Can a work of art be "better" than another?
Alright so today we're going to look at
Chapter 5, "The principles of design." And
the principles of design are important
because, although one may argue that
there's no such thing as "bad" art, there
is such thing as visual appeal, market
value, gallery representation, artistic
grants, and product sales. And at the end
of the day, the artist must admit that
there are just some things that work and
some things that don't. But it doesn't
have to be some kind of great mystery, by
utilizing effectively the elements and
principles of design, the artists can be
better equipped to creating stronger and
more effective works of art. So we're
going to take a look at principles of
design like unity, balance, emphasis,
proportion, scale, and rhythm, and by
looking at these principles we can see
how artists have been able to make some
pretty great art. Alright so the first
concept we're going to take a look at
is "unity." Unity is very important to our
experience of art and you really see it
throughout every single art form. Take
a look at any major Disney movie and you
can see how the colors, the costume, music
and just the overall feel of the movie
are just all unified and all have this
kind of underlying unity to it. Check out
this painting by Jackson Pollock. At
first glance, it may just seem like a
bunch of random marks and patches of
color, but as you look closer, you start
seeing that the brush marks are actually
all around the same thickness, size, and
form. And as a result, the whole surface
just sings out as one unified
whole. Another example of unity can be
seen in this assemblage by Annette
Messager, which includes these framed
photographs,
handwritten texts which are also
suspended by this twine. And not only is
the unity found in the fact that they're
all grouped together and they all
have like these black frames, but also
there is unity in the conceptual
aspects of the work, as well. All of the
photographs portray isolated body parts:
a knee, a mouth, throat and when you spend time
to actually look at the work, you start
noticing the framed texts seem to have a
relationship with the images. For example,
the word "tenderness" is next to the arms
and so forth.
Going along with unity, another important
principle of design is the concept of
balance.
Whenever we look at a work of art,
there's a certain distribution of weight
that happens in our eyes. Visual weight
refers to how heavy or how light forms
feel when they are arranged in a
composition. And when we feel that the
visual weight is even and evenly
distributed from the center, then we feel
like the composition is balanced. Now the
text describes two different kinds of
balance-- there's symmetrical balance and
there's asymmetrical balance.
Symmetrical balance is when the forms in a
composition seem to mirror each other
across the center. This work by Georgia
O'Keefe is a good example of work that
is symmetrically balanced.
Here's a Buddhist mandala showing the
cosmic realm. Symmetrical balance is
important here because its used to
help those who are meditating on it
achieve Enlightenment. Now the concept of
asymmetrical balance can be achieved
even when the two sides don't match.
Now this type of balance can be a little
trickier because it's not so
straightforward. To achieve asymmetrical
balance, you have to be aware of what
makes one forms appear to be heavier
than another. For example, when a form is
larger textured at more contrast it
seems to be more
complex, that tends to hold our eye longer and is,
therefore, heavier visually. You can see
a good example of asymmetrical balance
when you take a look at this chilling
painting by Gustav Klimt called, "Death
and Life." In this painting, he's basically
separated the two sides death and life,
but look at how he balances the
composition. Even though the right side
has the most action and most forms, the
alarming gaze of the Death Angel is able
to weigh down the left side because it's
just so alarming and isolated. The
patterning on the death angel is also
louder than the patterning of the right,
and so because of all those things,
there's just a sense of balance even
though the right seems to be have more
going on. Here is a painting by Vermeer.
You see how that little small crack of
light on the upper left-hand side tends to
balance out all of the light on the
right side. I mean, just think about it-- if that
little crack of light weren't there the
whole left side of the painting would
completely disappear from our radar.
Here's another good example, it's a
painting by Manet depicting this barmaid
looking out at us.
There's a lot of really interesting
things happening in this painting, but
check out how the artist is able to have
every single element of this painting
balancing out something else on the
other side.
Check it out-- the white circular lights
that dangle down, they seem to balance each other out.
The oranges there on the counter
there, they're balanced out by the
wrapping that's on the wine. That
light horizontal shape seen in the
background is balanced by the light
horizontal shape in the counter, and so
forth.
Some of you may not have realized that
this work was so meticulously balanced,
but that's the mark of a master artist
they make it look so natural--
they make it look easy. And while balance
is important to achieve,
it's also important to do so while
maintaining emphasis, another important
principle discussed in the text. Emphasis
means that our attention is drawn more
to certain parts of the composition than
other parts. And you when you have a
relatively small area of emphasis, that
is sometimes called a "focal point." Think
about this--
why would an artist want to create an
area of emphasis or a focal point area?
For one, it can make the experience of
the work more enjoyable to viewers. Think
about it, nobody wants to listen to a
song that just consists of a chorus, or
where all of the instruments are playing
a solo all at the same time. We also
don't want to watch a movie with a
hundred main characters. Instead it could be
best to have-- you know-- the lead
characters, the supporting actors, and
then, you know, the extras. And in the same
way, a work of art it will often have, you
know, one emphasis area and then a
secondary focal point and then, you know,
maybe areas that are more subordinate.
Take a look at this painting by Henry
Tanner called "The Banjo Lesson." In this
painting, it's very clear that the
focal area is the face of the man, the
boy, and the banjo. And it even makes the
triangle of interest. Now once we take in
this sweet moment, our eyes then may drift
and we may pick up some secondary things.
We might notice empty bowls on the
ground, and that may give us a context of
the characters in their life. And, you
know, we see all these things while maybe
other elements of the painting are then
pushed into subordination. That's how an
artist can can use emphasis to kind of
create that visual intrigue.
Alright so you give it a try: What's the
focal point in this painting?
Who's the star? Hopefully we all
unanimously say it's that guy right there.
So how does De Goya ensure that this is
the case? For one, the color of shirt is
much brighter and has more contrast than the
rest of
the painting and then he has all of
the rifles pointing directly at the man
and those rifles kind of serve as the
leading lines to guide our eyes right to
him. And to top all that, he is the only
person in the painting with his arms out,
it's as if he's demanding the viewer just
to look right at him.
There's a lot of ways to achieve a focal
point in a work of art, and you would
just be amazed at how many of these
tricks are utilized in commercials and in
advertisements. This really has a strong
place in good design and it's a really
important principle to consider. The next
principle of design that the text
discusses is the concept of scale and
proportion. The term "scale" refers to
the size that's in relation to some
kind of standard or what we would
consider "normal." Some artists try to mess
with scale in order to kind of make a
certain statement.
Claes Oldenburg was known for making
these huge sculptures of these common,
everyday items. And by seeing these items
at such a tremendous scale, it really
transforms that we will look at them. But
people have been messing with scale long
before Oldenburg and "Honey I Shrunk the
Kids." I mean, back in the Babylonian era,
you may notice that they made their god--
who is the one seated in this in this
relief--he's much taller than the size of
the King who's standing. And he made
that taller in order to show who's the
boss.
This kind of thing is all over ancient
art. It's called "hierarchical scale" and
typically, the more important you are, the
bigger your depicted. The term "proportion"
is different than scale. Proportion
refers to something in comparison to a
whole. So for example, you can look at
this head of this Roman Emperor
Constantine, and you can recognize that
in relation to the entire face, the eyes
are kind of depicted out of proportion
because they're depicted
really large. I will also add the scale
is actually important when talking about
this work too because although we only
have a few fragmented body parts
remaining, the entire sculpture would
have been nearly 40 feet tall! Yikes!
Getting back to proportion, I can't leave
this topic without bringing up the
Greeks. The Greeks were obsessed with
determining the most perfect proportions
of man and their conclusion: the
Doryphoros. This sculpture is an
excellent example of the Greek ideal. His
head is exactly one-seventh of his body and
everything else has been meticulously
rendered and perfectly measured. Their
thoughts of proportions greatly
influenced Leonardo da Vinci, who was
studying human anatomy and made this
sketch in his attempt to make these
perfect proportions and make man's
proportions fit perfectly within the two
perfect shapes: the circle and square. The
last principle of design discussed in
the text has to do with a concept of
rhythm.
Usually when we think of rhythm, we think of
music or we think of that Johnny Cash
song. But, you know, visual artists have
been "getting rhythm" for a long time. And
that's because in art, rhythm is
how a work is structured and the pace
that our eyes take when we experience or
when we take in a work of art's elements.
And you know, just like drums, one key way
of attaining rhythm is through the use
of repetition. Take a look at this Paul
Klee work. When we look at this work, we
see that he's creating repetition and we
can see that in those silver forms as
they repeat across the image. He also
repeats lots of other forms. And you know,
in doing so, our eyes just move
throughout the whole composition as if
on beat. So unity, balance, emphasis,
proportion, scale, rhythm--
if you want your work to be more
effective and if you want to communicate
and express yourself more eloquently,
these are the key concepts to explore.
And you know, next time you look at work
of art, take some time-- spend time with
it and try to appreciate what the artist
is doing to make it look so strong and
make the design so strong, because O
guarantee you the artists have made a
lot of important decisions concerning
these principles of design in order to
make it look effortless and in order to
make it look natural and easy.
I mean there's a reason
why it's a compliment for somebody to
say that "you've got it down to a work of
art." So that sums up chapter 5: The
Principles of Design. We'll catch you next
time!