Composition: Some Possible Approaches to Learning Pictorial Design

I'd like to start this post by thanking everyone who mentioned artists and posted composition resources in the comments on the last post, or by email. All the input has given me so much to think about that it's taken me some time to get my thoughts organised enough to follow up with this post. I hope this has been useful to everyone so far. For myself, I've reached some conclusions on how I'm going to approach the problem of getting better at pictorial design which I'll endeavour to explain a little at the end of this post.

Since we ended up with such an interesting list of resources, I'll start today by summarising them here so that we have them all in one place:

Some Composition Resources Suggested By Readers

Edward Seago

Landscape painter Edward Seago was mentioned first by Nick as an example of good composition. Although I knew of Seago, I hadn't seen much of his work. A bit of trawling around the web has turned up some really beautiful compositions. This one in particular struck me for its very effective use of negative space:

Bruce MacEvoy

Jon posted this page on composition on Bruce MacEvoy's Handprint site. Mostly it's about what Bruce calls 'format proportions' and is concerned with fitting compositions to the proportions of the rectangle that bounds the picture. To his credit, Bruce himself states that he's wary of forcing compositions to fit preconceived geometrical devices applied after the fact to old masters. He then proceeds to do it himself, but the results are worth having a good look at and are more convincing than many of the geometrical overlays I've seen. I do think there's some really useful information there and it's an interesting perspective on compositional design.

Loomis - Creative Illustration

Jesus mentioned Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis which I'll be talking about a little more later in this post. You can download all his books in pdf format here, or you can buy a hard copy of Creative Illustration from Amazon by following the link above. It's incredibly expensive but is also incredibly useful and is unlikely to be republished any time soon. I think it has a lot of excellent information about design and composition, and a little that's not so good.

Vermeer

My good friend Peter Yesis emailed me this geometrical overlay of the Vermeer painting I posted previously. There's some other info at that link about the painting too. It's interesting that Vermeer appears to have broken one of the 'rules' of composition and put an important element, the balance, pretty much on the centre line of the painting.

Stapleton Kearns: Geometrical Composition

Stapleton Kearns blog was mentioned by Jon, and there are a few posts on composition from the geometrical design stand-point here (diagonal composition), here (a square within a rectangle, also treated on Bruce MacEvoy's page above) and here (circular composition.)

James Gurney: Eye Tracking Experiments

Jon also brought up the three posts on Jim Gurneys blog about eye tracking: here, here and here. These were perhaps the most interesting resources to come out of the discussion for me, and call into question the whole notion of leading the eye in compositions. In the course of a short email conversation I had with Jim about this, he had this to say:

"My own findings don't negate any of the traditional compositional practices of leading lines, golden section, etc. They still seem to play a role in making good and pleasing pictures, but what I question are factual assertions about how the eye flows or moves in a picture. The reality turns out to be a lot more interesting than any of us had thought."

Jim also mentioned the Yarbus eye tracking studies (English translation of Yarbus' book in pdf format and a research paper on Yarbus' findings.) This is really fascinating stuff for anyone who wants to delve further into eye tracking experiments and how we look at paintings. Stapleton then posted himself on eye paths, and that post has brought out some interesting comments too, including another insightful one by Mr. Gurney himself.

Composition: Arthur Wesley Dow

Margaret mentioned a book called Composition; a series of exercises in art structure for the use of students and teachers by Arthur Wesley Dow (it can also be downloaded in pdf format). I recently got a copy of this book and it's had more influence on the direction my thinking on composition has taken over the last few days than anything else. More on that anon.

Pierro Della Francesca: Geometrical Composition

Finally, David mentioned a geometrical overlay of the Baptism of Christ by Pierro Della Francesca, and made the very good point that there was more than just design behind the geometry. To Renaissance masters, geometry had philosophical connotations.

Well, that's quite a lot of stuff to look through. Taken together, those resources can provide some deep insights into how we can improve our own compositions.

Breaking It Down: Two Ways of Looking At Composition

After a lot of reading and having given this a lot of thought, I've come to the conclusion that these various perspectives on composition can be divided into two main areas, guiding the viewer and design, each of which can be broken down a little further:

1. Guiding the Viewer - The First Approach

I think this area of composition can be usefully divided into two areas, Focus and Eye Paths:

Focus

This was mentioned by a couple of people in the comments, not least by Ted Seth Jacobs. Ted is a world famous artist and educator who has published books on learning to draw and paint and taught many of the leading lights of the contemporary representational painting revival in the US, Jacob Collins and Anthony Ryder among them. And his work is exceptional.

There are various ways that focus can be created in a picture. Ted lists placement, contrast in either value or colour and distinctness of shape. I'd perhaps add edge handling to that list too as a technique that's often recommended for creating focus.

Interestingly though, one of the findings of Jim Gurney's eye tracking experiments was that the viewer's eye will tend to be drawn by elements which are psychologically interesting, regardless of what the artist tries to do. In many cases these elements will be standard things, figures and faces. But it also strikes me that we all have very different life experiences and may perhaps find different things more psychologically compelling.

I think the conclusion here, and Jim Gurney appears to concur in his posts, is that the traditional techniques of guiding focus will work best when they are used to reinforce psychologically interesting elements. Among these elements, Jim lists objects that we can physically interact with, door handles, roads, food perhaps. So still life and landscape artists would do well to consider this too.

A relevant example here I think is L'Eminence Grise by Jean-Leon Gerome:

I've seen this painting mentioned as a good example of an artist directing the gaze of the viewer towards the lone figure descending the stairs. It's interesting that the areas of greatest contrast and colour are elsewhere, and many of the diagonals within the painting converge on the grouping of three figures towards the centre of the painting. But attention still seems to fall eventually on the solitary enigmatic figure on the right.

You could of course come up with any number of explanations for why that happens. But is it not simply that most of the other figures in the painting are looking towards the main focus of interest? In his posts on eye tracking, Jim Gurney found that viewers would first scan around a painting to find the context of the story. In that case, the other figures will be registered as directing their attention in one direction. The focus in this painting works because of the narrative of the story (perhaps in conjunction with the title,) and in opposition to the usual compositional devices. It would be very interesting to see an eye tracking experiment on this painting I think.

Eye Paths

This is the area that Jim Gurney's experiments really call into question. First let's look at an example of how this is often covered in books on composition. I think Loomis has an awful lot of useful information to offer artists, but the example comes from his book Creative Illustration. There's much more on this subject in the book, but this is a typical example:

This is a good time to bring in a couple of excerpts from the Yarbus experiments I mentioned earlier. The experiment involved a number of test subjects viewing Unexpected Visitor by Repin whilst having their eye movements tracked. This is the painting:

Have a look at that painting and try to be conscious of the movements of your eyes. Look also for where we might be able to say that Repin had used compositional effects to lead the eye through the composition as Loomis recommends we do.

Now here's the results of the eye tracking of several viewers, looking freely at the painting:

I think that speaks for itself. What's particularly interesting here (and this was also borne out by Jim Gurney's experiments) is that the eye activity is markedly different for each viewer.

What's also interesting is that if a viewer is given a particular task regarding the picture, so changing the context in which they view it, the paths their eyes take through the painting will change:

I infer from this that the psychological baggage we personally bring to a painting will affect the paths our eyes take despite the best efforts of the artist to guide them.

I think it's safe to say at this point that 'eye pathways' in paintings are probably a myth and that if we want to make good compositions we'd be better off directing our energies elsewhere. It would be very interesting though, to see experiments like this done on paintings with a wider range of subjects without figures, and also with abstract work. To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't been done as yet.

Conclusion:

In terms of guiding the viewer's attention, there is probably more mileage in the various ways of establishing focal areas in a picture than there is in eye paths, but I think we need to be aware that perhaps even these techniques are not as effective as we might have thought, and that if they don't correspond with elements that a viewer wants to look at they will be probably be ignored, or at least be of secondary importance.

2: Design - The Second Approach

I'd propose that the second main area of composition is concerned with the effect of the overall design. Under this heading would come balance, repetition, spacing and the use of negative space and other basic principles of design. I'm inclined to give this area much more credence and think that this is where we should be directing our energies. It's where I intend to direct mine.

In general, there seem to be two main approaches to this, geometrical and intuitive. I don't think that these two approaches are mutually exclusive and in fact they may work very well in concert with each other. But people tend to fall into one camp or the other I think.

Geometrical

There are many links above that point to the geometrical approach to design. It can be fairly informal as Stapleton Kearns describes its use on his blog, or quite mathematical. The golden section is perhaps the most popular incarnation of the geometrical approach.

There's a detailed treatment on the geometrical approach to pictorial composition in Classical Painting Atelier: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Studio Practice by Juliet Aristides. It's a fascinating chapter, one of the most interesting in the book. Aristides is firmly in the geometrical planning camp. Whilst recognising the value of intuition, Aristides believes that an intuitive approach alone is not enough to make good compositions and relegates it to personal style, stating the following:

"Artistic intuition and sensitivity to order are vital elements that contribute to the style of an artist, yet these elements alone are not enough if one is to achieve a consistent level of compositional mastery"

Personally, I think that's a somewhat limited way of looking at composition. If we're only talking about the western art tradition and that only previous to the 20th century (which perhaps she is, being a Classical Realist) then the statement makes more sense.

But I think it ignores in particular the pervading influence of eastern art on western artists which began in the late 1800's and is still being felt today. Chinese and Japanese art both represent rich, vibrant - and very long - traditions which I think are particularly strong in the area of composition, and it's this that has influenced western artists the most. Because of that, I have a problem with absolute statements of fact like the Aristides quote above. I think the picture is more nuanced.

I do think the Aristides book is excellent though, I'd recommend it, and the chapter on composition is extremely interesting. I don't think anyone could seriously doubt that many Renaissance artists used geometry in their composition, and Aristides gives some excellent examples of quite convincing geometrical overlays. I find some of the examples in the book much less convincing though, and it seems that if an important element of the picture is just close to a line or point of geometric divisional harmony, that's taken as proof positive that the artist in question based the composition on the provided geometrical overlay. Correlation isn't necessarily causation, especially when it's just somewhere near and not spot on.

To my mind, conclusive proof of a particular mathematical design being used in a particular painting would be a preparatory study by the artist showing how it was worked out. Without such supporting evidence I think we're firmly into the realm of conjecture and should employ liberal amounts of circumspection.

All that said, I thought it would be interesting to try out some of the ideas in the book in a still life painting. This was the result:

A still life composition based on a geometrical design

The composition for this painting was based on the geometry on the right, taken directly from Aristide's book. The proportion of the picture is built on two golden section rectangles, one above the other, highlighted in yellow. I've placed the centre of three of the peaches right on what are supposed to be harmonic intervals, circled in red. In addition, the diagonal line formed by the top edge of the jug follows one of the main diagonal divisions, which also bisects a plum on the far right, and the handle joins the body of the jug at the intersection with another of the main diagonals.

Of course, one clumsy experiment like this isn't proof of the effectiveness or otherwise of this approach, and I don't take it as such. I do feel that there's something nice about the composition. Although the objects appear fairly randomly placed if you haven't seen the geometry, the way they line up does seem to satisfy some kind of inner preference we have for order.

But the painting is still a bit of a dud if you ask me. As you can see I didn't finish it because I thought it was too rubbish, and having invested days and days worth of work working out the composition, doing thumb nails of the value balance, etc. I became disheartened at the way it was going and abandoned it as an interesting experiment that didn't quite come off.

The (tentative) conclusion I drew from this experiment is pretty much the opposite to Juliet Aristides' statement quoted above. It's this: that hanging a composition on geometrical design can be very effective, but unless it's combined with an intuitive sense of design, colour and good spacing, it's not enough on it's own to make a good picture.

Which brings me nicely to the intuitive approach to design.

Intuitive

Let me clarify a little what I mean by intuitive. I feel I have to since the word is used pejoratively by detractors, and sometimes indiscriminately by supporters.

I'm sure we've all had an 'aha' moment now and again, when something which seemed difficult to understand suddenly seems to fit together. Perhaps you've had the experience of going to bed worrying about a problem, and found that when you woke up the next day you seemed to have found a solution.

These are quite common experiences. What I think is happening there (and this is based on a fair amount of reading on recent findings in neuroscience) is that our brains process much more information unconsciously than they do consciously. I don't think intuitions are a gift from the Gods, I don't think there's anything mystical about them. I don't think that they're necessarily irrational either. They seem to be the results of processing carried out by our brains outside of normal every day consciousness. Our brains process information in a number of different ways, and we're not always aware of it happening. Anyone interested in further reading about this could do a lot worse than The Developing Mind by Daniel Siegel.

Neurons firing along axons (a visualisation)

It seems to me that if we want to develop our intuitive sense of design then we need to feed our brains with a lot of raw material for them to chew over whilst we get on with other things, the washing up and stuff like that. When we process a new piece of information, or practice a new skill, our brains create representations of the information or action. These representations are built from links between neurons, called axons. We develop these links throughout our lives, and the more often that particular patterns of connections are 'fired,' the stronger they become. The phrase used by neuroscientists to describe this process is "neurons that fire together, wire together."

These connections are physical, not metaphorical. Learning new skills and processing new information actually physically changes the structure of the brain, a process known as neuroplasticity, and with repeated use these connections eventually become coated in a substance that makes them even more permanent and further facilitates their firing - they become almost 'hard wired.' Thus are habits formed, and this is also why they're so difficult to break. If we stop using the connections, they die away after a while. Use it or lose it. A better way to say "you are what you do" is to say "you are what you repeatedly do."

So it follows that we ought to be able to develop and strengthen the areas of our brains that are used in design through the right kind of repetitive use. The more we practice, the more natural and effortless this skill will become, and the more we'll be able to use it without having to consciously think about it. It will become intuitive.

I see a practical application of that in the approach put forward by Arthur Wesley Dow in his book Composition, subtitled A Series of Exercises in Art Structure For The Use of Students and Teachers. This is the book that Margaret mentioned in the 'Resources' section above, it's been re-published with a couple of different titles.

First, a few examples of Dow's own compositions from various stages in his career:

Paintings and prints by Arthur Wesley Dow

The influence of Japanese art can be felt pretty strongly there, especially in the later wood block prints. But the one thing that fairly shines out to me is how lovely the compositions are, how strong the design is in each piece.

Dow's approach to composition is in stark contrast to the planned geometrical approach. In fact, in Composition he comes out quite strongly against it:

"The secret of spacing in Greek art has been looked for in the golden mean...but the finest things were certainly the product of feeling and trained judgement, not of mathematics. Art resists everything that interferes with free choice and personal decision."

The primary idea of Dow's book is that composition is best learned through practice. The book is based around a series of practical exercises split into three sections: line (and spacing,) notan (a Japanese word for dark and light) and colour. Creative Illustration by Loomis has a similar structure. In the Dow book, each series of exercises is intended to be expanded on by the student and repetition, refinement, adjustment and invention are key themes. His overarching concern is the development of an intuitive feeling for proportion and spacing, which Dow expects to develop naturally thorough the course of the exercises.

This approach needs to be seen in historical context I think. He reflects the concerns of the Aesthetic movement of the late 1800s which stressed intuition, abstract design and beauty over the story telling and three dimensional modelling of much Victorian art of the time. Like Whistler and other artists of the Aesthetic movement, Dow was very interested in eastern art, in particular Japanese painting and woodblock printing. The contemporary fashion for 'Japonisme' was also present in the work of the impressionists, post impressionists and symbolists, crossing stylistic, philosophical and cultural boundaries.

I do believe that it would be quite possible to develop this natural sense of design through the course of normal practice, just by drawing and painting without concentrating on it particularly. But I also believe that concentration on a particular aspect of painting and drawing, especially through repetitive practice, allows us to develop that particular aspect more fully and perhaps in less time too.

I think we all have to find the approaches that suit us best, there is no 'one size fits all.' Dow's approach may not be for everyone, but to me it seems an eminently sensible place to start developing an intuitive feel for design and spacing.

The next post on composition will describe the exercises I intend to follow, based on a combination of Dow's exercises and some of what seem to me to be the more useful and practical parts of Loomis' approach. As always, I'll post the results as I go along. If my sense of design improves over time, it should be obvious enough in the work I produce. If not, that should be obvious too!

I don't intend to completely ignore the geometrical approach, however. I think it's important to work with something for a while before any real conclusions can be drawn about whether it suits our way of working or not. Perhaps, with enough practice, a practical balance between the two can be found.

This has been a very long post and has taken some time to write, in fact I've had to re-write it several times. It couldn't have happened without the input that people gave on the last post and a couple of email conversations that it sparked off. I've tried to present everything as clearly as I can, so that it'll be the most useful. It's certainly helped me to get my own thoughts about composition much straighter in my head. I hope that as we go along you'll all benefit from this exploration as much as I have already.

Posted 23rd December 2011

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21 comments

Marsha said:

Excellent, Paul!

Dow's book is wonderful - even uses a kind of'munsell' system when he gets to color near the end!

There is one book that should be mentioned and added to the arsenal for landscapes: Edgar Payne's Compostion of Outdoor Painting. http://www.amazon.com/Composition-Outdoor-Painting-Edgar-Alwin/dp/0944699022

It was originally distributed by DeRue's Fine Art 1590 S. Coast Hwy., Laguna Beach, CA 92651 Ph# 949-376-3785. Don't know if they are still available new or if this gallery is still in business, but worth keeping an eye open for it. It is one of my treasures though I haven't done much with it yet!

You've given lots of things to do during the first weeks of the new year, Paul - thanks!

Best Wishes for a very Happy Christmas and 2011 to you and Michelle!

Posted: 2010-12-24 02:04:32

Tracey Mardon said:

Hi Paul, It is still available from DeRue and Amazon/ I think you might want to check out Carlson's Guide to Landscape painting so have included the URL.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486229270/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=1278548962&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0939370115&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=129R2YC7ECB81FFA180K

Posted: 2010-12-24 03:09:36

Michael Orwick said:

Thank you for the very thoughtful post, over the last year and during the next I have made a very real effort to focus more on the design in my work.
I lean toward the learn it and forget so that it becomes a part of you or one of the many tools you carry within. I look forward to your next post.

All the best,

www.michaelorwick.com to see some of the new design oriented landscapes.

Posted: 2010-12-24 15:48:35

Chris said:

Enjoying your thoughts on composition.

Here is some research investigating Rembrandt, and guiding the viewers eye etc, which may be of interest to you.

http://dipaola.org/lab/research/rembrandt/

Posted: 2010-12-24 23:59:07

Paul said:

Hi Marsha,

Thanks for the good wishes, and the same to you and Steve.

Thanks also for the link to landscape composition book. It's got some excellent
reviews on amazon. One review recommends contacting the publisher direct who might still have new copies available.

The next time I post on composition (there's going to be a couple more unrelated posts first) I'll start laying out the exercises themselsves. If you wasnt something to keep you busy in the new year, there should be plenty there :)

Hi Tracey,

Thanks for the URL for Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting. That has incredible 57 reviews on Amazon with a 5.5. Seems to be going down very well.

Posted: 2010-12-26 15:25:48

Paul said:

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the link to your work. I can certainly see the concentration on design in those paintings, lovely work. This one in particular stands out for me as a really nicely organised design in an atypical format, and also this one, but my favourite might just be the penguin!

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the link to the paper of tests on focus in images.

Their idea is that Rembrandt used 'painterly techniques' - and was the first to do so - including differing levels of detail and texture in order to guide the viewer's eye to specific parts of the painting through creating focus and (they say) embedding 'eye paths' into the picture. As far as the eye paths part goes, this is in direct opposition to the conclusions drawn above in both Jim Gurney's and Yarbus's earlier eye tracking experiments, so this is worth a closer look I think.

Firstly, in the introduction they mention guiding the eye of the viewer through eye paths ("influencing the observer�s fixation points and eye
gaze paths within the work") but present no examples of the actual paths that viewers eyes took thorough the paintings they tested with. Eye paths and focus are two very different things I think, and they've muddled them together, assuming that proof of one implies proof of the other. It really doesn't.

Simply saying "Modern artist Harley Brown also exploits the tendency for the observer�s gaze to follow a line or edge" doesn't prove that the gaze does follow edges. They really needed to prove that with some eye tracking experiments, or to leave it out. Yarbus's and Jim Gurney's experiments show very clearly that the observer's gaze doesn't follow edges and contours. That's another pretty major hole in their paper I think.

There are some interesting points about how the visual system works, how we perceive detail in only a small area of our vision and the rest is only partially perceived in peripheral vision. That's nothing new though, really. Their basic point, which they do have some supporting evidence for, is that more detail and greater texture tends to draw the eye. They also show quite convincingly that reducing detail and texture in surrounding areas will mean that the eye is attracted more quickly to the detailed areas. Again, that's not particularly surprising, since it's relationships and not absolutes that matter - whether an area is more detailed than the surrounding areas. they're effectively proving the same thing twice as far as I can see.

When you really break that paper down, there's a lot of conjectural assertions in the introduction, followed by some statistical evidence that texture and detail draw the gaze more powerfully towards the areas (the eyes in a portrait) that they would focus on anyway. Beyond that it doesn't really give us anything that we can take away and use at the easel I don't think. I do think it's useful that there's some statistical information that controlling focus can have some effect, but how many of us would have seriously doubted that in the first place?

What really bothers me about the paper is the unsupported assertion that the observer's gaze can be guided through the picture in a particular order. There is absolutely no proof of that, and Jim Gurney's and Yarbus's experiments pretty much prove that it can't be. To me that's misinformation, and there's quite enough of that around already.

Learning to paint and draw is hard. It takes a very long time to learn to do it well and our life spans are limited. As I've been teaching myself over the last few years, I've come across a lot of information that's misguided and has wasted my time. Eye paths is a really good example. Esoteric theories of colour would be another. What I'm trying to do here is to sift this information and present what I've found to be most useful in a way that can be easily understood. I don't expect it to be right for everyone and our experiences will necessary be different. But when I see people spouting conjecture as fact, I worry about how many people will be mislead by it.

But it was an interesting paper as far as it went, thanks for bringing it up.

Posted: 2010-12-26 17:54:23

Jon said:

Merry Xmas Paul and all! That's great stuff - Personally, I am all for intuition. Giving paintings titles has a great, great effect too...

Posted: 2010-12-26 20:58:22

david said:

Hi Paul,
I think the intuition or rules idea is a false opposition. In reality the "rules" are created after the fact, thats to say they are the distillation of a lot of very talented peoples' intuition, or natural design sense. If you happen not to have a highly developed sense of design you can get help from the "rules" whilst trying to develop one but its not an either/or situation. The intersting thing about your experimental painting from a design point of view for me was that the longer I looked at it the better it got, a pattern seemed to emerge as it were from the chaos. The weaknesses, such as they are, are more the result of a lack of sufficient variety in hue and chroma, ie too much of the painting is grey,or perhaps just that the higher chroma areas are too dispersed, which merely serves to highlight that all the elements of design contribute to composition and weakness in one area can be enough to negate strength in others.

Posted: 2010-12-26 22:01:42

margaret sloan said:

Good post. Raises lots of questions.
You might also want to consider the graphic design standby of the Swiss grid system. You can get a bit of information about it here: http://tiny.cc/zt70w
I remember in design classes that this created some happy layouts with relative ease.

I remember one design teacher pointing out that humans can see the difference of 1/32 of an inch. When designing without a grid, we still tend to place elements in a grid like manner. But if the element is a little off�that is, outside of the 1/32 of an inch spacing our eyes can discern�the viewer will notice something is wrong.But they won't know exactly what it is that's disturbing to their eye.

Posted: 2010-12-27 15:55:23

Paul said:

Merry Xmas to you Jon, all the best to you and yours :)

I think you're right about titles - it could be that a title influences the way a viewer looks at a painting more than all the compositional tricks and focus techniques we might try! Mine usually read like a list of the objects in the painting "Still Life with blah blah blah and blah." Maybe I should try getting a bit more poetic with them and I might sell more :)

Hi David,

>"I think the intuition or rules idea is a false opposition."
That isn't quite what I was saying, to be fair. I was contrasting the geometrical (as advocated by Aristides and others) with the intuitive (as advocated by Dow) approach to composition. For a clearer idea of how those two approaches differ, I'd recommend reading both books if you haven't already. What I mean by intuition, if I didn't explain it clearly enough above, is the repeated practicing of a skill until it becomes second nature - unconscious, if you like.

>"the "rules" are...the distillation of a lot of very talented peoples' intuition, or natural design sense"
I think we have a fundamental difference in mind set here. I approach any skill, particularly those required for painting and drawing, with the conviction that it can be learned and developed with sufficient helpings of commitment, hard work and practice. Everything I do is based on that belief. It sounds to me that you're suggesting that some people have a natural, innate sense of design, and the rest of us, mere mortals not blessed with this gift, must depend on rules and formulas deduced from the work of greater artists than ourselves.

If that is what you're saying, then with respect I must disagree. I know that it's possible to improve our ability to judge shape and accuracy of drawing, judge and translate values, judge and mix the colours we see, because I've done so. When people see those particular skills done well, they're inclined to explain it as talent because they haven't seen the long hours of practice it took to develop them. I have a long way to go still with all those skills, but on all counts I've seen significant improvement in my own work through long hours of practice and continued assessment and reassessment of the ways I practice. I don't see why design and composition should be any different.

Of course I have times when I feel I'm not progressing, and we're all assailed by doubts at times - maybe even despair occasionally. But experience and long hours at the easel have shown me that we can improve beyond what we thought possible if we apply ourselves in the right way. I think it's not enough just to work hard though. We need to find effective ways to practice, and that mostly comes through trial and error in my experience, taking what you can find and homing it until it fits with what you're trying to achieve. I'm just applying what has already worked for me before to an new area.

Hi Margaret,

Lots of questions, yes, and one's which will take some time to answer I think, at least for me. I'm glad you liked the post.

Thanks for the link to the Swiss grid article, I hadn't heard of it before. Is that something you use much in your own work?

Posted: 2010-12-27 19:30:23

John said:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=116934

Haven't read through all the post of the thread (link), but certainly an interesting discussion.
Best,
John

Posted: 2010-12-27 21:56:59

Paul said:

Thanks John, that is a really interesting thread. It's a bit, um, esoteric at times for me though :)

I think the idea of carving versus modelling that it starts with is very interesting though. if I understand the point right, it's the difference conceptually between figures or objects standing in deep illusional space, e.g. Carravagio say, and the whole of the surface of the picture being a part of the overall design, like Brangwyn, or the naturalist painters that they've posted. Interesting that (I think it was) Kev Ferrara mentioned one being more western and one more eastern. Right on the money and most perceptive. I'd be inclined to agree with that I think. I wonder if the Naturalist painters were aware of eastern art? I wonder if they'd seen Japanese prints?

The timing would certainly be right. Given that they were influenced heavily by Bastien-Lepage, I wonder of he himself had seen and was influenced by Japanese art? (must look that up...)

Thanks John, most interesting, and very much on theme I think.

Posted: 2010-12-27 22:49:36

Paul said:

I think it's worth pointing out that a large portion of that thread linked above has been edited out, rendering it much less interesting than it might have been. It appears to have been done because one of the main posters is writing a book on composition and gave away much of it in the thread. Pity. there are still some interesting ideas in there though. If only they'd stop talking about eye paths! ;)

Posted: 2010-12-27 23:13:26

Anderson Scott said:

Interesting information here. Thank you for taking the time to wade through all this material. You deserve a medal:-)

Way back in college I had a fine art teacher who was old school. He didn't believe in rules for composition because as you noted, everyone perceives thing differently. What he stressed though was for us to learn to discover our own sense of balance or harmony. This was especially useful for still life comps and I later made a whole career out of his advice in commercial art. What he had us do was to pick out 4-5 paintings out of about 50 he had that we felt had that sense of harmony. Then he gave us those same paintings back but they had been turned to black and white and blurred. We were then suppose to discover the 'design' of the piece. For some it was the darks or lights they drew the design from others it was shapes. For me I was drawn to darks in 3 seperate triangular patterns and amazingly it did follow this pattern for each one I picked out. The person next to me might have picked out the same painting but discovered a totally different pattern. My professor stated that everyone has a sense of balance, it's just a matter of discovering what it is that we each perceive that makes sense. Of course once I saw what my classmate saw I also perceived that design as well. It's given me a place to start when setting up a still life or cropping a pic. I know what will please me personally. When I have strayed from my own personal sense is when I find I don't like the comp. It really does work. Once again, thank you for posting all this information. I know many artists will find this information so helpful. Have a wonderful New Year. Regards:-)

Posted: 2011-01-01 01:34:10

Paul said:

Hi Anderson,

That sounds like a very useful exercise your teacher set. I find it interesting that you would pick different aspects of the same painting as the part of the design that stood out for you.

I wonder if practising with design exercises helps to develop not just sense of design, but also a more personal approach to composition at the same time. I'm sure it would.

Dow talks about this in his book. He mentions that in Japanese art, although painters would often have the same subjects, their approach to composing them within a picture would vary depending on the individual painter.

Thanks for the comment, I hope you have a great new year too :)

Posted: 2011-01-01 22:16:39

david said:

Hi Paul,
I'm absolutely the last person who will argue with you that skills can be learned and developed by practice and hard graft. I was making the point that the 'rules' of art aren't likes rules in maths which are besed on inconrovertable facts of the physical universe. They are patterns which can be disecerned in the work of people we admire and respond to and with practice yes we can understand the patterns and learn to incorporete them into our own work. However I am sure that most if not all great designers never once stopped to check if they had followed the 'rules' some people sense these things because they have a highly developed sense of compositio,but it is a rare gift. I do think that of all the skills required to make good art then composition (and in this I include colour because I believe it is the most important part of a painting to be composed) is the one where the greats stand apart from the rest of because of an innate talent. Of course we must work hard to try and approach them but there must be a reason Titians only come along so very rarely and I think this is probably it. I should also add that I consider Burne-Jones to have been one of the greatest designers ever and some years back I had the opportunity of going through several of his notebooks and sketch pads at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and amonst all his innumerable sketches and first ideas for many of his greatest pictures there was never the least hint of any geometrical pattern or overlay. His rhythms were much more based on flowing curves of varying dimensions - much like the Veronese you highlighted.

Posted: 2011-01-02 16:14:07

Nick Stone said:

Happy New Year Paul and everyone else. What a treasure trove this web is. I�ve just downloaded the PDF of Dow�s book and it�s given me a shot in the arm.
David pointed out the difference between rules as they might be applied to art and the mathematical rules which govern the universe. One of the difficulties for me is the way in which we use language. If we look at geometrical overlays, or paper folded according to its length/breadth ratio, we are using mathematical rules. Perspective and the vanishing point might be said to be the result of optical rules drawn from mathematical principles. Ten tone gradations from white to black can have mathematical precision. Beyond this there are no rules and yet we instinctively feel that something governs good design. One way around this is to swap the word rule for principle. Edgar A Whitney does this in his excellent Complete Guide to Watercolour Painting. In a wonderfully dogmatic and candid way he expounds basic design principles.

Posted: 2011-01-02 17:59:59

Paul said:

Hi David,

Thanks for popping back in and clarifying, and also for not taking my comments amiss.

I agree with much of what you say, but when we get here:
>"composition...is the one where the greats stand apart from the rest of because of an innate talent."
we're at the point where we have to agree to disagree. I don't believe in talent. I did start to write a long reply here but eventually it just ended up as post.

I agree with you about Burne-Jones though, beautiful design.

Posted: 2011-01-02 22:03:27

Paul said:

Hi Nick,

Great news that grabbed a copy of the Dow book, and even better that you like it! We should compare notes as we go along. drop me an email and let me know what you're up to. We can even put up your experiences with the exercises here if you like, I'd be more than happy to do that.

I like the word principle more too. Dow (if I remember right) cites five basic principles of composition: opposition, transition subordination repetition and symmetry.

I'll have to put the Whitney book on my amazon wish list. It rings a bell from somewhere, I think someone might have recommended it.

Posted: 2011-01-02 22:08:05

katkan said:

http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/11/education-fundamentals-of-composition.html

check this guide about composition...

Posted: 2011-01-09 05:18:46

Paul said:

Hi Katkan,

Thanks very much for that resource. Here's a link to make it easier to get to.

I've heard of the Famous Artists course before and have heard glowing recommendations of it. I think that's the first time I've actually seen any of it though. It lives up to expectations.

It's an interesting and very practical way to break composition down conceptually I think. There are four aspects according what's posted there:

1. Picture area: This could also be called 'spacing.' I really like the way they talk about trying out different spacing and combinations of elements using cut out shapes. I've been doing something similar myself lately by tracing elements and changing their placements in the picture frame, it's a really effective way to develop a sense of design I think.

2. Depth: - The three dimensional element, composition of elements in space. I haven't seen this mentioned as a basic part of composition anywhere else. Usually just the two dimensional aspect is emphasised.

3. Line: Here we have our old bug-bear of leading the eye through the composition with design. Personally, I would forget this part by and large since the experiments mentioned above have pretty much confirmed that this doesn't happen in any reliable way.

4. Value: this corresponds with Dow's 'notan.'

I'm surprised not to see colour mentioned though. Surely that's a really major and fundamental area of composition. But there are some obvious overlaps with Dow's conceptual approach to design.

Thanks again for the link Katkan. It's an excellent resource and will certainly be finding it's way into my attempts to distil the fundamentals of composition and evolve a practical approach to practicing them.