So, in essence, you are saying a big turd is justifiable even if its smaller brother is not?
Is it, then, a matter of critical mass on the pavement?
:-)
Rob
No. I believe he's saying that size matters in images.
I rremember when, as a young student studying 20th century painting, I struggled with the abstract expressionists. I struggled especially Jackson Pollack. My professor showed slides, I looked at books, but I got... nothing.
Then I went to an exhibit (at the Met, I believe) where a Pollack was installed at the landing of a staircase, so that as you came up the stairs, it filled your entire field of view. As I walked up those stairs, I came to understand Pollack. With the painting filling my entire field of view, I saw the energy, the visual rhythm, the subtlety of color choices as I'd never been able to understand them before. I "got" abstract expressionism in that moment, and it has been my favorite period of painting since that day.
I don't know what the OP image is like at 50" wide, but I'd be very surprised if the impression it gives were not very different from the one it gives on my computer screen.