Picking apart paintings 3

In my last post, I talked about REPETITION, which I hope some of you found informative and helpful.
It is only one small aspect of the business of composing a painting - there are so many other aspects, all I can do perhaps is open your eyes to a few of them.

I'd like to talk, this week, about how the emphasis of a certain deliberate aspect of design can help to create a particular atmosphere.

Firstly, let's consider images which represent calm, almost static forms of design. So, let's first look at SYMMETRY.

An image with the main subject placed firmly in the centre is something that, as art students,  we are encouraged to avoid.  But a walk around any gallery of Master paintings will show that a centralized design was constantly used by the greatest of painters.  And what about a portrait? It would be a bit daft to deliberately place a head off-centre just because of a suspicion that it might not be a good idea to "centralise" the subject!  Above is a painting by Bellini, entitled Madonna of the Meadows.  The mother and child form an important triangle - slap bang in the centre of the image, a strong, stable, iconic triangle, firmly rooted to the base of the image.  I think it is so obvious, I am not going to draw lines around it to prove the point.    There are other diagonal movements going on all over the image, but these are countered and stabilised by subtle vertical and horizontal accents throughout.  Notice the horizontals in the landscape and sky, and the vertical elements of the buildings on the hillside, in the clothing of the Maddona, and in the trees.  There are other echoes...even the gentle inclination of the distant trees echoes the tilt of her head.    
We are taught these days that horizontals and verticals are calm and stable..and diagonals and angles provide variety, edginess and instability.....so all these angles should produce a sense of activity...yet because of the way this piece has been so carefully and SYMMETRICALLY designed,  the atmosphere, as a result, is very calm and stable .

By way of contrast, let's look at the ASYMMETRY created by Degas in this lovely dancers image.

Despite the fact that there are lots of lovely "rhymes" and echoing forms and shapes and colours, there is certainly a sense of activity here, and little in the way of "calm" or "stability" - quite the opposite in fact.  The angles cut across the image, emphasised by the light tones in the skin.  The curves of dress necklines positively dance across the image, swinging first one way, then the other.  They echo the shapes of the heads.  Degas was a master of logical and deliberate compositions, and a master too of the use of diagonal movements and thrusts, which are evident in this image.  There are loads of angles and triangles as in the Bellini above...but there is no sense of calm at all.  It is worth spending a little time thinking about this. I did, and to my mind, because of the fact that there are NO horizontals or verticals, finding any kind of calm or stability is virtually impossible.  You may have different views, but this is the conclusion I have come to.

 Look first at the curves:

and now look at the abstract pattern of angles which create a web of triangles across the image:

So - the underlying geometry of our designs/compositions is important to consider, because then we can help to emphasise the atmosphere in the image, and influence the feelings of the viewer beyond just admiration of technique or interest in subject-matter.

I hope I made myself clear in this one....it is quite an advanced concept, and not easy to put into practice, but the more you begin to "see" it, the more you will subconsciously - or perhaps even consciously - be able to use this information.

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Repetition - a force to be reckoned with

A good composition is one in which the artist has considered NOT ONLY THE SUBJECT MATTER, but also the placement of the main elements (shapes, lines etc)  of the work to give clarity and order to his or her ideas (the subject), and to help the view find their VISUAL way around the painting.

One of the most powerful ways to strengthen the composition of a painting is to use REPETITION – it truly is a force to be reckoned with.  Deliberate repetition of colours, patterns, shapes may not be immediately obvious to a non-painter viewer of your work– but they will, for sure, somehow appreciate that there is something special going on in the work they are viewing – their attention will be held, and interest piqued.

Repetition can also be linked to Rhythm - because the eye automatically moves from one similar element to another, in the way that the ear will pick up regular rhythms in music. 

To warm you up, I'd like you to look at the work of GUNILA KLINGBERG.  Her works of the early 2000's were based on repeated patterns which were, of course, very obvious:

silk-screen printed lino tiles

 The piece is basically a pattern composed of ordinary supermarket logotypes in black and white. It exists as a tapestry and as linoleum flooring - and as a total environment where the pattern is spread on the wall, the floor and onto various cubic shapes, which seem to mushroom up from the floor. 

Here is another, window piece, where the pattern repeats, and repeats again onto the floor in its own shadow:

"Brand New View"

Here is her website if you would like to learn more: http://www.gunillaklingberg.com/

Admittedly, these patterns are not being used in paintings - but you can see their power nevertheless.  Now let's look at a couple of paintings.  

Here is a Degas painting The Millinery Shop–and now that your mind has been alerted to repeating patterns by the pictures above, I am sure you will be able to see beyond the hats, and will notice now how the shapes repeat in this image.   The painting is a whole design of circles broken by a few verticals (the hat stand, the ribbons, the back draperies) and a triangle or two (the table, the woman's arm, and the front hat's ribbons).

 And now look at this gorgeous piece, so modern somehow even today, despite the fact that Degas died in 1917!

Repetition has been used in several ways in this image.  Not just in the repeating SHAPES and ANGLES of the arms and legs, perhaps the most obvious;  look again……..notice how he has used varieties of warm orange on the dancer’s heads time and again? And how this colour, albeit modified to be more subtle, repeats and flows right across the top of the picture?And there it is again, in the warm light tones in the floor.  And notice how he has repeated the lightest cool tones in the painting, those delicious soft blues, greys greens  and whites, using them again and again throughout.    And this is not just because the dresses happened to be white.    The use of these pale, icy tones on the dancers’ skirts, backs, arms and legs is masterful - those tones, coupled with the warm contrast of the girls’ heads, are there to move our eye across the image.  They serve to unify the shapes and visually satisfy.

Repetition.  Let me say it again........

Just for fun now, I thought I would wheel out one of my own dancer paintings.  (Pretty daft really to put my own piece here, when I have been showing you Degas!  Well, I did try to learn something from him.)  Unusually, this piece is still in my own collection, unframed, it was done for a gallery show but the gallery closed down before the show took place, so I still have it.  It is a large piece... 21"x21" unframed.   I will send it out in a cardboard roll, fully protected with Glassine, and then it can be framed on arrival. Buying unframed means you will get one of my originals at a bargain price!  With no gallery commission to pay either (my originals generally sell, framed, for at least $1000)  10% of all proceeds from this sale will go to CHILDREN IN NEED, an official charity here in the UK.  If you would like to bid for it, please click here:  BENDING DANCERS ( The starting price is £100, which is about the same as many "painting a day" artists sell their tiny 6x4" works for; if it sells for this,  then so be it!  At least some money will go to the charity.)