Unit 5_The composition

Unit 5

the composition

GEOMETRIC AND ORGANIC CONSTRUCTIONS

index

1. Introduction

2. The composition

2.1. Depth

2.2. Balance

2.3. Rhythm and movement

2.4. Proportions

3. Artistic styles

introduction

Poets organize words to write verses and stanzas. Musicians combine notes and rests to create melodies and songs. And of course, plastic artists order the elements of visual language (points, lines, planes and textures) to create their works.It can be said that organizing the elements of visual language is the same as composing.

What is composition?

The composition is the organization of the elements of visual language with a communicative intention.

paulklee

Art with Mati and Dada – Paul Klee

RULES OF COMPOSITION

The composition is made in all kinds of shapes: organic, geometric, two-dimensional (shapes) or three-dimensional (forms). We can find 4 principles that help us understand and create a good composition:

• Depth
• Balance
• Rhythm and movement
• Proportions

the composition

As it is said, the composition is the organization of the elements of visual language through: depth, balance, rhythm or movement, and proportion.

depth

We can create the sense of depth using different resources such as overlapping, size, colour or perspective.

overlapping

size

colour

perspective

balance

Living beings want balance because it makes us feel good and we value it especially because we consider it necessary to organize ourselves.In the composition, the balance gives us a feeling of being stable. In contrast, an unbalanced image makes a composition unstable.

balance types

visual weight

To know better the balance we should understand what the visual weight is and two different types of balance.

visual weight

Each of the shapes in an image has a visual weight due to its color, size or position. The way visual weights are distributed in an image makes the composition balanced or unbalanced. So when does a composition have balance?

Balance by symmetry

Balance by mass compensation

If two elements of the same visual weight are distributed symmetrically on the two sides of an axis.

When there is no symmetry but the visual weights are compensated.

Balance types

A balanced image can be achieved in two different ways:

• Balance by symmetry
• Balance by mass compensation

In compositions, repeated shapes represent rhythm and movement.

RHYTHM AND MOVEMENT

movement

rhythm

The feeling is different depending on the type of shapes that are repeated in an image. If geometric shapes are repeated we talk about rhythm, while if organic shapes are repeated we talk about movement.

rhythm: the pattern

The repetition of one or more geometric shapes, following a certain order, produces a modular rhythm called a pattern. A pattern is a decorative design made with a modular rhythm. In other words, a pattern is a decorative design made of elements that repeat in a regular order.

1- Anni Albers Tapestry (detail), 1926. 2- Pattern in old furniture. 3- Saint Basil's Cathedral, Moscow. 4- Endless rhythm. Robert Delaunay, 1933.

How to create a pattern?

the movement

Repetition can also happen in organic shapes. That is, shapes that are not geometric.In general, when similar organic shapes are repeated successively, we say that it gives us the feeling of movement.

1- Man going down stairs. Marcel Duchamp, 19122- The cyclist. Natalia Goncharova, 1913 3- Mafalda comic.. Quino..

PROPORTIONS

Proportion helps us represent a shape with different sizes in a composition.The proportion is the relationship that exists between two parts considering their magnitude, quantity or degree.

For example, when we make a drawing we must keep the measurements of the real object to achieve its proportion.Since the Italian Renaissance, systems of proportions were created to capture the harmony of proportions in nature.

Artistic styles

Artists, depending on their tastes and influences, create styles on their own ways of representing shapes.There are many artistic styles but the two main groups in which we can differentiate them are figurative art and abstract art.

FIGURATIVE ART

When an image represents objects or scenes that resemble real shapes but are not portrayed as realistic as those found in realism, we say it has a figurative style.

1- The Scream, Edvard Munch, 18932- Still Life with Green Soup, Fernando Botero, 1972

El toro, Pablo Picasso, 1946

ABSTRACT ART

This is when there is very little similarity between a work of art and reality.Abstract art does not try to represent specific objects or people, but rather shape and colour, to which different meanings can be applied. This is illustrated through abstract geometric or abstract organic shapes or a combination of both.

1- King Oliver, Franz Kline, 9582- Black Square, Kazimir-Malevich, 1915

ABSTRACT ART

This is when there is very little similarity between a work of art and reality.Abstract art does not try to represent specific objects or people, but rather shape and colour, to which different meanings can be applied. This is illustrated through abstract geometric or abstract organic shapes or a combination of both.

1- King Oliver, Franz Kline, 9582- Black Square, Kazimir-Malevich, 1915