ANNOUNCEMENT:

Join us tomorrow, February 16, at 2 p.m. Eastern for our monthly LIVE CHAT on YouTube.  This time we will be looking at Emphasizing with Color. 

Judging from comments I've received, it appears I'm getting a reputation for defying the "rules".  I don't mind that at all. In fact, I am delighted! 

I hope you enjoy this refurbished encore post from quite a while ago.

Often when I'm looking at certain works of master painters, I feel an impish smile creep onto my face because I see where the master comes close to defying a compositional rule, especially one that our teachers shook their fingers in our faces about. 

It's that emphasis on "follow the rules" that has always rubbed me the wrong way. Master painters work the principle rather than follow it as a rule. I have pointed out many times that every single composition principle is a cause/effect action, not a rule to be followed.

FAMILIAR "RULE": NEVER PLACE AN IMAGE IN THE CENTER

As a principle, this concept might better be stated: To keep balance throughout the painting and insure our images are a part of the whole piece, we can place an image in the center if we offset it with other images or visual elements.

MASTERS TEASING THE PRINCIPLE

Look what Rockwell did in The Art Critic.

The guy's legs are directly aligned with the middle of the painting. So is the picture frame behind him. But the tilt of his body and the strong value contrast of the portrait he's examining pull our attention away from the center towards the left. 

Then, the tilt of the huge brush pointing to the dark painting on the upper right gives more weight to that side. Although I think this scheme would have worked better without the extreme emphasis of angled floor pattern, Rockwell has humorously teased the center placement "rule".

In The Scythers, NC Wyeth (Andrew's father) teases the never-center "rule" by placing two people on either side of the center. The angle tilts and the location of the girl keep our eyes exploring the whole scene rather than getting stuck in the center.

And then there's Bouruereau's The Little Knitter. She sits right in the center of his composition, but he balances that with the plant on the left and the strong emphasis of her seat on the right. He uses those diagonal positions of her garment on both sides and the tilt of her knees and feet to pull our attention away from the center.

Sargent does a fun thing, teasing the never-center "rule" in his The Little Fruit Seller. He has negotiated the center on both sides of it, similar to what NC Wyeth did, but a bit more clever.

There are dozens of examples by master painters where the center placement is teased. Knowing how composition works enables the master painters to do that. Fortunately, these composing principles are accessible to all of us. We can easily learn how to use them when we approach them as cause/effect actions rather than rules.

Light and Shadow: The one thing that lets our eyes see.
Visual Movement: What our eyes do when images are visible.
Seeing Beyond the Image: The possibilities beyond just describing what our eyes see.
Freeing the Artist Within (Curiosity): Finding our individual interpretation to what our eyes are seeing. 
Composing:  Finding ways to put together all that we discover.
Drawing:  Searching the potential of images.
The Craft:  Continually forging our skills to visually communicate what we continue to discover with our eyes, mind and soul.

And the eighth:

The Art:  The results when all the above are working together.