Give Your Paintings Intriguing Rhythm with Intervals

Published: Sat, 04/28/18

Dear ,

In music an interval is the time lapse between two notes. Collected together in a pattern, those intervals create a specific rhythm. Intervals in paintings are not much different—they’re simply the distance of a space between two edges. Several of these visual intervals assembled together in one painting also create a particular rhythm.

Just like in music, interesting or fun rhythms will intrigue an audience and hold their attention. For artists, the intervals that make up these appealing rhythms can be a delight to discover and capture. Rhythm-producing intervals appear in three specific relationships:

1. Between a shape’s edge and the outer edge of a painting

2. Between two shapes inside the painting

3. Within a single shape itself.

It's fun to go through artists' websites and look for intervals. One fun example I found is Lounge Act by Karin Jurick.

Look at the intervals between edges of the newspaper and each side of the painting. That’s the shape/edge relationship. Then look at the distance between the newspaper and the man’s shoes—that’s the shape/shape relationship. And finally, switch your attention to the interval from between the man's hands, one side of the newspaper itself to the other. You’ll see an interval within the shape. Notice how Karin has varied the sizes of all of these as well as every other interval within the painting.

There’s another kind of interval-producing edge that can be equally fun to work with. Look at the following examples by Pat Weaver (right) and Albrecht Durer (left). In each work there’s a continuous, fluctuating interval occuring between the edges of the subject and the edges of the painting.

I converted each image into a reversed silhouette to make these shape/edges relationships easier to see. Focus just on the black space in each piece, looking first at the edge of the subject, then at the nearest edge of the painting. As your eyes move around the image, notice how that shape/edge relationship fluctuates in size—sometimes getting narrower, sometimes wider. In portrait painting (as well as in still life painting) there are special opportunities to explore intervals that make interesting variations along single line.

Try adding the awareness of intervals to your painting and discover how much richer your work can become.

Happy Painting,

Dianne

dianne@diannemize.com

P.S, I hope you enjoyed this revised reprint of one of my Empty Easel articles from 2008.

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