Our Senses and The Actions
All our senses respond automatically, without intention, to whatever they are currently encountering as we humans experience living, second by second. Unless there is an interruption in sensory perception, our senses are the entry points to experience itself. That’s why the arts are so important to humans—they enrich that experience, and more times than not, give it meaning.
In painting, we use actions that give the painting a way to communicate through our sense of sight. They are our means of using visual elements to guide the viewer's eyes. In last Saturday’s Art Thoughts, I talked about how the action of contrasting value by degrees helps determine where the eye lands in a painting. Let’s take that idea in another direction:
The painting below is dull and uninteresting because neither the value contrast nor the degree of hue saturation is doing its job.
But if we go back to the same painting and put value contrast and stronger hue saturation to work, we can achieve visual clarity. The painting becomes more dynamic, exudes more life.
We can contrast values by degrees to control where the eye goes in a painting or how quickly it moves within the piece. We can draw the eye to a focal point by creating strong contrast, then lead it towards that area using progressively lower contrast. We can saturate the hue to give it more life, and repeat and vary it throughout the painting to create better unity.
The action principles here are contrasting value, raising saturation of hue and repeating and varying hue. The results principles are a stronger visual path and a unified and harmonious painting, or in the language of the principles of composition, harmony, movement, and unity.
Are you beginning to get the idea of how this stuff works?
You can find the two previous posts leading up to this one, at A Good Composition? and A Good Composition 1-The Art’s Eye
Your comment about how our senses are the entry point to an experience really resonated with me. Thank you for this insight and how it relates to creating our art.
This makes a lot of sense. I am finally getting what composition is about. It’s about contrast, action and balance. The usual composition rules seem rigid to me now. And that’s why I didn’t really understand them completely. Thanks for this deeper insight Dianne.