Importance of Composition
Composition is the selective arrangement of elements in a painting. That is commonly broken up into elements of compositional painting — how to lead the eye in to a painting, and retain interest in the subject matter. Students make preparatory sketches, shading in the main masses as they appear in the prevailing light conditions. They experiment until they find an arrangement that seems novel, balanced and pleasing.
Fine.
But composition in fact entails more than just arranging the bowls of fruit, drapery,
etc. that make up the still life. It means deploying all the painterly elements,
getting them to work together.
And work towards some end, for some purpose. All hangs on what the painter intends. Devotional painters of the High Renaissance, for example, generally arranged the figures of Madonna, child and patrons in a pyramid, a composition that evoked a reassuring sense of solidity and repose. In contrast, Degas's figures often look to be walking out of the picture altogether, the intention being to capture the animation of the everyday Paris scene.
Elements of Composition
Leaving intention aside for the moment, what are the elements of composition in a painting? A brief listing might be:
Space: several forms, including:
illusionist: created with linear perspective, aerial perspective (distant objects lose contrast and detail), size (far away objects are smaller), overlap (near objects obscure those further away).
two dimensional: objects are deformed into and modeled on the flat surface of the canvas: Cezanne and much modernist painting.
flat patterning: objects are shown as decorative theater flats, without linear perspective: Persian miniatures and some medieval western painting.
oriental: a palpable sense of emptiness, with objects as it were coalescing out of this emptiness: traditional Chinese landscapes.
self-created: act of painting creates its own sense of space, which is localized and not predetermined: some modern art.
primitive: objects are randomly distributed, with no immediately obvious controlling feature: primitive, naive and children's art.
Shape: Areas closed off by line, or differences of tone, texture and color. Shapes have an abstract quality, and are often regarded as positive (enclosing recognizable objects in the painting) or negative (areas left between or around recognizable objects). Shapes interact, and independently evoke sensations of repose, agitation, purposeful energy, direction, etc.
Line: Lines enclose forms, and mark either edges where two planes intersect, or the bounding contour of an object seen against a distant background. More than shapes, lines have an authority of their own, creating movement, integration and texture.
Tone or value is the degree of light or dark in an element. Unless the work is a drawing, or employs only grays, tone also enters into the qualities of a color, along with hue and purity. Tone may create mood (e.g. dark tones for threat or mystery), drama (wide tonal range) or emphasis (highlighting the object of interest).
Texture is the visual patterning, and may be abstract (the fluidity of glazes or watercolor) or informative (a silk dress looks very different from one in satin). In the absence of other features, texture may help to create pleasing diversity, to focus interest, and/or impose a necessary unity on the work.
Hue is the color itself, the specific wavelength. Colors create complex physiological and psychological effects in the viewer, and hues are therefore a primary means of obtaining or enhancing the emotional impact of a work.
Color Purity refers to the vibrancy and intensity of a hue, its freedom from admixtures of other hues. Pure colors are colors of a single wavelength, and have the dazzling clarity of stained glass windows — i.e. quite unreal, to be used with the greatest caution. But the infinite gradations possible, combined with tone and hue, makes color purity an expressive device in the hands of a sensitive and experienced painter.
How
are these elements of compositional painting to be deployed? To create the effect
desired, of course, but how does the painter go about that? Again it depends —
on what's being aimed at, experience, how adventurous the painter wishes to be.
But one thing is clear: there is no infallible recipe. Few of the elements can
be used in isolation, and the painter is continually pushing one element and then
modifying it in the light of unexpected effects in others. Painting is a dialogue,
between what the painter hopes for, and what the work is currently displaying.
That obvious point needs to be remembered in the following summary of compositional
aims. These are not comprehensive, or exclusive, and will only make sense after
extended study of actual paintings and/or through practical experience of painting.
A
few suggestions:
