What Describes the Way Artists Use the Elements of Art

1. Line

In that location are many different types of lines, all characterized past their length being greater than their width. Lines can be static or dynamic depending on how the artist chooses to use them. They help determine the move, direction and energy in a work of art. We see line all effectually us in our daily lives; phone wires, tree branches, jet contrails and winding roads are just a few examples. Look at the photo beneath to see how line is role of natural and constructed environments.

In this prototype of a lightning storm we tin can see many different lines. Certainly the jagged, meandering lines of the lightning itself dominate the paradigm, followed by the straight lines of the skyline structures and the coast line. There are more than subtle lines too, like the lights along the buildings.  Lines are even implied past the reflections in the water.

The Nazca lines in the arid littoral plains of Peru engagement to about 500 BCE were scratched into the rocky soil, depicting animals on an incredible scale, so large that they are best viewed from the air. Let's look at how the dissimilar kinds of line are fabricated.

Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas from 1656, ostensibly a portrait of the Infanta Margarita, the girl of King Philip IV and Queen Mariana of Spain, offers a sumptuous amount of artistic genius; its sheer size (almost x feet square), painterly style of naturalism, lighting furnishings, and the enigmatic figures placed throughout the canvas–including the artist himself –is one of the great paintings in western art history. Let's examine it (below) to uncover how Velazquez uses basic elements and principles of art to achieve such a masterpiece.

Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, 1656, oil on canvas, 125.2" x 108.7". Prado, Madrid. CC BY-SA

Actual lines are those that are physically present. The edge of the wooden stretcher bar at the left of Las Meninas is an actual line, as are the picture frames in the background and the linear decorative elements on some of the figures' dresses. How many other bodily lines can y'all observe in the painting?

Unsaid lines are those created by visually connecting 2 or more areas together. The gaze to the Infanta Margarita—the blonde key figure in the composition—from the meninas, or maids of award, to the left and right of her, are implied lines. They visually connect the figures. By visually connecting the space between the heads of all the figures in the painting we have a sense of jagged implied line that keeps the lower role of the composition in motility, counterbalanced against the darker, more static upper areas of the painting. Implied lines can also be created when 2 areas of different colors or tones come together. Can you place more than implied lines in the painting? Where? Implied lines are found in three-dimensional artworks, too. The sculpture of the Laocoon below, a figure from Greek and Roman mythology, is, along with his sons, existence strangled by sea snakes sent by the goddess Athena as wrath against his warnings to the Trojans non to accept the Trojan equus caballus. The sculpture sets implied lines in motion as the figures writhe in desperation against the snakes.

Laocoon Group, Roman copy of Greek original, Vatican Museum, Rome. Photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen. CC BY-SA

Straight or classic lines provide structure to a composition. They tin can be oriented to the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal axis of a surface. Straight lines are by nature visually stable, while still giving direction to a composition. InLas Meninas, you can see them in the canvas supports on the left, the wall supports and doorways on the right, and in the background in matrices on the wall spaces between the framed pictures. Moreover, the small horizontal lines created in the stair edges in the background assistance anchor the entire visual design of the painting. Vertical and horizontal straight lines provide the nearly stable compositions. Diagonal directly lines are normally more visually dynamic, unstable, and tension-filled.

Straight lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

Expressive lines are curved, adding an organic, more than dynamic character to a work of art. Expressive lines are often rounded and follow undetermined paths. In Las Meninas you lot can see them in the aprons on the girls' dresses and in the dog's folded hind leg and coat pattern. Look again at the Laocoon to see expressive lines in the figures' flailing limbs and the sinuous grade of the snakes. Indeed, the sculpture seems to be fabricated upward of nada simply expressive lines, shapes and forms.

Organic lines, xi July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

In that location are other kinds of line that embrace the characteristics of those in a higher place yet, taken together, assistance create boosted creative elements and richer, more varied compositions. Refer to the images and examples below to become familiar with these types of line.

Outline, or contour line is the simplest of these. They create a path effectually the edge of a shape. In fact, outlines often ascertain shapes.

Outline, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Hatch lines are repeated at curt intervals in generally one direction. They give shading and visual texture to the surface of an object.

Hatch, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Crosshatch lines provide boosted tone and texture. They can be oriented in any management. Multiple layers of crosshatch lines can give rich and varied shading to objects by manipulating the pressure of the drawing tool to create a big range of values.

Crosshatch, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Line quality is that sense of character embedded in the way a line presents itself. Certain lines accept qualities that distinguish them from others. Hard-edged, jagged lines have a staccato visual motion while organic, flowing lines create a more comfortable feeling. Meandering lines tin be either geometric or expressive, and you lot can encounter in the examples how their indeterminate paths breathing a surface to dissimilar degrees.

Lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Although line as a visual element generally plays a supporting role in visual art, there are wonderful examples in which line carries a strong cultural significance as the primary subject matter.

Calligraphic lines use quickness and gesture, more akin to pigment strokes, to imbue an artwork with a fluid, lyrical grapheme. To see this unique line quality, look up the work of Chinese poet and creative person Dong Qichang, dating from the Ming dynasty (1555-1637). A more than geometric example from the Koran, created in the Arabic calligraphic way, dates from the nine^th century.

Both these examples evidence how artists utilise line as both a grade of writing and a visual art form. American artist Mark Tobey (1890–1976) was influenced past Oriental calligraphy, adapting its form to the act of pure painting within a mod abstract fashion described as white writing.

2. Shape

A shape is divers as an enclosed expanse in ii dimensions. By definition shapes are always flat, but the combination of shapes, color, and other means can make shapes announced three-dimensional, every bit forms. Shapes can be created in many means, the simplest by enclosing an area with an outline. They can also be made by surrounding an expanse with other shapes or the placement of different textures adjacent to each other—for instance, the shape of an isle surrounded by water. Because they are more than complex than lines, shapes are commonly more than of import in the system of compositions. The examples beneath give u.s. an thought of how shapes are made.

Geometric Shapes, xi July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

Referring back to Velazquez's Las Meninas, it is fundamentally an organisation of shapes; organic and difficult-edged, light, dark and mid-toned, that solidifies the composition within the larger shape of the canvas. Looking at it this way, we can view any work of art, whether two or three-dimensional, realistic, abstract or non-objective, in terms of shapes solitary.

Geometric Shapes vs. Organic Shapes

Shapes can exist further categorized into geometric and organic. Examples of geometric shapes are the ones we can recognize and name: squares, triangles, circles, hexagons, etc. Organic shapes are those that are based on organic or living things or are more than costless course: the shape of a tree, face, monkey, cloud, etc.

3. Class

Form is sometimes used to describe a shape that has an implied third dimension. In other words, an artist may try to make parts of a flat image announced three-dimensional. Notice in the cartoon below how the creative person makes the dissimilar shapes appear three-dimensional through the use of shading. Information technology's a apartment epitome only appears three-dimensional.

This epitome is complimentary of copyright restrictions.

When an epitome is incredibly realistic in terms of its forms (besides as color, space, etc.) such as this painting past Edwaert Collier, we call that trompe l'oeil, French for "fool the eye."

Edweart Collier, Trompe l'oeil with Writing Materials,
oil on canvas, c. 1702.
This image is in the public domain.

4. Infinite

Space is the empty area surrounding or between real or implied objects. Humans categorize infinite: in that location is outer space, that limitless void we enter across our heaven; inner space, which resides in people'southward minds and imaginations, and personal infinite, the of import but intangible area that surrounds each individual and which is violated if someone else gets as well close. Pictorial space is flat, and the digital realm resides in net. Fine art responds to all of these kinds of space.

Many artists are as concerned with space in their works as they are with, say, colour or class. There are many means for the artist to present ideas of space. Remember that many cultures traditionally utilize pictorial space equally a window to view realistic subject matter through, and through the subject thing they present ideas, narratives and symbolic content. The innovation of linear perspective, an implied geometric pictorial construct dating from fifteenth-century Europe, affords u.s. the accurate illusion of three-dimensional infinite on a flat surface, and appears to recede into the altitude through the use of a horizon line and vanishing point(s) . You lot can run into how one-point linear perspective is gear up in the examples below:

1-Indicate Linear Perspective, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

One-point perspective occurs when the receding lines appear to converge at a single point on the horizon and used when the apartment front of an object is facing the viewer. Note: Perspective can be used to evidence the relative size and recession into space of whatever object, but is nigh effective with hard-edged 3-dimensional objects such as buildings.

A classic Renaissance artwork using i point perspective is Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper from 1498. Da Vinci composes the work by locating the vanishing betoken straight behind the caput of Christ, thus drawing the viewer'south attention to the center. His arms mirror the receding wall lines, and, if we follow them equally lines, would converge at the aforementioned vanishing point.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1498. Fresco. Santa Maria della Grazie. Piece of work is in the public domain.

Two-indicate perspective occurs when the vertical edge of a cube is facing the viewer, exposing ii sides that recede into the distance, i to each vanishing point.

Two-Point Perspective, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

View Gustave Caillebotte's Paris Street, Rainy Weather condition from 1877 to see how two-point perspective is used to give an accurate view to an urban scene.  The artist's composition, all the same, is more complex than merely his use of perspective. The figures are deliberately placed to direct the viewer'south eye from the forepart correct of the picture to the edifice's forepart edge on the left, which, like a transport's bow, acts as a cleaver to plunge both sides toward the horizon. In the midst of this visual recession a lamp mail service stands firmly in the heart to arrest our gaze from going right out the dorsum of the painting. Caillebotte includes the fiddling metal arm at the top right of the postal service to direct united states again along a horizontal path, now keeping us from traveling off the top of the canvass. As relatively spare as the left side of the work is, the creative person crams the correct side with hard-edged and organic shapes and forms in a complex play of positive and negative space.

The perspective arrangement is a cultural convention well suited to a traditional western European idea of the "truth," that is, an accurate, clear rendition of observed reality. Fifty-fifty later on the invention of linear perspective, many cultures traditionally use a flatter pictorial space, relying on overlapping, size differences, or vertical placementof components in a two-dimensional work of art. Examine the miniature painting of the Third Court of the Topkapi Palacefrom fourteenth-century Turkey to contrast its pictorial space with that of linear perspective. It'south composed from a number of different vantage points (as opposed to vanishing points), all very flat to the pic airplane. While the overall prototype is seen from above, the figures and trees appear as cutouts, seeming to float in mid air. Notice the towers on the far left and right are sideways to the flick plane. The trees and people occupying the upper parts of the paradigm are meant to be perceived as further from the viewer equally compared to those trees, buildings and people located near the bottom of the painting. This is an example of vertical placement.

Every bit "wrong" as it looks, the painting does give a detailed clarification of the landscape and structures on the palace grounds.

Tertiary Court of the Topkapi Palace, from the Hunername, 1548. Ottoman miniature painting, Topkapi Museum, Istanbul. CC Past-SA

After nearly five hundred years using linear perspective, western ideas nigh how space is depicted accurately in 2 dimensions went through a revolution at the kickoff of the 20^th century. A young Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, moved to Paris, then western culture's upper-case letter of art, and largely reinvented pictorial infinite with the invention of Cubism, ushered in dramatically by his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907. He was influenced in part by the chiseled forms, angular surfaces and asymmetry of African sculpture (refer back to the Male person Figurefrom Cameroon) and mask-similar faces of early Iberian artworks. For more data about this of import painting, listen to the following question and answer.

In the early on 20th century, Picasso, his friend Georges Braque and a handful of other artists struggled to develop a new space that relied on, ironically, the flatness of the picture plane to acquit and breathing traditional subject thing including figures, nevertheless life and landscape. Cubist pictures, and eventually sculptures, became amalgams of dissimilar points of view, light sources and planar constructs. Information technology was equally if they were presenting their subject area matter in many ways at once, all the while shifting foreground, middle ground and groundwork and then the viewer is not sure where one starts and the other ends. In an interview, the artist explained cubism this way: "The problem is now to laissez passer, to go effectually the object, and give a plastic expression to the upshot. All of this is my struggle to break with the 2-dimensional aspect*"(from Alexander Liberman, An Artist in His Studio, 1960, folio 113). Public and critical reaction to cubism was understandably negative, merely the artists' experiments with spatial relationships reverberated with others and became – along with new ways of using colour – a driving forcefulness in the development of a mod art motion that based itself on the flatness of the motion-picture show airplane. Instead of a window to look into, the apartment surface becomes a ground on which to construct formal arrangements of shapes, colors and compositions. For some other perspective on this idea, refer dorsum to module one's discussion of 'abstraction'.

You tin see the radical changes cubism made in George Braque'southward mural La Roche Guyonfrom 1909. The trees, houses, castle and surrounding rocks comprise well-nigh a single complex grade, stair-stepping up the sail to mimic the distant hill at the top, all of information technology struggling upwards and leaning to the right within a shallow pictorial space.

George Braque, Castle at La Roche Guyon, 1909. Oil on canvas. Stedelijk van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands. Licensed through GNU and Artistic Eatables

Every bit the cubist way developed, its forms became even flatter. Juan Gris's The Sunblindfrom 1914 splays the still life information technology represents across the canvas.  Collage elements like newspaper reinforce pictorial flatness.

Juan Gris, The Sunblind, 1914. Gouache, collage, chalk, and charcoal on canvas. Tate Gallery, London. Image licensed under GNU Free Documentation License

It'south not so difficult to understand the importance of this new idea of infinite when placed in the context of comparable advances in science surrounding the turn of the nineteenth century. The Wright Brothers took to the air with powered flying in 1903, the same yr Marie Curie won the first of two Nobel prizes for her pioneering work in radiation. Sigmund Freud's new ideas on the inner spaces of the heed and its effect on behavior were published in 1902, and Albert Einstein'southward calculations on relativity, the idea that space and time are intertwined, outset appeared in 1905. Each of these discoveries added to human understanding and realligned the way nosotros expect at ourselves and our world. Indeed, Picasso, speaking of his struggle to define cubism, said "Even Einstein did not know it either! The condition of discovery is outside ourselves; simply the terrifying affair is that despite all this, we tin can only notice what we know" (from Picasso on Art, A Selection of Views by Dore Ashton, (Souchere, 1960, page xv).

3-dimensional space doesn't undergo this fundamental transformation. It remains a visual and bodily human relationship between positive and negative spaces.

v. Value and Contrast

Value (or tone) is the relative lightness or darkness of a shape in relation to some other. The value scale, bounded on one end by pure white and on the other by black, and in between a series of progressively darker shades of grey, gives an artist the tools to make these transformations. The value scale below shows the standard variations in tones. Values nearly the lighter end of the spectrum are termed loftier-keyed, those on the darker end are depression-keyed.

Value Scale, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC BY

In ii dimensions, the utilize of value gives a shape the illusion of form or mass and lends an entire composition a sense of calorie-free and shadow. The two examples below show the effect value has on changing a shape to a form.

2D Form, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC BY

3D Form, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC By

This aforementioned technique brings to life what begins every bit a elementary line drawing of a young man's head in Michelangelo's Caput of a Youth and a Right Hand from 1508. Shading is created with line (refer to our give-and-take of line before in this module) or tones created with a pencil. Artists vary the tones by the amount of resistance they apply between the pencil and the paper they're drawing on. A drawing pencil's leads vary in hardness, each one giving a different tone than some other. Washes of ink or color create values adamant by the amount of h2o the medium is dissolved into.

The use of high contrast, placing lighter areas of value confronting much darker ones, creates a dramatic effect, while low contrast gives more than subtle results. These differences in consequence are axiomatic in 'Guiditta and Oloferne' by the Italian painter Caravaggio, and Robert Adams' photograph Untitled, Denver from 1970-74. Caravaggio uses a loftier contrast palette to an already dramatic scene to increase the visual tension for the viewer, while Adams deliberately makes employ of depression contrast to underscore the drabness of the mural surrounding the figure on the bicycle.

Caravaggio, Guiditta Decapitates Oloferne, 1598, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Italian Art, Rome. This piece of work is in the public domain

half-dozen. Colour

Colour is the near complex artistic chemical element because of the combinations and variations inherent in its utilize.  Humans respond to colour combinations differently, and artists study and utilize color in part to give desired direction to their work.

Color is fundamental to many forms of art. Its relevance, utilise and function in a given work depend on the medium of that work. While some concepts dealing with color are broadly applicable across media, others are not.

The full spectrum of colors is independent in white calorie-free. Humans perceive colors from the light reflected off objects. A cerise object, for example, looks red considering information technology reflects the carmine part of the spectrum. It would be a unlike color under a different calorie-free. Color theory showtime appeared in the 17^th century when English mathematician and scientist Sir Isaac Newton discovered that white light could be divided into a spectrum by passing it through a prism.

The study of color in art and design often starts with color theory. Color theory splits up colors into three categories: primary, secondary, and 3rd.

The basic tool used is a color wheel, developed past Isaac Newton in 1666. A more complex model known equally the color tree, created by Albert Munsell, shows the spectrum fabricated upward of sets of tints and shades on continued planes.

There are a number of approaches to organizing colors into meaningful relationships. Most systems differ in construction only.

Traditional Model

Traditional color theory is a qualitative attempt to organize colors and their relationships. It is based on Newton's colour wheel, and continues to be the most common organization used by artists.

Blue Yellow Scarlet Color Wheel. Released nether the GNU Free Documentation License

Traditional colour theory uses the aforementioned principles as subtractive color mixing (run into below) merely prefers different principal colors.

• The primary colors are red, bluish, and yellow. You find them equidistant from each other on the color wheel. These are the "elemental" colors; non produced by mixing any other colors, and all other colors are derived from some combination of these three.
• The secondary colors are orange (mix of red and yellow), light-green (mix of blue and yellowish), and violet (mix of blue and cherry).
• The tertiary colors are obtained by mixing one principal color and one secondary color. Depending on amount of color used, different hues can exist obtained such as red-orange or yellow-dark-green. Neutral colors (browns and grays) tin can be mixed using the three main colors together.
• White and black lie outside of these categories. They are used to lighten or darken a color. A lighter color (made by adding white to it) is called a tint , while a darker color (made by adding black) is chosen a shade .

Colour Mixing

Think about color as the effect of light reflecting off a surface. Understood in this way, color tin can be represented as a ratio of amounts of primary colour mixed together. Color is produced when parts of the external lite source's spectrum are captivated past the material and not reflected back to the viewer's eye. For instance, a painter brushes blue paint onto a canvas. The chemical composition of the paint allows all of the colors in the spectrum to be absorbed except blue, which is reflected from the pigment's surface.  Common applications of subtractive color theory are used in the visual arts, colour printing and processing photographic positives and negatives.

• The primary colors are cherry-red, yellow, and blue.
• The secondary colors are orangish, green and violet.
• The tertiary colors are created by mixing a principal with a secondary color.
• Blackness is mixed using the three primary colors, while white represents the absence of all colors. Notation: because of impurities in subtractive colour, a true black is incommunicable to create through the mixture of primaries. Because of this the result is closer to brownish. Similar to additive colour theory, lightness and darkness of a color is determined by its intensity and density.

Subtractive Color Mixing. Released nether the GNU Gratis Documentation License

Colour Attributes

At that place are many attributes to colour. Each 1 has an consequence on how nosotros perceive it.

• Hue refers to color itself, only also to the variations of a color.
• Value (every bit discussed previously) refers to the relative lightness or darkness of one color next to another. The value of a color can brand a deviation in how it is perceived. A colour on a night groundwork will appear lighter, while that same color on a lite background will appear darker.
• Saturation refers to the purity and intensity of a colour. The primaries are the most intense and pure, but diminish as they are mixed to form other colors. The creation of tints and shades also diminish a color's saturation. 2 colors work strongest together when they share the same intensity.

Color Interactions

Beyond creating a mixing hierarchy, colour theory as well provides tools for understanding how colors piece of work together.

Monochrome

The simplest color interaction is monochrome. This is the use of variations of a single hue. The reward of using a monochromatic color scheme is that you get a high level of unity throughout the artwork because all the tones chronicle to one another. See this in Marking Tansey's Derrida Queries de Man from 1990.

Analogous Colour

Analogous colors are similar to one some other. As their proper noun implies, analogous colors can exist found next to ane another on any 12-function color wheel:

Analogous Color, eleven July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

You can see the effect of analogous colors in Paul Cezanne's oil painting Auvers Panoromic View

Colour Temperature

Colors are perceived to take temperatures associated with them. The color wheel is divided into warm and cool colors. Warm colors range from yellowish to red, while cool colors range from yellow-dark-green to violet.  You can accomplish complex results using merely a few colors when you pair them in warm and absurd sets.

Warm cool color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are found direct reverse one another on a color bicycle. Here are some examples:

• regal and yellow
• green and ruddy
• orange and blue

Complementary Color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Blue and orange are complements. When placed almost each other, complements create a visual tension. This colour scheme is desirable when a dramatic effect is needed using simply two colors.

7. Texture

At the virtually basic level, Iii-dimensional works of art (sculpture, pottery, textiles, metalwork, etc.) and architecture have actual texture which is often determined by the fabric that was used to create it: wood, stone, bronze, clay, etc. Two-dimensional works of art similar paintings, drawings, and prints may try to evidence implied texture through the use of lines, colors, or other means. When a painting has a lot of actual texture from the awarding of thick paint, nosotros telephone call that impasto.

The first image below is a sculpture, and like all three-dimensional objects it has actual texture.

The adjacent two images are details from the painting The Arnolfini Portrait by January van Eyck. Here, the creative person has created implied texture. If you were to bear on this painting you lot would not feel the fabric of the clothing and carpet, the wooden flooring or the smooth metal of the chandelier, but our eyes "see" the texture.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-sac-artappreciation/chapter/oer-1-9/

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