Principles of Art - Unity

Unity: the quality of wholeness or oneness that is achieved through the effective use of the elements and principles of art.

Have you ever seen someone who is wearing striped tights, with polka dot sneekers, plaid shorts and a tie-dye t-shirt?

It doesn't look right, does it? The reason this outfit does not look good is because it lacks unity. There is not one thing that goes well with another. In art, we also try to create a sense of unity.

There are several ways that artists create unity in their works. For instance, unity is created with color.

The basic image above is a map of the United States, entitled Map, 1963 by Jasper Johns.The use of the three primary colors and gray throughout the entire picture creates a sense of unity. Along with color, the artist used similar brush strokes, which created a unifying texture. The printed words also repeat, although they are not all the same word. All of these elements work to bring a sense of unity to Map.

Principles of Art - Proportion

Proportion: the principle of art concerned with the size relationship of one part to another.

Something cannot be considered big unless it is compared to something which is considered small. Likewise, something cannot be considered small unless it is compared to something big.

If you saw only the clothespin*, you might assume that it is not very big at all. But when you see the people in the foreground, you can see that it is huge! It is 45 feet tall as a matter of fact!

*The artist is Claes Oldenburg, who created the 45-foot high Clothespin statue installed in 1976, west of City Hall on Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia. Another of his works is the Split Button, on display at the University of Pennsylvania.

Is this a real house or a dollhouse?*

What about this one?**

*Answer for the first house: It's a dollhouse!

**Answer for the second house: Canadian artist Heather Benning took an old abandoned farmhouse and turned it into this beautiful life-size dollhouse. She protected her creation with plexi-glass and left it there as an art installation.

Principles of Art - Variety

Variety: the principle of design concerned with difference or contrast.

Our lives would be very boring without variety. Imagine how our world would be if everything were exactly the same all the time. Imagine having the same cereal for breakfast every day, wearing the same clothes every day, listening to the same song every day, etc. It wouldn't be long before we'd be screaming for something different. Variety helps us keep things interesting in our lives, and it does the same for art.

In art, variety is used to create interest and draw attention to something. As a comparison, think of the last TV commercial you saw for a specific product. How long has that particular commercial been on the air? Have there been other ads for the same product? How many? The advertiser uses new ads for their products to maintain interest in their products. If they relied on the same ad for their product, people would lose interest quickly.

Legos website*

(Jan Vormann legos)

*Legos almost went out of business until they added in the right type of variety!

Principles of Art - Emphasis

Emphasis: the principle of art that makes one part of a work of art dominant over the other parts.

When you want to remind yourself to do something, you leave yourself a note in a very obvious place. When you want to make your point clear, you raise your voice or speak more slowly. These are examples of how people use emphasis to focus attention on something. Likewise, when you want someone to notice a specific part of an artwork first or you want one part to stand out more than another, you emphasize that part.

Artists use any device they can to give emphasis to a part of their work. They could use color, texture, size, shape, contrast -- anything to draw an observer's eye to a particular part of a work. What is the emphasis in Claude Monet's Impression Sunrise, 1876?

What did Monet do to draw your attention to a specific area of the painting?

Principles of Art - Pattern

Pattern: a two-dimensional decorative repetition.

Andy Warhol sometimes took everyday objects and created art from them. In this case, it's rows of Campbell's soup cans, which create a pattern. From a distance, this pattern could almost be a type of plaid*, but the closer you get, the easier it is to see that it really is rows of soup cans.

Campbell's Soup Cans

Here are other examples of Patterns:

Pattern print & Quilt patterns (google images)

*Plaid: horizontal stripes and vertical stripes in different colors overlapping each other.

Principles of Art - Rhythm

Rhythm: the principle of design which indicates movement by the repetition of elements.

In music, rhythm is created with sounds that are repeated at regular intervals. People dance to a consistent rhythm and different dances are identified by the different types of rhythms produced. In art, you receive rhythm through your eyes instead of through your ears. This is called visual rhythm.

There are several repetitive elements in the example below. The windows, the sidewalk, the overhang, and even the doors create a rhythm moving horizontally. Even though each window is slightly different, they are all the same size, so a consistent rhythm is produced:

Picture here

Now look at this picture:

(Broadway Boogie Woogie by Piet Mondrian)

The lines create a confusing sense of movement. They seem to go every which way, and there's no focal point. Your eye is drawn everywhere, kind of like a road map, and the smaller shapes balance the longer shapes to create an inconsistent rhythm.

Principles of Art - Movement

Movement: the principle used to create the look and feeling of action and to guide the viewer's eye throughout the work of art.

(Movement and Rhythm are very closely related)

Movement implies that an object is in motion. In art, we can create a work so it appears to be in motion. for instance, in a cartoon, we often see little lines that indicate a character is running, or their legs may be blurred to indicate speed. another aspect of movement in art is creating a work which invites the observer's eyes to move around the picture.

Artists are particularly aware of the importance of movement as it allows the artist to direct the observer's eye.

Examples:

1. Medieval (Gothic) cathedrals use vertical movement with their pillars and high ceilings to draw the viewer's eye heavenward.

(Notre Dame de Paris)

2. Horizontal movement tends to be perceived as safe and stable.

(Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, c.1932 by Charles C. Ebbets)

3. Diagonal movement gives a sense of instability and action, as evident when we see flowers bending in the wind or an athlete running.

(Tower of Pisa)

4. Spiral movement gives us a sense of depth and space.

(Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC, NY)

So, by using the correct techniques, we can create a real sense of movement in a work.

Look at the images below. Notice how the lines lead your eye to a specific point. In the first, your eye is drawn up and to the right, where the lines converge. In the second image, your eye is drawn into the concentric circles. in the last image, the curved lines as well as the straight lines all lead your eye toward the black square. these are all examples of how movement can be used in a drawing to move your eye (or draw attention to) a specific point. In a drawing or painting, artists use different techniques to draw the viewer's eye to a specific point on the picture plane. They can use any of the elements or principles of design as attention-getters:

• color
• line
• value
• shape
• emphasis

Mona Lisa (Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo) by Leonardo da Vinci

Even Leonardo used some of these devices to get the viewer to focus on one particular part (her face). As you can see, the places where the light and dark meet create lines that point to her face. No matter where on the painting we look, the lines lead our eyes back to her face.

Principles of Art - Balance

Balance can be symmetrical, asymmetrical, or radial.

1. Symmetrical balance (formal balance) is used to express ideas such as stability, uniformity, and formality. In symmetrical balance both halves of a work are like mirror images of each other. They are exactly alike or so similar that you see them as matched. The symmetry can be either vertical or horizontal. In other words, it can be symmetrical from top to bottom (vertical), or from side to side (horizontal).

2. In asymmetrical (informal balance), the halves of the work are balanced like a see-saw. For example, a large shape on one side might be balanced by several smaller ones on the other side or, a large shape close to the fulcrum (or balancing point) may be balanced with a smaller object further away. A smaller area with bright colors can have as much visual "weight" and interest as a large area with a dull color. Asymmetrical balance is often used to express action, variety, and informality.

3. In radial balance, parts of a design seem to move toward or away from a central point. Radial balance is often symmetrical. the petals on flowers and wheels of bicycles (shown here as Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel, 1951) are examples of radial balance.

Can you figure out which is which?