Chapter 3—Principles of Design

Introduction: The principles of design provide another schematic way of looking at how a work of art is composed. The elements are combined by the artist to form a composition, and this process has parallels in the creation of music, dance or theatrical performances. Discerning the underlying visual design in art requires some practice. Chapter 3 contains a wide range of quotations by people with varying views on these principles. A Closer Look – Claes Oldenburg: On Clothespins, Baseball Bats, and Other Monuments will exercise your abilities to examine design aspects of specific works of art.

Chapter 3 – Why Read It? Have you ever had the experience of things working harmoniously, when it seemed that every aspect of what you were doing came together perfectly? For example, you were easily able to buy concert tickets to your favorite band, get the day off from work, and find friends to carpool with? Or all the traffic lights seemed to be in your favor on your whole drive to school or work? That is how design should affect an art composition: everything works together.

Chapter 3 gives you insight into these principles of design that have been invented or observed in nature and applied to works of art. Humans thrive on variety, but they also need some structure. Music wouldn’t be understood if it didn’t have rhythm, a repetition, and a beginning and an end. The principles of art do the same in a work of visual art—they make everything that comprises it blend subtly together.

The principles of design are so prevalent in the nature ofeveryday life we hardly notice them unless they are pointed out or an artist demonstrates them. A dancer must be able to move quickly or very gracefully and suddenly sustain a balanced position. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music that used and reused the same 16-note passage and developed it into an entire fugue—examples of repetition and variety at play. A visual artist might use linear perspective to create a focal point in a painting, as Leonardo da Vinci did in his Last Supper ( see image 15-17), or a sculptor might unify a large metal sculpture by burnishing the surfaces with painterly textures from a grinder, as David Smith did with Cubi XVIII (image 2-20).

As in nature or in life, there is a sense of what is unified, balanced, or proportionate to other things. Entire ecosystems develop and thrive or languish and become extinct because of these principles at work. In visual art, these principles can be used to create images that reconstruct our sense of “normalcy”, or they can be used to seemingly defy or go to the extremes of them. Claes Olderburg’s Clothespin takes the scale of an ordinary household object, normally about four inches in height, and augments it to a 45-foot height, giving the viewer an opportunity to see this object as a unique, monumental form, majestic with its two interestingly shaped parts sweeping up to a great height and a focal point formed by the silver spring clasp. Functionality is no longer needed to justify the existence of this amazing sculptural form.

As humans we thrive on variety, but enjoy the sustaining rhythm of routine, such as eating every day. We live these principles, and artists use them as creative tools so that as viewers, we identify with art, gaining deeper meaning in our lives from experiencing it, reflecting upon and understanding it.

Take a look through the visual examples in Chapter 3 and other chapters and see if you can pick out some of the principles of design, whether subtle or exaggerated.

Understanding Concepts: Looking at art for its visual, or plastic, components requires you to "deconstruct" it, or see it in parts. Once you’ve “deconstructed” a work of art and analyzed its visual elements, you can begin to synthesize it into a whole again by understanding its compositional and design principles. The principles of design are unity and variety, balance, emphasis and focal point, rhythm, scale, and proportion. View the examples of art given in this chapter for each of these design principles. You may recognize right away that few works of art employ only one of these principles, just as it would be rare to find a work of art that used only one of the visual elements. Rather, it is in the skillful combination of several elements and principles that a work emerges as art. You may find that one element or one principle prevails over all the rest. Claes Oldenburg’s Clothespin combines many elements such as shape, mass, and space. Several of the principles of design are present, such as balance, focal point, and unity, but if you had to characterize this sculpture with just one principle, scale would be most powerfully present, especially if you were to stand next to it, and it towered 45-feet above you!

1. Looking through our text, find two works for which you can single out one prevailing principle of design. Look at these two works again for secondary principles of design.

Record your observations:

A. Title of artwork chosen:

• Primary Design Principle:

• Secondary Design Principle(s):

B. Title of artwork chosen:

• Primary Design Principle:

• Secondary Design Principle(s):

2. Varying qualities of these principles, such as extreme unity, regular repetition, or asymmetrical balance, give the artist plenty of range to the applications of these principles within widely different works of art.

Your ability to find design principles at work in visual art, for example, within a scene from the film The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman (image 8-37) or in a painting such as Giorgio DeChirico’s Mystery and Melancholy of the Street (image 19-22), will help you in drawing comparisons, gaining insight into artists’ dynamics of creation, and being able to interpret visual reality expressively.

• Review the previous chapters, selecting two works you feel have similar design principles at work. How many aspects of these two works can you compare?

A. Title of artwork:

Comparable design principles, other comparable aspects: (purposes, elements)

B. Title of artwork:

Comparable design principles, other comparable aspects: (purposes, elements)

Making Connections: Most of the ideas presented in this chapter relate to the human experience of nature and its physical properties expressed in visual art. In the following exercises, you will experience the visual elements and the design principles working together, to present the viewer an image with many layers of meaning.

1. In order to relate the principles of design to yourself, review those listed in the Understanding Concepts section: unity, variety, balance, scale, emphasis and focal point, rhythm, and proportion. Are they not similar to ways we experience our physical selves? Each component of our body works together (at least, most of the time) as a unified organism breathing, circulating blood, and moving in coordination to impulses from the brain. Take a few moments to try the following observations:

• Sit quietly until you are aware of the rhythm of your breathing.

• Begin moving around, noticing how you move

• How do leg and arm movements counterbalance each other?

• How do you balance while standing or walking?

• Focus on your vision. What do you see? How do you respond to what you see?

• Observe the proportions of parts of your body. How do they relate? How does the size of your fingers relate to your hand size, or hand size to arm's length? Observe your size to the scale of objects around you. For centuries, artists have used comparative proportion techniques such as this to learn how to accurately draw the figure.

2. In A Closer Look – Claes Oldenburg: On Clothespins, Baseball Bats, and Other Monuments, works of art are presented that dwarf human scale—a baseball bat 100 feet in height! Another very human principle is humor, and Claes Oldenburg’s artworks are quite humorous in many respects. He has created large visual puns. We are dwarfed by our own mundane creations. This also has a profound effect, giving us opportunity to ponder an object that might otherwise be considered too “ordinary” to qualify as art. Oldenburg has hit upon one of the keys of human creativity: combining ordinary things in extraordinary ways.

• Find another of Oldenburg’s creations in your text (see Chapter 9, “Sculpture”) or look in another art image source.

Title:

Features and notes about scale and proportion:

• Examine some “ordinary” objects around you, imagining each as one of Oldenburg’s monumental sculptures, perhaps made from an alternative material. How have your perceptions of this object changed? Notes:

3. In the world of art, a complex web of interrelationships exists between artists and the subjects in their art. Be aware that many images in this chapter refer to subjects touched upon in other chapters.

• As preparation for the following Taking Notes exercise and to prepare yourself for later subjects, look through and explore briefly how each image relates to other chapters. Examples:

3-1 Ethel Scull Thirty-six Times, Andy Warhol (Chapter 20, 20^th-C. Pop Art)

3-2 Saturday Night, Archibald J. Motley, Jr. (Chapter 20)

3-3 Palisades, Thomas Hart Benton (Chapter 20, Jackson Pollock)

3-6 Measuring Measuring, Emma Amos (see Chapters 13, Classical weight-shift; Chapter 20, feminist art; and Chapter 17, African art aesthetics)

3-7 Doryphoros, Polykleitos (Chapter 13, compared to Roman image 13-29)

3-9 Proportion of the Human Figure (After Vitruvius), Leonardo da Vinci (Chapter 15, Italian High Renaissance).

• Continue in this fashion, on your own notepaper, making cross-reference connections, finding other images by the same artist, or placing each work to a time period, art movement, or method of creation. (Hint--Use the text’s Glossary and Index!)

Taking Notes:

Chapter 3 has 42 images. Your instructor will probably show a number of these in class when discussing this chapter, as they specifically exemplify aspects of the principles of design. Be aware of what aspect is being emphasized with each example given, especially with examples from outside sources.

1. As you did for Chapters 1 and 2, use several pages or using SlideGuide to write down the caption information for each image.

• Leave space on the margins of your note taking sheets for making quick, diagrammatic sketches, about postage-stamp size, of works you are unfamiliar with or of aspects of that image that may be pointed out in class. See the Enhancing Your Observational Powers exercise (below) for ways to develop quick and useful sketching skills. By now in class, you should have a better idea of how much time will be spent on each example, and roughly, how much room you will need for each image entry and possible sketch.

• Include an extra page for taking notes on works that might be shown, but aren't in the text. Develop a way to indicate, for example, by asterisk or by highlighting, if each image is by an artist featured in the text, or how it ties in with the class materials.

2. List the boldface type vocabulary words from this pivotal chapter. Review each word and make sure you know its definition and applications in this chapter.

• Use the glossary in the back of the textbook to familiarize yourself with definitions and uses.

• Mark any words or phrases with which you are unfamiliar. If you cannot determine what a term means, especially in reference to a work of art, ask about it in class.

• Classroom learning is ideally question based, and you as a student will get more from a class in which you participate, rather than passively listen. Many students are reluctant to speak or ask a question, yet students often have good questions, and classmates benefit from one student's willingness to ask a well-timed, appropriate question, especially about something everyone might be questioning.

Preparing for Tests: By the time you have prepared your note-taking template and vocabulary list, you will be well versed with the subjects in this chapter. You will be able to participate more fully in class discussions about topics and images. If asked to write a paper or an essay pertinent to subjects in this chapter, such as being asked to "critique" a work of art from a perspective of its design principles, good specific description, discussion and appropriate use of vocabulary will enhance your writing.

When it is time to review this chapter for the test, you will have a detailed set of notes to work from. These notes will show you which images were emphasized in class. You will be able to review specific details about each artwork such as its time period or art movement, artist’s name, method of creation, title, and date, as well as your sketches of certain works or details on which to focus. You should also be able to deduce, to some reasonable degree of accuracy, what your instructor might choose from to create various test questions. Refer to the Understanding Art website (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e), ArtExperience Online, for good example test questions. No sample multiple-choice test questions are provided for this chapter, but you can construct a few, based on how you think your instructor might ask about the subjects of design. How might they use the visual examples and their components to test your knowledge? Here is a sample essay question for you:

• Using your knowledge of art from Chapters 1, 2, and 3, including the purposes of art, the visual elements, and the design principles, trace the connection between the purpose and the visual appearance of a work of art. Use one visual example from any chapter of your text. Specifically describe features of this artwork that support your conclusion. [Extended Essay Assignment: Research is required in order to place the chosen artwork into its historical context. 2 pages minimum, double-spaced, 12-point font. Cite two research sources.]

Enhancing Your Observational Powers: The principles of design are not rarified only to works of visual art; rather they are derived from nature and life itself, and are found in everything. It’s a way by which we attach meaning in our lives. Many artists state that their learning about and interest in making art began with observing nature.

1. Outside, find a place where you can observe natural phenomena: water, a squirrel, a bird, tree, plant, flower, leaves, or cloud shape.

• Select one thing and observe it. What details do you observe? What image do you remember?

• Observe people playing or doing some activity individually or in a group, perhaps a group playing volleyball, a person turning book pages while reading, or a person shoveling snow.

• Do you see a pattern or rhythm to activities? Is there a sense of unity or balance to the activity? Do you observe symmetry in the animal and plant form itself? Surely if nothing else, there is vast variety! Jot down a few notes:

• Find a shell, leaf, or plant and notice the proportions of the growth pattern across its form. It started small and grew bigger, but the parts remained basically in proportion to each other. Perhaps it was damaged or injured at some point and its growth pattern shows an interruption or adaptation. What other traits of life, change and growth do you notice? Write them here:

2. Even though you may not be artistically inclined, you can work at developing a basic, sketching technique for getting down details or general ideas. It might be useful to incorporate simple, quick sketches into your note-taking pages in class or alongside the thumbnails of each text image on the SlideGuide pages. (See Taking Notes above). This process helps create a kinesthetic memory link to the artworks you will have to study for tests. To conclude this exercise, experiment—try sketching one of the objects you observed, focusing on its features and the design principles you noted in the previous exercise.

Example:

[insert UNF-p.25-1 here]

[Start Box]

Hint: For sketches to be useful in note taking, they must be executed quickly. Learn to decide quickly what features of an object or artwork characterize it, then jot these down without going back to put in elaboration. A combination of gestural lines, arrows pointing to specific features, and a few brief descriptive words will be best.

You are not trying to impress anyone with these sketches. Your personal goal is to recall detail later. Interestingly, this quick style can take on a rather appealing look of its own—as you review your notes, you'll see that you have, over time, created a memorable set of writings and drawings that are distinctively your own.

[End Box]

For More Understanding: First-person experience will teach you about the principles of design more quickly than images in a book. Go look at some art in person. If you only rely on reproduced images in texts or online, you will miss a great opportunity, that visual adventure of putting your "eyeprints" on an actual work of art.

The principles of design figure largely in critical reviews of art, in that people judge the success or failure of a work based upon its composition. For example, in a dance performance one dancer moving too slowly will change the visual choreography seen by the audience, or a pianist playing an adagio movement of a recital piece too fast will make the whole musical performance feel shallow.

For visual art, visual clues inform the viewer about a piece of sculpture or a painting, and may determine whether they like or dislike it. The more works of art you view, the more familiar you will become with the principles of design at play. You will then be able to decide whether you think the artist used them well.

In order to become more familiar with terminology used in critical discussions of art, read a few reviews of art, for example in the Living Arts section of The New York Times, or in a monthly art journal, such as ArtForum magazine. You can access the periodical Art in America through a full-text online source or at your campus library.

Visit the website for Understanding Art (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e), which features a glossary and audio pronunciation guide. This website also has a number of sample test questions to help you prepare for tests.

ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art: Under Foundations, access the Principles of Design section, which has interactive exercises about unity and variety, balance, emphasis and focal point, rhythm, and scale and proportion. Be sure to check out flashcard section to study some of the artwork that appears in Chapter 3 and the A Closer Look interactive modules.

Notes and Links to Remember: