1st term

Mare de Déu del Carme

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INDEX

1.Composition in ART 3

Painting and drawing Canvas, shape, size and support 3 Composition elements: Unity, Balance, Movement 5 Rhythm, focus, variety 6 Contrast, pattern, proportion 7 Art composition rules Rule of thirds, rule of odds 8 Rule of Space, visual balance 9 Three dimensions composition Techniques 11 Symbols and allegories in art 12

2.Technical drawing

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Graphic expression Tangency 13 Tangent to a circle 14 Tangent circles 15 Ellipse 16 Ovoid 17 Resources index

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3

1.Composition in ART

Composition is the term used for the arrangements of the elements in or the subject matter of a

painting. Done successfully, it draws in the viewer and pulls their eye across the whole painting so that

everything is taken in and finally settles on the main subject of the painting.

In his Notes of a Painter, Henri Matisse defined it this way: "Composition is

the art of arranging in a decorative manner the diverse elements at the

painter's command to express his feelings."

Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background, oil painting by Henri Matisse, 1925–26; in the

National Museum for Modern Art, Paris.

Painting and drawing

Canvas, shape, size and support

Canvas has become the most common support medium for oil painting, replacing wooden panels.

Shapes have two dimensions–height and width–and are usually defined by lines.

Vertical lines often communicate a sense of height because they

are perpendicular to the earth, extending upwards toward the

sky.

Pierre Auguste Renoir(1841-1919) La balançoire, oil painting 92cmX73cm. Musée

d’Orsay

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Horizontal lines suggest a feeling of rest or

repose because objects parallel to the earth

are at rest.

Berthe Morisot(1841-1895)Gennevilliers champs de blé, oil

painting 46,5cmX69cm. Musée d’Orsay

Shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may

be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness.

An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a

round panel or canvas: Raphael, as well as some other

Renaissance painters, sometimes chose this format for

madonna paintings.

Miquel Angelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). Tondo Doni, 1503-06.120 cm Galeria Uffizi,

Florència

Alternatively, canvases may be altered by losing their flatness

and assuming a three-dimensional surface. Or, they can do

both. That is, they can assume shapes other than rectangles,

and also have surface features that are three-dimensional.

Arguably, changing the surface configuration of the painting

transforms it into a sculpture. But shaped canvases are

generally considered paintings.

Amanda Scarcía,1971. Volcano, oil on canvas 45cmX55cm.

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Composition elements

The Elements of Composition in art are used to arrange or organize the components in a way that is

pleasing to the artist and, hopefully, the viewer. It helps give structure to the layout and the way the

subject is presented. It also encourages or leads the viewer's eye to wander around the whole painting,

taking in everything and ultimately coming back to rest on the focal point. In Western art they are

generally considered to be:

Unity: All the parts of the composition feel as if they belong

together, on the other hand it may be something awkwardly out of

place.

Francisco Zurbaran,(1598-1664) la Virgen de las Cuevass, 1655, oil on canvas,267X320cm,

Muse de Bellas Artes Sevilla.

Balance: Having a symmetrical arrangement

adds a sense of calm, whereas an

asymmetrical arrangement creates a sense of

unease, imbalance.

Paolo Uncello, Crucifixion, 1465.

Movement:

There are many ways to give a sense of movement in a

painting, such as the arrangement of objects, the position

of figures, the flow of a river.

Theodore Gericault, (1791-1824) The prancing grey horse, oil on

canvas,1812.Burrell Collection ,Glasgow.

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Rhythm: In much the same way music does, a piece of art can

have a rhythm or underlying beat that leads and paces the eye

as you look at it. Look for the large underlying shapes (squares,

triangles, etc.) and repeated colour.

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans 1962,Synthetic polymer paint on thirty-two

canvases Each canvas 50.8 x 40.6 cm.

Focus (or Emphasis): The viewer's eye ultimately wants to rest of the

"most important" thing or focal point in the painting, otherwise the eye

feels lost, wandering around in space.

El Greco, (1541-1614), El caballero de la mano en el pecho,1580, oil on canvas, 81,8X61,8 cm.

Museu del Prado, Madrid.

Variety of sizes, shapes & textures

Changing sizes and shapes along with colour, texture and placement of the elements of the composition IN

BOTH NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE SPACE can stimulate

more interest in the art work. This is subtle part of

rhythm.

Luis Egidio Meléndez (1716-1780) - Bodegón con perdices, cebollas, ajos y

recipientes XVIII Century. Oil painting., 41,6 x 62,3 cm. Museo Nacional del

Prado

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Contrast: Strong differences between light and dark, or minimal.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, 1874

Pattern: An underlying structure, the basic lines and shapes in the

composition.

Anonymous, Seu d'Urgell or Apostles frontis, XII Century, Gouache on wood, 102,5 × 151

cm. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Proportion: How things fit together, big and small, nearby and distant.

Salvador Dali, "Leda Atomica" (1949) Teatro-Museo Dalí ,61 cm x 45 cm, oil on canvas,

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The Elements of Composition are not the same as the Elements of Art, though composition is one of the

latter.

Art Composition Rules

Art composition rules provide a starting point for deciding on a composition for a painting, for deciding

where to put things.

Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is the easiest art composition rule to follow in a painting. It's a basic rule popular among

photographers, but equally applicable to the composition of paintings. Applying the rule of thirds to a

painting means you'll never have a painting that's split in half, either vertically or horizontally, nor one with

the main focus right in the centre like a bull's-eye.

What is the Rule of Thirds?

Quite simply, divide a canvas in thirds both

horizontally and vertically, and place the focus of

the painting either one third across or one third up

or down the picture, or where the lines intersect

(the orange circles on the diagram).

Ramón Masats, (1931-), Madrid, 1959

Rule of Odds

One of the simplest ways to make a composition more

dynamic is to have an odd number in the composition.

Having an odd number of things in a composition means

your eye and brain can't pair them up or group them easily.

There's somehow always one thing left over, which keeps

your eyes moving across the composition.

Edvard Munch, Anxiety, 1894,Oil on canvas,94 x 73 cm Munch Museum Oslo

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Rule of space

When looking at a visual work that portrays a subject that is

moving, or has an intention to move the eye will involuntary follow

that movement expecting to find a continuation or a reason for the

action. Because of this, the subject has to have negative or positive

space in the direction of the implied or active movement, on the

contrary the composition will be perceived as incomplete and

impeded.

Johannes Vermeer, A Woman Holding a Balance, 1662–1663.

Oil on canvas, 42.5 cm × 38 c m.National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Visual Balance

Balance refers to distributing the elements on space in such a way that the viewer doesn’t perceive the

main focus of the piece as grasping attention in such an exaggerated manner that the rest of the elements

are put to spare. Imagine your work space as if it was a three dimensional plane, set on a thin, fragile

centre pivot. Elements must be arranged in such a way, that the plane should stay on balance and should

not fall. Visual balance refers to a feeling of optical equilibrium between all parts of a composition.

Horizontal Balance

Imagine your composition as a scale. Horizontal

balance refers to positioning elements at the right and

left of the axis in such a manner that the scale doesn’t

fall to either side.

Still life with Jars and Cups, Francisco de Zurbarán, 1635. Museo

Nacional del Prado.

Vertical Balance

Vertical balance refers to positioning objects up and down in

such a way that neither gives the perception of giving in to the

other. Proper balance gives the spectator the feeling that the

piece is not about to pull itself over.

Anthony van Dyck, Portraits of the Three Eldest Children of Charles I, King of England

Oil on canvas 17th Century, 59.7 x 71.2 cm

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Radial Balance

When elements of a composition grow from a central line or are

aligned around a central point, it is referred as radial balance.

M.C. Escher,Snakes, 1969, woodcut in orange, green, and black, printed from three

blocks Cornelius Van S. Roosevelt Collection.

Symmetrical Balance

When you have the weight equally distributed at both

sides of a central axis. Symmetrical balance gives the

sensation of solidity to a piece, but can also feel dull and

uninteresting if not used appropriately.

You can achieve symmetry in two ways, pure and

approximated. In pure symmetry, both elements at each

side of the axis are identical, one half like a mirror

reflection or the other .Approximate symmetry happens

when the two elements at each side of the axis have the

same weight, but are not identical clones.

Paul Cezanne,(1839-1906), Els jugadors de cartes,(1890-95), oli sobre tela, Courtauld Institute, London

Asymmetrical Balance

Asymmetrical balance happens when both

sides of the central axis are not identical,

but nevertheless appear to have same

visual weight.

Gabriele Münter(1877-1962), Meditation, 1917, oli sobre llenç,

Lenbachhaus Gallery, Munich.

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Three dimensions composition

Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in

three dimensions and one of the plastic arts.

Durable sculptural processes originally used carving (the

removal of material) and modelling (the addition of material),

as clay, in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials

but, since modernism, shifts in sculptural process led to an

almost complete freedom of materials and process. A wide

variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving,

assembled by welding or modelling, or moulded, or cast.

Sculpture in the round or free-standing sculpture

it was viewed as an art of solid form. Any empty

spaces involved were essentially secondary to its

bulk or mass. Moreover, as a solid form it had no

movement.

Eduardo Chillida ( 1924-2002) Harri I 1991,stone, Chillida Leku.Zabalaga.

Relief

Relief sculpture is any work which projects from but

which belongs to the wall, or other type of

background surface, on which it is carved. Reliefs

are traditionally classified according to how high the

figures project from the background.

Fidias (490 a. C. – 431 a. C ) Parthenon, 443-438 aC. Marble, British Museum.

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Constructions

Combining disparate objects and materials into one constructed

piece of sculpture; the sculptural equivalent of the collage in two-

dimensional art.

Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) ,Art proletari nº 3,1989 Varis materials,90 cm. Particular

collection

Mobile

Mobile is a construction that moves and is intended to be seen

in motion. Mobiles utilize a wide variety of materials and

techniques (see also stabile). Contemporary practice emphasizes

the beauty of materials and the expression of their nature in the

work.

Alexander Calder, Shouthern cross(maquette) 1963, sheet metal, wire, and paint.

32”x 31”x17” Calder foundation NY.

Symbols and allegories in Art

From antiquity, when the gods and goddesses were commonly featured in works of art,

through to the twentieth century, when Surrealists drew on archetypes from the

unconscious, artists have embedded symbols in their works. Nowadays we need to know

the tools to read the hidden meanings in works of art.

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2 Technical Drawing

Graphic expression

Human beings have always expressed ideas through

graphic representation, from cave paintings to computer-

generated plans.

Technical drawing, also known as drafting is the act and

discipline of composing plans that visually communicate

how something functions or is to be constructed.

Technical drawing is essential for communicating ideas in

industry and engineering. To make the drawings easier to

understand, people use familiar symbols, perspectives,

units of measurement, notation systems, visual styles, and

page layout. Together, such conventions constitute a

visual language, and help to ensure that the drawing is unambiguous and relatively easy to understand.

This need for precise communication in the preparation of a functional document distinguishes technical

drawing from the expressive drawing of the visual arts. Technical drawings are understood to have one

intended meaning.

Tangency

A tangent is a line in the plane of a circle that intersects (passes through) the surface of a circle.

The line may be a secant, cutting the

circles at two points.

The line may be a tangent, touching

the circle at just one point.

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The point where the line passes through the surface of the

circle is called the "point of tangency". The line is called the

"tangent line" but is referred to mainly as the "tangent".

The point of tangency is on the radius of the circle, and the

tangent line is perpendicular to it.

This shows how to construct the tangent to

a circle at a given point on the circle with

compass and straightedge or ruler.

It works by using the fact that a tangent to a

circle is perpendicular to the radius at the

point of contact. It first creates a radius of

the circle, then constructs a perpendicular

to the radius at the given point.

http://www.mathopenref.com/tangentline.html

Tangent from a point outside a circle construction

1. M was constructed as the midpoint of OP,

J,k was constructed with compass width set

from MO.

2. JP is a tangent to O because it touches the

circle at J and is at right angles to a radius at

the contact point. As above but using point K

instead of J.

http://www.mathopenref.com/consttangents.html

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External tangents to two given circles

Steps:

The circle OJS is constructed so its radius is the difference between the radii of the two given circles. This

means that OL-PF= O J.

We construct the tangent PJ from the point P

to the circle OJS. This is done using the

method described in Tangents through an

external point.

The desired tangent FL is parallel to PJ and

offset from it by JL. Since PJLF is a rectangle,

we need the best way to construct this

rectangle. The method used here is to

construct PF parallel to OL using the "angle copy" method as shown in constructing a parallel through a

point.

http://www.mathopenref.com/consttangentsext.html

Tangent circles

Tangent circles are two circles that are tangent to the same line at the same point.

Two circles are externally tangent if each of the tangent circles

lies outside the other.

The point of contact (tangent point) lies on the line which

passes through the centres of the two circles.

Two circles are internally tangent if one of the tangent circles lies

inside the other.

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Ellipse (oval shape)

An ellipse is the locus of all points of the plane whose distances to two fixed points add to the same

constant.

Major axis is the longest diameter of the ellipse. It also equals

the sum of the two distances of any point on the ellipse from

the two focus points. An ellipse is always symmetrical about its

major axis.

Minor axis :The shortest diameter of the ellipse is called as

the minor axis. The length of the minor axis =2b where b is

the distance of the endpoint of a minor axis from the center

of the ellipse.

Drawing an ellipse with two circles:

Step 1 Draw a line that represents the length of the oval and

divide it into 3 equal parts and name it A, B. C and D.

Thales’sTheorem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnciz0yZH0U

Step 2: Open the compass as long as one third of the line, say A to B. and draw 2 circles using B and C as

centres. These 2 circles will be crossed each other in 2

points name them as E1 and E2.

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Step 3: Create new 2 points on each circle by using

the compass, without any change, and by using A

and D as centres. Name them as F1, F2, F3 and F4.

Step 4: Adjust the compass as the length between

F1 and E2 and run it from F1 to F2 using E2 as centre.

Repeat this step and draw the line from F3 to F4 by using E1 as centre.

Ovoid

The ovoid is a closed and plane curve, composed

for two circular arc equal and other two unequal, it have a single axis of symmetry.

This ovoid can be constructed with a

compass by joining together arcs of

different radii such that the centres of the

arcs lie on a line passing through the join

point

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Resources index

Unit 1

http://painting.about.com/

http://www.webdesignshock.com/art-vs-desig

http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/entertainment/sculpture-techniques-materials

http://www.immaculateheartacademy.org/

Unit 2

http://www.mathopenref.com/

http://www.thelearningpoint.net/home/mathematics/geometry

http://www.mathcaptain.com/

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