trick

 One of the most interesting things that Howie talks about in The Mezzanine is what he calls the "Clean background trick". This is a trick, in which one can place anything against a clean white background, and then it will seem to be beautiful. Howie describes this technique on page 38 of The Mezzanine, "Right when I suddenly had more blue sky in front of me than green truck, I remembered that when I was little I used to be very interested in the fact that anything, no matter how rough, rusted, dirty, or otherwise discredited it was, looked good if you set it down on a stretch of white cloth. or any kind of clean background. . . . This clean-background trick, which I had come upon when I was eight or so, applied not only to things I owned, such as a group of fossil brachiopods I set against a white shirt cardboard, but also to things in museums: curators arranged geodes, early American eyeglasses, and boot scrapers against black or gray velvet backgrounds because anytime you set some detail of the world off that way, it was able to take on its true stature as an object of attention."

 I found this trick interesting because it reminded me of a lot of the tricks used in modern art today. You can find paintings that are simply something like a red dot on a completely blank canvas, and despite being so simple, still looks nice. This is also something used in decoration for modern houses, where you have very simple furniture and such, on a clean flat background. This doesn't show off the trick properly though because in modern art, or modern decorations often instead of something that doesn't look to good by itself, they use something simple which could look good by itself on most surfaces.

 This trick is also used often in The Mezzanine. Howie will take something normal and every day, such as the escalator, and look at it against a clean mental background. He will take a much closer look a something ordinary and see how extraordinary that object truly is. It's a very different way of looking at things than how I look at things a really puts a new perspective on a lot of everyday things. After reading it often makes one think more deeply about their own surroundings and use the same kind of trick. 

 It also makes one think about why although this trick is very useful, the art it's used in is often used in is made fun of because of how simple it is. Which I can understand as it is often so simple it seems that just about anyone could make the same art without even trying. A much different view than Howie has on the clean background trick.