stARTer Kit:: Elements & Principles of Design

Toolkit, Art History

Art History Methods 

Biography- whar the artist's life reveals about their art

Context  (including function/purpose--ie was it art, when it was made? and what would that even mean?)

Iconography (picture-reading & picture writiing)

Critical Theory (social structures and pressures impacting an era and/or individual)

Formal Analysis

Gestalt (the brain perceives the whole as greater than the sum of the parts)

Formal Analysis Intro

What is the thing?

Sculpture:

• Freestanding Sculpture
• Sculpture in-the-round
• Relief (high relief and low relief (also called bas relief))
• Modeling
• Carving
• Casting
• Armature
• Terra-cotta
• portable objects
• functional objects

Architecture

• Form
• Site
• Purpose
• Change over time

Painting-- terms will arise as we study

Time-Based Art- where do we see the roots of this in the first 100,000 years?

Intro to Elements and Principles of Composition

" The elements of design are the physical parts of the artwork, or the form. The principles of design are the ways in which those parts are arranged or used, or the composition." (Pamela Sachant)

Design

Elements:   line, shape or form, mass/volume, value, color, texture and space, positive space, negative space, perspective, color temperature, primary, secondary, complementary color 

Principles:  scale, proportion,movement, repetition and variety, balance, emphasis and harmony or unity

Here's another useful site on Elements and Principles.

ELEMENTS
Most Basically, the Elements of Design, or Elements of Art, are the bits and pieces with which you compose a work of two- or three-dimensional art. Most of these building blocks apply directly or indirectly to other visual art media like digital art, performance art, and video... and can add nuance to interpretation of happenings and sound art as well. On the surface, you'll find these terms elementary... many degrees of sophistication can emerge through close reading of images with regards to their use of these basic elements.

LINE
The visible path of a point moving through space or the edge where two shapes meet
We think of line as having direction, weight, and even speed. Horizontal lines generally indicate stability, rest, tranquility; vertical lines indicate formality, alertness, and significantly affect our understanding of balance in the image; diagonal or oblique lines dramatically direct our gaze, and suggest movement, energy, action.

Brice Marden, Vine. 1991-93. Oil on linen, 96 x 102 1/2" (243.8 x 260.3 cm)
image credit MOMA

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, photographer unknown

Vilhelm Hammershoi,Gentoft Lake, 1905, oil, photocredit artandperception.com

Shape

Most literally, a shape is a geometric or organic self-contained area. Usually, we perceive shape as two dimensional. As you consider paintings, consider positive and negative shapes. When we talk about sculpture, we generally consider them through photographs, which can flatten forms to create shapes that allow us to see the sculptures differently. 

Paul Cézanne, Mont Saint Victoire, 1895. photocredit wiki paintings. 

"Treat nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, and the cone, the whole put into perspective so that each side of an object, or of a plane, leads towards a central point. Lines parallel to the horizon give breadth, whether a sections of nature, or, if you prefer, of the spectacle which Pater omnipotens aeterne Deus unfolds before your eyes. Lines perpendicular to this horizon give depth.. ..Everything I am telling you ] about - the sphere, the cone, cylinder, concave shadow – on mornings when I’m tired these notions of mine get me going, they stimulate me, I soon forget them once I start using my eyes. (from wikiquotes,  quoted from Joachim Gasquet’s Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, Thames and Hudson, London 1991 pp. 163-164)

FORM

Many see form as a subset of shape or the same, even, and they can prove hard to tease apart. We speak of form as having depth as well as length and width, and perceive it as three dimensional even in a flat work of art. 

Paul Cézanne, Apples and Oranges, 1895-1900

Space

Space refers to the area within, around, and between objects, and it plays a vital role in how we perceive depth, distance, and relationships in a work of art. Positive space is the area occupied by the subjects or objects in an artwork. Negative space, on the other hand, is the empty or open area surrounding those subjects.

Pablo Picasso, Self Portrait at 15, 1896

Moyo Ogundipe,  Soliloquy, Life's Fragile Fictions, 1997 acrylic on canvas
(Think about Figure/Ground = Negative/Positive Space here)

COLOR

from a post called: Color Theory Basics Everyone should now

Color is also called hue. Whatever the hue, colors come from black, white, and the three primaries and vary in intensity and value. Valuable primers on color here and far more in depth and quite valuable resource from the ever-dependable OWL at Purdue, here. Color VALUE refers to how light or dark a color appears and color INTENSITY refers to how pure the saturation of the HUE. So, for example, a blue with absolutely no yellow or red added has a high intensity, a blue diluted with yellow that makes it head close to green has low intensity. 

Vincent Van Gogh, Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate) 1890
"It seems to me that a painter has a duty to try to put an idea into his work. I was trying to say this in this print — but I can’t say it as beautifully, as strikingly as reality, of which this is only a dim reflection seen in a dark mirror — that it seems to me that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the existence of 'something on high' in which Millet believed, namely in the existence of a God and an eternity, is the unutterably moving quality that there can be in the expression of an old man like that, without his being aware of it perhaps, as he sits so quietly in the corner of his hearth. At the same time something precious, something noble, that can’t be meant for the worms. ... This is far from all theology — simply the fact that the poorest woodcutter, heath farmer or miner can have moments of emotion and mood that give him a sense of an eternal home that he is close to." image and quotation wikipedia

Jacob Lawrence, The migration gained in momentum, 1940-41 Tempera on Board, 12" x 18"

VALUE the relative lightness or darkness of a hue. 

Dorothea Tanning, Eine Kleine Nachtmusic

TEXTURE

We call an object's surface qualities its texture. Ask yourself is it matte, shiny, smooth, rough, jagged etc. Texture can be tactile (physical) like a Van Gogh painting seen in person, where Van Gogh's use of impasto (thick, pasty paint) gives the painting roughness that you could feel with your hand (if the museum guard stepped out) or visual, like the photograph of the Van Gogh painting, with its highly obvious brushmarks even on the smooth photopaper. 

Meret Oppenheim, Object (luncheon in Fur), 1936, photo MOMA

Janine Antoni. (Bahamian, born 1964). Butterfly Kisses. 1996–99. Cover Girl Thick Lash mascara on paper. 29 3/4" x 30" (75.6 x 76.2 cm).. Purchase, 2001.

Renee Stout, Fetish #2, 1988, mixed media, plaster body cast, 64"

COMPOSITION. well, now that's a long conversation. For now, composition is the overall way artists use the elements to build works. Consciously and subconsciously, the principles guide their decisions about how to use the elements to make pleasing or otherwise affecting works. 

The Principles of Art/Design

BALANCE 

Balance refers to the appearance of equilibrium in a two- or three-dimensional artwork. Artists balance their work symmetrically (rarely), asymmetrically, or radially, by including elements of varying visual or conceptual weight. Relying on the laws of physics can help you to balance a work; a small object at the edge of the work can balance a large object at the center, a small dark object appears heavier, and will balance a larger light object. Artists use balance to create feelings of anxiety, peace, tension, etc. 

Katsushika Hokusai, Sudden Gust of Wind, 1832

Jeff Wall, Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) 1993 photograph
When I was making A Sudden Gust of Wind I knew I wanted to show how the air could carry the papers. Hokusai had already solved some of these problems. If you analyse his composition, you realise that many of the little pieces of paper coincided with very important points of the rectangle. He composed something that had a feel of the accidental. It was not accidental, but he knew how to make it look that way. I thought that the only way to achieve that was to first create chance situations, to create a lot of movement and then just have a lot of materials to edit. So we created a way a lot of paper could be moved in the air and then tried to think of both the rectangle and the invisible air current in three dimensions. As the papers move in depth, they move away from us and get smaller. I just worked hard on it and tried to compose. There is no guide, its just a feeling, a sense of real, how things are really are or would be . _Jeff Wall

Jan Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, 1665 photo wikipaintings

valuable resource on this painting at the national gallery. here.

Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence, 1994, photograph. "“Every image,” Neshat tells me, as she prepares for the opening of the first major display of her work on the west coast of America, “is symbolic of a certain idea, of a certain type of thinking, a certain ideology. And to me, that image is a very ideological image in the way that it embodies contradictions… it’s a very loaded image. Because it has issues of feminism, religion, fanaticism – you know, religious fervour – and criminality. So it has all these three elements, and they are all moving in different directions. I feel that the way I approach my photography is in that conceptual way. It’s not just like a snapshot, it’s like how do you build layers of meanings and intentions that could have multiple interpretations?”source

PATTERN: 

We call the repetition of an element in an image a pattern. Artists create exact or varied patterns, to different effect. 

Julie Heffernan, Study for Self Portrait in Need of Perpetual Help, 2009 28" x 22" oil on canvas

Kehinde Wiley, Napoleon Leading the Troops over the Alps, 2005, oil on canvas, 108 x 108"

EMPHASIS or DOMINANCE

Artists give certain elements or areas of their images more power than others, drawing the viewers gaze to a specific space, action, or concept. They use various tools (lines of particular direction, the gaze of persons pictured, contrast, scale, etc) to achieve the emphasis

Michelangelo da Caravaggio, The Incredulity of St. Thomas, 1601

REPETITION

Artists use repetition to create unity in their works. Repetition without VARIETY tends to generate static images, repetition combined with Variety tends to create harmonious ones. 

Michelangelo Buonarotti, Sistine Chapel Ceiling, 1508-1512

UNITY/HARMONY

The Combination of similar or related elements-- colors, shapes, lines,objects, often via a degree of repetition, often creates a visually pleasing affect. Unity and Harmony give a sense of intentionality and completeness.

Limbourg Brothers, Trés Riches Heures du Duc De Barry, Juillet, ~1414

CONTRAST

Contrast in Color, Direction, Value, Content etc all create interest in a work of art and prevent it from becoming dull or lifeless. Artists seek to balance Repetition, Unity, and Harmony with Contrast to enliven their images. 

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Two images by Stephen Towns, I am the Glory, 2022, and Before the Dust Settles, 2020


























































































my favorite word: COMPOSITION

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Ascetics and Their Visual Prayers

Visual and Physical Prayers

Tying knots, laying stones, painting letters and otherwise meditating

Sainte Chapelle, Paris, built in four years under the authority of Louis IX, in 1244. 118 x 56 x 139 ft

God the Geometer, Bible Moralisé of Blanche of Castile, 1220 ce, 10" x 13" Gothic 

The Ancient of Days setting a Compass to the Earth, 1794

All maps from Wikipedia

How are the art, architecture, and daily life of the monastery visible prayers? How were books made in medieval Europe? What was life like in the monastery? What works best illustrate your answers?

If you're interested in this material, here are some readings that can help you, because this material is not really in the book. Reading choices include Elizabeth Howie’s article on the Apotropaic properties of interlace decoration, the film The Name of the Rose, the Umberto Eco book on which it was based, the animated Secret of Kells. (neither of these films will give you facts, but the websites listed within this website will. .

  CCORDING to Legend, Saint Kevin's mother felt no pains during childbirth, and the snowfall that attended the birth of her son melted in a band around their home. That was in the year 498. God, it appeared, marked Kevin from the very moment of his birth. Legend tells us much about Kevin, though history records very little. From his early days, Kevin was surly with people and kind to animals, and the animals repaid his kindness throughout his life.

Saint Kevin and the blackbird, miniature of an Irish codex, ca. 9th or 10th cent., wikipedia

Once, Kevin went to the woods to pray and meditate for all of Lent. He stayed in a simple hut, so small that when he flung his arm up in prayer, it went out the window. There, a blackbird landed, mistook Kevin's hand for a nest, and laid an egg in it. Feeling the warm egg, Kevin stood very still for all of lent while the eggs hatched, and hatchlings fledged. Lucky for him, the blackbird fed him.

For many years, Kevin lived in what's known as St. Kevin's bed, a five foot by three foot by seven foot cave. Kevin refused the company of women, but this refusal meant nothing to one Kathleen, who followed him about and tried to seduce him in his rocky bed. Kevin pushed her out of the cave and into the lake, where she drowned.

St. Kevin's Bed. source

After many years living in this simple hermitage, Kevin felt that he should return to serve as a priest, teaching all that he had learned. He wished to establish a monastery, but the ruler, King O'Tool, being a pagan, refused to let him. However, King O'Tool's beloved goose grew old and sick. Despairing what to do, he asked Kevin to make the goose young again. Kevin agreed, in exchange for whatever land the goose flew over. Since the elderly goose could not fly, King O'Tool agreed.



Kevin healed the goose,and it took off and flew over all of Glendalough. Kevin gathered workers and begin the project immediately, asking his workers to begin with the first song of the lark, and to work until the sheep went to bed. They used the materials the land provided, stone, resulting in this simple wonder of dry-stack stone architecture.

St Kevin's Church, near the site of the original small stone cathedral. This building constructed beginning 12th century.

St Kevin's asceticism marks a culture of self-denial that I also see visibly recorded in many of the forms of medieval monastic art and architecture: in many of these forms I see the immersive practices of prayer that describe the life of this class.

St Kevin's life of asceticism was certainly not unique. You can instantly detect a visual similarity between his church and the monastery at Skellig Michael off the shore of county Derry, in Ireland.

Image Credit Flickr User Irish Fireside

Skellig Michael Stairs seen from above. source. 

You can see a good collection of images of Skellig Michael here.




About 12 monks and an abbot inhabited this monastery, approachable only by choppy seas, from about the 7th to 12th centuries. They chose a life of isolation, cold, and self-denial as a way to remove obstacles from their connection to God. They built their own dry stack beehive shaped stone huts, and grew what vegetables they could.

In mainland Europe, one of the major ways that monks brought income to the monastery was by making books, illuminated (that is, made brilliant with illustrations), and handwritten (therefore called manuscripts). (by the way. Before books, people wrote on clay, bark, and papyrus, often rolling their writing into scrolls. Romans invented books, which began to replace scrolls during the early days of Christianity, by about 300 ce, people produced books and scrolls in about the same numbers. By 600 ce, books basically replaced scrolls.)

Do any of the places seem familiar? 

source

An Illuminated Manuscript combines handwritten texts with images (painted in precious pigments and metals) that shed light on the meaning of the words and add pleasure, play, and value. The word manuscript combines Latin words manus (hand) and scriptus, (from verb to write). In Europe, monks typically made these books from the point of raising the sheep and goats that gave their skins to make the parchment, to the ruling and hand writing of the texts, to the illuminating with images, to sticking the leaves together, to the binding of the pages in covers made of wood, leather, or precious metals. If the making of these books interests you, you can find a thorough description of the process at the Getty Museum's website, and an interactive walkthrough of their manufacture at the Fitzwilliam Museum site.  

unknown artist, author portrait of Jean Miélot writing the Miracles of Our Lady, 15th century

Watching the film The Name of the Rose, starring Sean Connery and based on the book by Umberto Eco, offers a fun way to get to know the physical and some of the practical aspects of monastic life. This clip (dead link-- full film minute 26:40 exterior carvings; 31:10 entering the scriptorium)  gives some great images of the exterior of a Romanesque monastery built for the film, and some detail shots filmed at The Abbey Church at Souillac in Périgord, France.

 
"Compositionally, Eadfrith stacked wine-glass shapes horizontally and vertically against his intricate weave of knots. On closer inspection many of these knots reveal themselves as snake-like creatures curling in and around tubular forms, mouths clamping down on their bodies. Chameleon-like, their bodies change colors: sapphire blue here, verdigris green there, and sandy gold in between. The sanctity of the cross, outlined in red with arms outstretched and pressing against the page edges, stabilizes the background’s gyrating activity and turns the repetitive energy into a meditative force. " from Louisa Woodville, Khan Academy, here.

Carpet Page, Lindisfarne Gospels, Insular Manuscript, 715 ce, 13" x 9.5"(p.428) " The limitation of the page was a perfect foil to the infinity of Celtic patterns" (from catalogue entry by Elizabeth Howie, here.)

Elizabeth Howie also describes the magical powers associated with Insular Manuscripts visible in their design. She writes: "According to Bernard Meehan the Book of Durrow [similar to the Lindisfarne Gospels] is "the earliest surviving fully decorated insular Gospel manuscript," (Meehan, 9.) It is considered to represent a "new, essentially medieval concept of embellishing the sacred text as though with precious jewels and textiles." (Calkins, 31.) It is the first example of a full program of decoration which complements the structure of the text. (Calkins, 36.) Its date of origin is controversial but is believed to be the late 7^th century. Its origins have also been the subject of debate, with scholars arguing between Durrow and Northumbria as likely places of origin, with current scholarship leaning toward Durrow. Like the Codex Usserianus Primus and the Cathach of St. Columba, the Book of Durrow had its own shrine that was lost in the late 17^th century. In the 17^th century, the book was dipped into a trough for sick cattle to drink out of, as it was believed to possess curative powers."

"The Book of Durrow continues the use of diminuendo seen in earlier manuscripts. It also continues the use of interlace decoration. Interlace is thought to have an apotropaic function because of its perceived ability to trap evil." From this catalogue entry.

Chi Rho page of the Book of Kells, late 8th or early 9th c. Scotland. tempera on vellum. (10-4)
Greek Letters Chi Rho Ota (XPI or Chri) Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about..." 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John I, KJV. 

Lower Cover of the Lindau Gospels, Austria, 775 ce, 13.5 x 11",now in the Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York.

Crucifixion, cover of Lindau Gospels, 870-880 (10-11)

Sutton Hoo Hoard, Chi Rho Page from Book of Kells   Saint Faith (Foy) Reliquary Giselbertus, Last Judgement 

Author Portrait of John the Evangelist from the Book of Kells, Insular Style Manuscript from ~805 ce, colors on vellum

"typical" text page from Book of Kells, 805 ce

Quoting Giraldus de Barri, 12th c. author, Hugh Honour and John Fleming write: “Examine it carefully and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art. You will make out intricacies so delicate and subtle, so concise and compact, so full of knots and links, with colors so fresh and vivid, that you might think all this was the work of an angel, not a man.”

detail from Book of Kells, 805 ce

I see a strong relationship between this: 

and this: 

What relationships can you see? 

KEY WORK! Portrait of Matthew, Gospel Book of Ebbo, 10.5" x 8.8"Carolingian Style, ~830 ce. (10-10)

Mark

Caravaggio, Inspiration of Matthew, 1602

Key Terms: Manuscript, Scriptorium, reliquary, interlace 

Sutton Hoo Burial site

  Purse Cover, Sutton Hoo Burial, england, 615-625

 

Roman de la Rose,French, tempera on vellum, 1353 (641)

When I the age of 20 had attained –
The age when Love controls a young man’s heart –
As I was wont, one night I went to bed
And soundly slept. But there came a dream
Which much delighted me, it was so sweet

Bayeux Tapestry  (10-18), on half of the gallery, likely made in England, 1070's







20' Star wars tapestry

Saint Faith (Foy) Reliquary (10-18), 






talk about tedious. Here are a couple of Brian Dettmer's fantastic Book Autopsies, made in the last few years. Dettmer would have made a good monk, I believe.

Like the Sutton Hoo hoard has visual similarities to the more meditative objects, Machu Picchu looks today similar in some ways to the monastery at Skellig Michael, though the purposes are very different.  Most recent dating suggests that Macchu Picchu was occupied from around 1420 to 1530 AD, with construction taking place under two Inca rulers, Pachacutec Inca Yopanqui  (1438–1471) and Túpac Inca Yupanqui (1472–1493).

Extra materials


Insular Manuscripts from betsy towns on Vimeo.






Gothic Architecture from betsy towns on Vimeo.