Composition in art is about combining and balancing different elements to form the whole of a visual design. Photographers, painters, and visual artists compose their work on the basis of the sets of composition rules that have been followed throughout art history.
These rules and patterns, adopted and applied by artists from the classical era through the Renaissance, provide a rich historical context that enriches our understanding of composition. It's fascinating to see how many artists broke and changed these classical rules to create novel artworks, a testament to the evolving nature of art.
Guide To the Purpose of Composition in Art & Film
The purpose of composition in art & film is to organise and arrange different visual elements within an artwork. These elements are arranged to create a specific composition, allowing artists to convey emotions, stories, or meaning through their arrangement. While there are no strict rules for composition, artists often use principles to craft compositions that express their intended message.
Design is the main principle, and "composition is the king." Composition allows one to design their way to create better paintings.
What Is a Composition in Art?
The arrangement of elements within it defines the composition in art. The artist uses composition to arrange the subject and object of the image in a way that engages the viewer or provides a visually compelling scene.
Artists aim to compose the subjects and objects of their works in a visually engaging manner. A composition is the structure of what has to be illustrated, which plays a crucial role in guiding the viewer's eye across the artwork. This guidance is important as it ensures that the viewer experiences the artwork as intended by the artist.
Composition is not just about creating a visually appealing scene, but also about actively engaging the viewer and creating a dynamic, tranquil, or animating effect on the subject matter.
Historically, artists used various techniques to arrange the subjects and create a balance and harmony. They followed specific techniques throughout the radical upheavals of the early twentieth century.
Even abstract artists such as action painter Jackson Pollock aligned their process with what he defined as 'allover composition,' a technique that involves covering the entire canvas with a continuous pattern or design, thereby eliminating any focal point or hierarchy of elements.
Types Of Composition in Art
There are several key components that artists consider when developing a composition:
Balance: It involves distributing visual weight evenly across the artwork, whether through symmetry or asymmetry. Balance ensures that one part of the artwork does not subjugate the rest.
Symmetrical Composition— Symmetrical composition creates a sense of balance and harmony. The elements within the frame mirror each other across a central axis, creating an equilibrium that draws the viewer's attention. Symmetrical design often instils a feeling of resilience and order, and it is widely used in photography, painting, and architecture.
Asymmetrical balance— Asymmetrical balance is a type of composition in art in which elements are arranged in a way that creates a sense of balance without relying on symmetrical mirroring. The intentional asymmetry adds a sense of movement, making it a compelling representation of active energy.
Emphasis: One can use emphasis to create a focal point in the artwork that captures the viewer's attention. Artists use emphasis to highlight the most important part of their composition.
Rule of Thirds: This technique involves dividing an image into a grid of nine equal parts, formed by two equally spaced horizontal and vertical lines, resulting in four intersection points. It is widely used in photography and art to create a balanced and visually appealing composition. The key elements of the artwork are often placed along these lines or at the intersection points to create a sense of balance and harmony.
Golden Ratio (Fibonacci Spiral) – The illustration of the mathematical value "golden ratio" describes the ratio of two numbers that is about 1.618, and it can be seen in Fibonacci's spiral. It helps to create visually harmonious and aesthetically beautiful designs.
Diagonal Composition is a technique used to create a sense of flow and add movement and energy to a piece. It adds suspense, drives the viewer's gaze, and creates a focal point. It is similar to rhythm in music, while visual rhythm in art involves repeating elements to create a sense of flow within the composition.
Couple Acrylic Painting— In a couple acrylic painting, a diagonal composition can evoke a connection between the depicted individuals. The diagonal lines direct the viewer's eyes across the artwork, adding meaning to the painting.
Examples Of Good Composition in Art
Composition in art is the arrangement of visual elements, such as line, shape, colour, tone, texture, etc. A reasonable composition helps to create harmony and balance in the artwork. It guides the viewer's eye through the painting and conveys a message and meaning behind it; in other words, it seizes the viewer's attention and engages them.
Some examples of a good composition are –
Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper(1495 – 1498) composition can be used to explain symmetry, negative space, and repeating patterns in an artwork.
Lady Lilith(1868) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is a Pre-Raphaelite (a group of young artists founded in 1848 in London) known for its bright paint pigments. Lady Lilith is an example of movement and unity, and is an off-centre focal point that draws viewers.
In the abstract painting "Composition VIII(1923)," Wassily Kandinsky uses curved, straight, diagonal, and intersecting lines to create movement, rhythm, and depth. The lines guide the viewer's eye across the canvas, leading to different focal points and forming a dynamic composition.
In Piet Mondrian's "Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow" (1930), simple geometric shapes, squares, and rectangles are arranged in a balanced grid. Such shapes and the primary colours of red, blue, and yellow create balance, harmony, and order.
Elements of Composition
Elements Of Composition in Art are Listed Below -
Lines are used strategically to direct the viewer's attention, create depth, form shapes, and add to the overall structure. They can be envisioned as curved, straight, thin, or thick and can be used to create movement and give direction.
Shape - Shapes can be geometric, like squares and circles, or organic, resembling natural forms like plants and animals.
Form - Form in art is a way to make things look three-dimensional on a flat canvas. It creates a unique perspective, shadows, and highlights, depicting three-dimensional shapes and structures.
Colour— Colour can be applied strategically to display a vibrant spectrum of hues, shades, and tints to affect mood, build visual harmony, and highlight core messages.
Value – Value features light or dark, contrast and depth setting apart the brightest highlights.
Texture—Texture adds a "sensory dimension," the surface quality or feel of an object, which can be either visually perceived (visual texture) or physically felt (tactile texture). For instance, in the painting "Hare" by Albrecht Dürer (1502), the artist captures the texture of the hare's fur using delicate brushstrokes and subtle shading.
Space - Space in composition refers to the areas around and between objects. It defines the boundary and shape of the objects. Artists use positive space to represent their main subject, while negative spaces create contrast to emphasise the dominant objects.
7 Rules of Composition in Art
Though there are seven rules of composition in art, one must not be restricted to a certain way of creating art. These seven steps can be applied to balance elements and lead to converging lines.
1. Rule of the Thirds(Use a grid): The Rule of Thirds is applied to avoid a central focal point, while it gives overall unity to the composition, it is based on the logic that dividing the canvas into three equal parts and placing subjects or objects along these lines creates a visually engaging arrangement. Placing subjects near the horizontal and vertical lines creates symmetry in the painting.
As per the rule of thirds, one can place a three-by-three grid over the subject and use it to assist in the composition design. The gridlines and intersections are the safe spots, and one could position the focal point at one of the intersections or the horizon line along the top horizontal.
2. Framing- The rule states that one must not centre the subject in the frame. This rule is an outcome of the rule of thirds. Placing an object in the dead centre of the frame renders the subject static and dull. One must place the main subject off-centre. It will result in a dynamic and vibrant composition. Van Gogh was known to use the frame tool, which helped to decide a lot on compositions.
3. Leading lines— Leading lines are suggestive lines that direct attention around a painting. They can be drawn as implied or suggested lines, while they do not exist physically.
4. Follow the odd number rule— Most traditional still lives and Biblical and mythological narratives depicted through the Renaissance follow the odd number of elements because it enhances the overall look of the finished work.
5. Rule of space - The rule of space in art is used by artists to create an illusion of movement within an artwork, using the context of a picture. For instance, in Max Nonnenbruch's young woman paintings, the subject gazes out to the sea or sky, which directs the viewer's eye toward the open space. Most artwork from the Renaissance period appears in triangular forms, which helps create soothing compositions. Triangular arrangements are considered to be aesthetically attractive, mostly due to the natural asymmetry. For instance, in Paul Cézanne's Still Life Flowers in a Vase, 1888, one can notice the triangular shape of the flowers and the vase.
Simplification is the most important concept. You eliminate all the noise and detail and simplify the artwork into a coherent work. You must remove the unimportant details and shift the viewers' focus to the relevant objects and themes.
Some techniques used by artists for simplifying the composition are
- They use simplified colour and a limited colour palette.
- One can shorten the value range, which leads to the simplification of the value.
- Larger brushes can be used to simplify tools.
- Less refined strokes can be applied to trivial sections to avoid the focus on unnecessary details. For instance, in Konstantin Korovin's Crimean Landscape, you do not see every single detail, shadow, or highlight, and the painting appears vague and ambiguous, but it captures the details that matter. Similarly, one can see the use of vague brushwork in Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise.
6. The Golden Ratio - Artists have used the Golden Ratio to locate aesthetically pleasing areas to place their subjects and distribute weight in their paintings. One common technique is to use the "eyes of the rectangle" to position your subjects. To get a relevant composition, draw eye movement maps to see how someone may be looking at the art. It helps to see if the eyes travel to the desired focal point and deliver the theme or not. The artists can track historical compositions, especially if they admire the historical artwork, to get inspiration from classical works for a new composition.
7. Breaking the Composition Rules - The "rules" of composition are variable, not constant, and they exist for a reason in that they make sense in most works, but there will be times when you have to ignore them. In modern art history, artists have been adopting techniques against the conventional compositional rules. In the 1940s, the American abstract artist and action painter Jackson Pollock started drip painting. He applied a different technique in his artwork "Horizontal Composition, 1949", where he placed his canvas on the floor and splashed it with paint as he spanned across. Pollock worked with various elements of composition- line, texture and colour- to create a unique arrangement of elements.
The Golden Rules of Composition
During the Renaissance, artists aimed for a triangular or pyramidal composition to create a sense of geometry within the piece. Some artists use the rule of the Golden Triangle to frame the subjects.
The rule of the Golden Triangle states that the composition can be divided into four triangles of different sizes. These triangles are formed by using a diagonal line from the top corner to the bottom corner with two additional lines at 90-degree angles.
Ancient Greeks believed that art should be as ideal as possible, so they divided the canvas into eight equal segments to create a balanced, triangular composition. Leonardo Da Vinci's ink drawing "The Vitruvian Man" is an excellent example of the ultimate golden rule, the "Golden Ratio," in art composition.
The golden ratio is a mathematical number that artists apply to their designs. It is the ratio of approximately 1 to 1.618. Leonardo Da Vinci famously used this composition for the Mona Lisa, which is based on the golden ratio. It illustrates the ideal ratios of the human body, perfectly integrating the rules of mathematics and art.
Artists called it the "Divine Proportion." They applied mathematical theory to their arrangements to create a pleasing and balanced work of art.
The most common application was using a golden rectangle. The rule of the golden spiral is based on the golden ratio or Fibonacci spiral, which is composed of a rectangle divided into two squares. The celebrated Japanese artist Hokusai employed the golden spiral technique in The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
The spiralling wave sits on the left-hand side of the painting, gifting space to the movement of the sea on the right and an organic spiral form on the left.
What Is Artistic Composition?
Artistic composition is used to describe the arrangement of the visual elements within a work of art. A collage is an artistic composition made of various materials secured to a surface.
In the classical technique, triangular or pyramidal compositions were used because they created a sense of balance and harmony by arranging the figures into a stable overall geometric structure, which can be seen, for example, in the conical grouping of the animals in George Stubbs's Mares and Foals (c.1763–8).
The idea of composition was about adjusting elements of the work within the borders of the canvas during the early modern movements, such as cubism and abstract art. Then, in the late 1940s, the American abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock presented the allover composition.
The traditional idea became known as relational composition. Later, the abstract expressionist Barnett Newman created paintings in which large blocks of colour were applied from the top to the bottom of the canvas.
Is Composition an Element of Art?
There are seven elements of art, and composition is not included. The elements of composition are not the same as the elements of art. Composition is the overall arrangement of a painting's subject matter and elements (abstract art may not have a 'subject').
The list of elements of art is mentioned here-
- Line — The path that directs the eye across the work
- Shape — Geometric or organic areas of the objects depicted
- Colour — The value and intensity of the pigments
- Form — Depth, width, or breadth
- Texture — The richness of the surface
- Value — The light and dark that give form to the subjects or objects
- Space — The existence of positive or negative space between subjects and objects
Which element of art do you think is most important?
Line is the most important element of art; everything else builds on top of it, even if the art does not use actual drawn lines.
What Do Trained Artists Generally Do to Create A Composition?
Trained artists use the elements of composition to give structure to the layout of the painting and the way the subject is delivered. It can motivate the viewer's eye to review the whole composition, taking in everything and ultimately returning to the focal point.
Trained artists combine experience with an understanding of the elements, rules, and principles of design to create distinct and meaningful artworks.
Why Is Composition Important?
Composition depicts visual elements, perspective, glare, shade, and even emotional elements. The point of a composition is to pull the viewer's eye across the artwork, taking in individual elements to finally create a connection by concentrating on the main feature or focus of the painting.
This leads to diverse effects, from subject matter to emotional effects. Composition creates balance and is the foundation of a masterpiece. It evokes emotions and enhances the value of the artwork.
Composition Effects
The artist creates compositions. More often than not, the artist will try out several versions before settling on the most visually pleasing to both the artist and the viewer. The composition provides a structure to the painting and can alter how the subject matter is presented and the overall aesthetic effect of the artwork.
In economics, the term composition effects refers to the misleading range of observations estimated from group averages. The composition effect outcomes show that looking at the big picture sometimes masks what is going on with the individual parts. ]
Compositional Elements
The compositional elements are unity, balance, movement, rhythm, focus, contrast, pattern, and proportion.
There are eight elements of composition in art.
1. Unity— Unity is when everything appears to come together. The artists must apply a proper strategy to create a cohesive and complete composition. They must bring the placements, colours, or shapes together to create an instinctual sense of entirety.
2. Balance— Distinct parts of the painting can be constructed amicably to balance and create equilibrium while considering how the visual elements are weighted and balanced.
3. Focus— The arrangement of elements can emphasise certain areas, which are known as the focal point. Focal points are crucial because viewers will look for a defined focal point, which they can find quickly to interpret the rest of the artwork around it.
4. Contrast— Contrast involves using different elements, such as light and dark, rough and smooth, or large and small, to create interest and draw attention to specific areas of the artwork.
5. Movement— Movement can be conveyed in all kinds of ways using identifiable moving elements, such as water or air. The change in certain elements (long to short lines, dark to light tones, large shapes to small shapes) helps to connect the composition.
6. Pattern— Patterns typically repeat, either within a fixed frame or endlessly.
7. Rhythm - Rhythm is created by applying the visual tempo of the work through repetition and pattern.
8. Proportion in art - The real size of the element is compared to another.
What Is the Purpose of the Elements of Art in an Artwork?
The elements of art in an artwork are the building blocks. It is a huge part of drawing, painting, photography and any other art medium. Even in abstract painting or hyper-realistic, the composition will be the structure to the statement, whether the underlying message of the art is dark and sad, political or unsettling, or pure beauty and joy.
