Technique is not the secret of
painting. It's not using tissues, toothbrushes, sponges, palette
knives, cotton swabs or razor blades along with your artist
paint brushes. Nor is it about "put a little blue here." All of
these have a place in our bag of drawing and painting tricks ...
but the real secret of picture making is composition.
Underlying all works of art (at
all levels from good amateur level to great pictures) is
structure.
On the first day in my English
Literature class in my art university, the professor played
"Bolero," an orchestral work by Maurice Ravel and asked us what
it was. The whole class squirmed and could not come up with an
answer. Our professor finally said "it's a crescendo." That was
the underlying structure. That was the idea. That was the
organizing theme. Aside from Ravel having skills in melody and
musicality, he was a composer.
Listeners like what they hear
in "Bolero." Some listeners have music training and understand
on all levels, including understanding the underlying structure.
Untrained listeners like what they hear and while they may not
know it they like "Bolero" because it is composed. That's why it
is performed over and over in symphony halls. That's why a
ballet was created to dance to the gradual increase in volume
and intensity up to the thunderous climax that ends "Bolero." My
English Professor taught me about composition in art using
"Bolero" as an example.
Paintings have underlying
principles that organize the elements of the picture in order to
bring the eye of the viewer into and around the image in an
interesting way and to organize the elements into a cohesive
whole.
There are nearly infinite ways
to structure a picture. Some are obvious, like a mother arching
over and protecting a resting or sleeping horizontal child.
Another obvious composition is the opposing angles of two
fighters in a boxing match.
Some of the principles of
composition:
• Beauty is organized variety.
• Variety equals interest.
• A picture needs a dominant element, a sub-dominant element and
subordinate elements organized into interesting relationships.
This creates order for the viewer so that you, the painter, can
entertain the eye of the viewer with a varied and therefore
interesting picture order.
• The dominant element can be made dominant by a somewhat
central position, by size dominance or interest dominance, and
through the complexity of the dominant element or its
psychological dominance. For instance, the eye of a viewer is
drawn to a human face.
• Those elements need to be varied in size and shape for maximum
interest.
• The viewer needs to have a path to those elements that is
interesting.
• Thumbnails ... small sketches ... can organize your picture
before you get into the details.
• The negative areas (spaces between objects) are as important
as the objects.
• The center of the picture is the most powerful ... not the
exact center ... but the area around the center is where your
dominant element gains strength.
• Tension between two elements adds interest (like the
opposition thrust of the fighters mentioned above).
• Division horizontally suggests peacefulness.
• Those divisions should not be equal as that would create a
boring picture.
• In a painting of a sky, mountain range and valley let's say
you want the sky to dominate. You would make the sky ˝ the
height of the canvas (3/6ths). But a linear (3-2-1) stacking
would be boring. 3-1-2 is more interesting. So sky 3, mountain
range 1 and foreground valley 2.
Art courses, classes, videos
and TV shows that teach technique but don't address composition
miss the key to making good pictures.
To be sure, an understanding of
technique, color theory, form, drawing, perspective and
proportion need to be studied and developed but they should
serve on an underlying structure.
Composition is the secret of
painting.
