Composition is thearrangement of shapesto keep the eye moving
with pleasure.
Glenn Hirsch
Positive and Negative Shape creates rhythm
Repetition creates rhythm
Scale creates impact
Diagonals keep the eye moving all over the picture
The exchange of value creates relationships
Positive and Negative Shapes create rhythm
(M.C. Escher 1930)
Jackson Pollock, 1944
Phillip Guston 1954
Helen Frankenthaler
Gustav Courbet, 1855
Graham Sutherland 1944
Robert Bechtel, watercolor
DIAGONALS keep the eye moving
Raphael (left), Rubens (right)
Anders Zorn, watercolor
Anders Zorn, watercolor
Stephen Scott Young, watercolor
Stephen Scott Young, watercolor
Edward Hopper, pastel
SCALE unites smaller shapes into large shapes by unifying the
color
Francis Picabia 1913
translation of value
dark on top of light
light on top of dark
A ‘translation of value’ white against dark, and dark against light
Georges Seurat, c. 1885
Translation of value - light against dark, and dark against light.
Pattern creates rhythm through repetition
Tomb of Nakht 1500 BCE
Gustave Klimt, 1905
Deborah Oropallo, Tree, Violin, and Violinist, 1989Evenly space, repeated rhythms
Deborah Oropallo, Sioux Sox, 1989Staggered, uneven rhythms
For comparison: Leonardo didn’t
favor pattern
Botticelli’s art is all about the pattern
Detail from The Trials of Moses, Sistine Chapel
Édouard Vuillard(French, 1868-1940)
Vuillard lived with his mother, a dressmaker, until the age of sixty, and was very familiar with pattern.
Much of his art is decorative with intricate patterns marked by a gentle humor and executed in a delicate, soft color.
Fred Tomaselli(American, 1956 - )
Tomaselli is best known for his highly detailed paintings
on wood panel, combining an array of unorthodox
materials suspended in a thick layer of clear, epoxy
resin and a maelstrom of pattern.