Arthur Wesley Dow - Visual Artist/Educator on Composition

Arthur Wesley Dow (American, 1857-1922). August Moon, ca. 1905. Woodcut print. 5 5/16 x 7 1/4 in. (13.5 x 18.5 cm). Collection of Edgar Smith, New York / Photo: David Heald

...art lies in the fine choice. The artist does not teach us to see facts: he teaches us to feel harmonies. -"Talks on the Appreciation of Art", The Delinator (Jan 1915) - Wikiquote

Arthur Wesley Dow (April 6, 1857 - December 13, 1922) was an American painter, printmaker, photographer, and influential arts educator. Dow taught at major American arts training institutions for 30 years including Teachers College, Columbia University; the Art Students League of New York; Pratt Institute; and his own Ipswich Summer School of Art. His ideas were quite revolutionary for the period, he taught that rather than copying nature, art should be created by elements of the composition, like line, mass and color. His ideas were published in the 1899 book Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers. He taught many of America's leading artists and craftspeople, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles J. Martin[citation needed], two of the Overbeck Sisters and the Byrdcliffe Colony. - Wikipedia

Link Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers, Digitized Google Book

Link Quotes, Wikiquote

Link Wikipedia

Degas - Composition

 At the Milliner's, Degas, Pastel, c. 1882

In this daring nuanced composition about modern life—the subject is the fleeting encounter rather than the women themselves—Degas heeded the advice of the critic Edmond Duranty, who, in his 1876 pamphlet, The New Painting—about the art that came to be known as Impressionism—wrote: "Let us take leave of the stylized human body, which is treated like a vase. What we need is the characteristic modern person in his clothes, in the midst of his social surroundings, at home or out in the street." - excerpted from MoMA Highlights, 1999, p 42.

Link Full text and image with zoom, MoMa

Making A Mark - The Composition and Design Project

"Do you know how to design a painting?"

"Why study composition and design? Well, although I studied art to advanced level at school, my studies seemed to neglect exploring this important topic area in depth. Similarly, I've tended to find that it's common for many painting workshops and courses to err much more towards teaching techniques relating to particular media and to touch upon composition and design only in passing. When was the last time you saw a workshop which was focused wholly on designing your artwork? Have you noticed how all the books on the art shelves in the bookshops are mostly about painting in a particular medium?"  - Katherine Tyrrell, Artist, London, UK

Ms. Tyrrell's Blog offers numerous resources, including the C and D Project, for those wishing to learn more about the "invisible" structures of visual expression - take a look.

Link Composition and Design - Resources for Artists

The Double Square and Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh

The first pictorial decision painters make is to select the material, shape, size, and color of the surface. If it is a rectangle, the second pictorial decision is about format. Do I position it on the short or long side and why? The third pictorial decision is about where the first mark and subsequent marks go and how their interaction activates and divides the rectangle. The overarching issue is how these decisions detract or contribute to the expression of the painting.

Van Gogh used the double square extensively. Why did he use this shape, and what compositional challenges did face by using this particular shape and format?

Link Double Squares, Wiki

Rembrandt and Composition

Portraits present unique challenges with respect to pictorial composition. This is one reason landscape and still-life might be used to explain and explore compositional ideas. The ideas are far more accessible and obvious.

But perhaps because of these difficulties, portrait composition will reward us with more valuable information? Generally, what methods are used to analyze the compositional structures of painting or drawing? Are there more interesting and productive ways of looking at portrait composition? In the case of this self-portrait, what is the content (ideas) and how does the form create it? What do you think?

Online Tracing, Bitmap to Vector Images

Upload your images, convert them to vectors, simplify color/value relationships - an excellent and quick tool that can be used to analyze general value and color structures of paintings and drawings. Try it at the title link above or click here for more information.