What Element of Art Is Used to Catch Attention Convey Mood and Create Emphasis?

1. Line

There are many dissimilar types of lines, all characterized by their length being greater than their width. Lines tin be static or dynamic depending on how the creative person chooses to employ them. They help make up one's mind the motion, direction and energy in a work of art. Nosotros run into line all around united states in our daily lives; telephone wires, tree branches, jet contrails and winding roads are just a few examples. Look at the photo below to see how line is part of natural and constructed environments.

In this image of a lightning storm we tin can see many different lines. Certainly the jagged, meandering lines of the lightning itself dominate the image, followed by the directly lines of the skyline structures and the declension line. There are more subtle lines too, like the lights forth the buildings.  Lines are even unsaid by the reflections in the water.

The Nazca lines in the arid coastal plains of Peru date to most 500 BCE were scratched into the rocky soil, depicting animals on an incredible scale, so big that they are best viewed from the air. Let's look at how the different kinds of line are made.

Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas from 1656, ostensibly a portrait of the Infanta Margarita, the daughter of King Philip IV and Queen Mariana of Kingdom of spain, offers a sumptuous amount of artistic genius; its sheer size (almost ten feet foursquare), painterly fashion of naturalism, lighting furnishings, and the enigmatic figures placed throughout the sail–including the artist himself –is ane of the keen paintings in western art history. Let's examine it (beneath) to uncover how Velazquez uses basic elements and principles of art to accomplish such a masterpiece.

Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, 1656, oil on sheet, 125.ii" 10 108.seven". Prado, Madrid. CC BY-SA

Bodily lines are those that are physically present. The edge of the wooden stretcher bar at the left of Las Meninas is an bodily line, as are the picture frames in the background and the linear decorative elements on some of the figures' dresses. How many other actual lines can you find in the painting?

Implied lines are those created by visually connecting two or more areas together. The gaze to the Infanta Margarita—the blonde primal figure in the composition—from the meninas, or maids of award, to the left and right of her, are implied lines. They visually connect the figures. By visually connecting the space between the heads of all the figures in the painting we accept a sense of jagged implied line that keeps the lower part of the limerick in move, balanced confronting the darker, more than static upper areas of the painting. Unsaid lines can also exist created when two areas of different colors or tones come together. Tin can yous place more implied lines in the painting? Where? Implied lines are found in iii-dimensional artworks, likewise. The sculpture of the Laocoon below, a effigy from Greek and Roman mythology, is, forth with his sons, being strangled by sea snakes sent past the goddess Athena equally wrath against his warnings to the Trojans non to have the Trojan horse. The sculpture sets implied lines in motion as the figures writhe in agony against the snakes.

Laocoon Grouping, Roman copy of Greek original, Vatican Museum, Rome. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen. CC By-SA

Direct or archetype lines provide structure to a composition. They can be oriented to the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal axis of a surface. Straight lines are by nature visually stable, while still giving direction to a composition. InLas Meninas, you lot can see them in the canvas supports on the left, the wall supports and doorways on the right, and in the groundwork in matrices on the wall spaces between the framed pictures. Moreover, the small horizontal lines created in the stair edges in the background help anchor the entire visual design of the painting. Vertical and horizontal straight lines provide the almost stable compositions. Diagonal straight lines are unremarkably more than visually dynamic, unstable, and tension-filled.

Straight lines, xi July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

Expressive lines are curved, adding an organic, more dynamic graphic symbol to a work of art. Expressive lines are often rounded and follow undetermined paths. In Las Meninas you lot can see them in the aprons on the girls' dresses and in the canis familiaris's folded hind leg and coat pattern. Look once more at the Laocoon to run into expressive lines in the figures' flailing limbs and the sinuous form of the snakes. Indeed, the sculpture seems to exist fabricated up of nothing but expressive lines, shapes and forms.

Organic lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

At that place are other kinds of line that encompass the characteristics of those above however, taken together, help create additional creative elements and richer, more than varied compositions. Refer to the images and examples below to go familiar with these types of line.

Outline, or contour line is the simplest of these. They create a path around the edge of a shape. In fact, outlines often ascertain shapes.

Outline, eleven July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Hatch lines are repeated at short intervals in by and large one direction. They give shading and visual texture to the surface of an object.

Hatch, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

Crosshatch lines provide boosted tone and texture. They tin be oriented in any direction. Multiple layers of crosshatch lines tin give rich and varied shading to objects past manipulating the force per unit area of the drawing tool to create a large range of values.

Crosshatch, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Line quality is that sense of graphic symbol embedded in the way a line presents itself. Certain lines take qualities that distinguish them from others. Hard-edged, jagged lines accept a staccato visual movement while organic, flowing lines create a more comfortable feeling. Meandering lines tin can be either geometric or expressive, and you tin can meet in the examples how their indeterminate paths animate a surface to dissimilar degrees.

Lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

Although line as a visual chemical element generally plays a supporting part in visual fine art, at that place are wonderful examples in which line carries a stiff cultural significance as the primary subject area matter.

Calligraphic lines utilize quickness and gesture, more than akin to pigment strokes, to imbue an artwork with a fluid, lyrical graphic symbol. To see this unique line quality, await up the piece of work of Chinese poet and artist Dong Qichang, dating from the Ming dynasty (1555-1637). A more than geometric example from the Koran, created in the Arabic calligraphic style, dates from the 9^th century.

Both these examples show how artists utilise line as both a form of writing and a visual art grade. American artist Mark Tobey (1890–1976) was influenced by Oriental calligraphy, adapting its form to the act of pure painting inside a modern abstract style described as white writing.

2. Shape

A shape is divers every bit an enclosed area in two dimensions. By definition shapes are ever apartment, just the combination of shapes, color, and other means can make shapes appear three-dimensional, as forms. Shapes can be created in many means, the simplest past enclosing an area with an outline. They tin also be made past surrounding an surface area with other shapes or the placement of different textures next to each other—for instance, the shape of an island surrounded by water. Because they are more than complex than lines, shapes are usually more of import in the arrangement of compositions. The examples below give us an idea of how shapes are made.

Geometric Shapes, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Referring back to Velazquez's Las Meninas, it is fundamentally an organization of shapes; organic and hard-edged, light, dark and mid-toned, that solidifies the composition within the larger shape of the canvas. Looking at it this way, we can view any work of fine art, whether two or iii-dimensional, realistic, abstract or non-objective, in terms of shapes alone.

Geometric Shapes vs. Organic Shapes

Shapes can exist farther categorized into geometric and organic. Examples of geometric shapes are the ones we can recognize and proper name: squares, triangles, circles, hexagons, etc. Organic shapes are those that are based on organic or living things or are more complimentary course: the shape of a tree, face, monkey, deject, etc.

3. Grade

Form is sometimes used to describe a shape that has an implied tertiary dimension. In other words, an artist may try to brand parts of a apartment epitome appear 3-dimensional. Observe in the drawing beneath how the artist makes the different shapes appear iii-dimensional through the employ of shading. It's a flat image but appears 3-dimensional.

This image is free of copyright restrictions.

When an epitome is incredibly realistic in terms of its forms (likewise equally color, space, etc.) such every bit this painting by Edwaert Collier, we telephone call that trompe l'oeil, French for "fool the eye."

Edweart Collier, Trompe l'oeil with Writing Materials,
oil on canvass, c. 1702.
This prototype is in the public domain.

4. Infinite

Space is the empty surface area surrounding or between existent or implied objects. Humans categorize space: there is outer space, that limitless void nosotros enter beyond our sky; inner space, which resides in people'southward minds and imaginations, and personal space, the important merely intangible area that surrounds each individual and which is violated if someone else gets too close. Pictorial infinite is flat, and the digital realm resides in cyberspace. Art responds to all of these kinds of infinite.

Many artists are equally concerned with space in their works as they are with, say, color or form. There are many ways for the creative person to nowadays ideas of space. Call up that many cultures traditionally use pictorial space as a window to view realistic subject matter through, and through the subject matter they present ideas, narratives and symbolic content. The innovation of linear perspective, an implied geometric pictorial construct dating from fifteenth-century Europe, affords u.s. the accurate illusion of iii-dimensional space on a flat surface, and appears to recede into the distance through the use of a horizon line and vanishing point(s) . You can run into how one-point linear perspective is gear up in the examples below:

One-Indicate Linear Perspective, eleven July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

One-point perspective occurs when the receding lines appear to converge at a unmarried point on the horizon and used when the flat front of an object is facing the viewer. Note: Perspective can exist used to prove the relative size and recession into infinite of any object, but is most effective with hard-edged three-dimensional objects such equally buildings.

A classic Renaissance artwork using one indicate perspective is Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper from 1498. Da Vinci composes the work by locating the vanishing point direct behind the head of Christ, thus drawing the viewer'due south attention to the center. His arms mirror the receding wall lines, and, if we follow them every bit lines, would converge at the aforementioned vanishing point.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Concluding Supper, 1498. Fresco. Santa Maria della Grazie. Piece of work is in the public domain.

Two-point perspective occurs when the vertical edge of a cube is facing the viewer, exposing ii sides that recede into the altitude, 1 to each vanishing bespeak.

Two-Bespeak Perspective, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

View Gustave Caillebotte'south Paris Street, Rainy Weather from 1877 to see how two-point perspective is used to requite an accurate view to an urban scene.  The artist's composition, still, is more circuitous than only his apply of perspective. The figures are deliberately placed to direct the viewer'south middle from the front right of the picture to the building's front end border on the left, which, like a transport's bow, acts as a cleaver to plunge both sides toward the horizon. In the midst of this visual recession a lamp post stands firmly in the heart to arrest our gaze from going right out the back of the painting. Caillebotte includes the little metal arm at the top correct of the mail to straight united states of america again along a horizontal path, now keeping u.s.a. from traveling off the top of the canvas. As relatively spare equally the left side of the work is, the artist crams the right side with hard-edged and organic shapes and forms in a circuitous play of positive and negative space.

The perspective system is a cultural convention well suited to a traditional western European idea of the "truth," that is, an accurate, clear rendition of observed reality. Even after the invention of linear perspective, many cultures traditionally use a flatter pictorial infinite, relying on overlapping, size differences, or vertical placementof components in a two-dimensional piece of work of art. Examine the miniature painting of the Third Court of the Topkapi Palacefrom fourteenth-century Turkey to contrast its pictorial space with that of linear perspective. It's composed from a number of different vantage points (as opposed to vanishing points), all very flat to the picture plane. While the overall image is seen from in a higher place, the figures and trees announced as cutouts, seeming to bladder in mid air. Notice the towers on the far left and right are sideways to the pic plane. The trees and people occupying the upper parts of the image are meant to exist perceived as further from the viewer as compared to those copse, buildings and people located near the lesser of the painting. This is an example of vertical placement.

Every bit "incorrect" every bit it looks, the painting does give a detailed description of the landscape and structures on the palace grounds.

3rd Court of the Topkapi Palace, from the Hunername, 1548. Ottoman miniature painting, Topkapi Museum, Istanbul. CC Past-SA

Later almost 5 hundred years using linear perspective, western ideas about how space is depicted accurately in 2 dimensions went through a revolution at the commencement of the twenty^thursday century. A young Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, moved to Paris, then western culture'due south capital of art, and largely reinvented pictorial infinite with the invention of Cubism, ushered in dramatically by his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907. He was influenced in part by the chiseled forms, athwart surfaces and disproportion of African sculpture (refer back to the Male Figurefrom Cameroon) and mask-similar faces of early Iberian artworks. For more than information about this important painting, listen to the following question and answer.

In the early 20th century, Picasso, his friend Georges Braque and a handful of other artists struggled to develop a new space that relied on, ironically, the flatness of the picture plane to comport and animate traditional subject matter including figures, however life and landscape. Cubist pictures, and eventually sculptures, became amalgams of different points of view, light sources and planar constructs. It was as if they were presenting their subject thing in many ways at one time, all the while shifting foreground, heart ground and background so the viewer is not certain where one starts and the other ends. In an interview, the creative person explained cubism this way: "The problem is at present to pass, to go effectually the object, and requite a plastic expression to the consequence. All of this is my struggle to pause with the two-dimensional aspect*"(from Alexander Liberman, An Artist in His Studio, 1960, page 113). Public and critical reaction to cubism was understandably negative, only the artists' experiments with spatial relationships reverberated with others and became – forth with new ways of using colour – a driving force in the development of a modern fine art motion that based itself on the flatness of the picture plane. Instead of a window to look into, the flat surface becomes a footing on which to construct formal arrangements of shapes, colors and compositions. For another perspective on this idea, refer back to module one's word of 'abstraction'.

You tin can meet the radical changes cubism made in George Braque'south landscape La Roche Guyonfrom 1909. The trees, houses, castle and surrounding rocks comprise almost a unmarried circuitous grade, stair-stepping upwardly the sheet to mimic the distant hill at the top, all of information technology struggling upwards and leaning to the correct within a shallow pictorial space.

George Braque, Castle at La Roche Guyon, 1909. Oil on canvas. Stedelijk van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands. Licensed through GNU and Creative Commons

As the cubist style developed, its forms became even flatter. Juan Gris's The Sunblindfrom 1914 splays the still life it represents beyond the canvas.  Collage elements like paper reinforce pictorial flatness.

Juan Gris, The Sunblind, 1914. Gouache, collage, chalk, and charcoal on canvass. Tate Gallery, London. Image licensed under GNU Complimentary Documentation License

It'due south not and so difficult to understand the importance of this new thought of infinite when placed in the context of comparable advances in science surrounding the plough of the nineteenth century. The Wright Brothers took to the air with powered flight in 1903, the aforementioned year Marie Curie won the first of two Nobel prizes for her pioneering work in radiation. Sigmund Freud'due south new ideas on the inner spaces of the heed and its effect on behavior were published in 1902, and Albert Einstein's calculations on relativity, the idea that space and time are intertwined, outset appeared in 1905. Each of these discoveries added to human understanding and realligned the way we look at ourselves and our world. Indeed, Picasso, speaking of his struggle to ascertain cubism, said "Fifty-fifty Einstein did non know it either! The condition of discovery is exterior ourselves; but the terrifying thing is that despite all this, we tin only find what we know" (from Picasso on Fine art, A Choice of Views by Dore Ashton, (Souchere, 1960, page 15).

Three-dimensional infinite doesn't undergo this fundamental transformation. It remains a visual and actual relationship between positive and negative spaces.

5. Value and Contrast

Value (or tone) is the relative lightness or darkness of a shape in relation to another. The value calibration, bounded on 1 end by pure white and on the other past black, and in between a series of progressively darker shades of grey, gives an creative person the tools to make these transformations. The value calibration beneath shows the standard variations in tones. Values near the lighter end of the spectrum are termed loftier-keyed, those on the darker stop are low-keyed.

Value Scale, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC By

In two dimensions, the employ of value gives a shape the illusion of form or mass and lends an entire composition a sense of low-cal and shadow. The two examples below prove the effect value has on changing a shape to a form.

2d Form, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC BY

3D Form, eleven July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC Past

This same technique brings to life what begins every bit a unproblematic line drawing of a boyfriend's head in Michelangelo'due south Head of a Youth and a Correct Hand from 1508. Shading is created with line (refer to our discussion of line earlier in this module) or tones created with a pencil. Artists vary the tones by the amount of resistance they use between the pencil and the paper they're drawing on. A cartoon pencil's leads vary in hardness, each i giving a dissimilar tone than another. Washes of ink or colour create values adamant by the amount of water the medium is dissolved into.

The utilize of high contrast, placing lighter areas of value against much darker ones, creates a dramatic consequence, while low contrast gives more than subtle results. These differences in effect are evident in 'Guiditta and Oloferne' by the Italian painter Caravaggio, and Robert Adams' photograph Untitled, Denver from 1970-74. Caravaggio uses a high contrast palette to an already dramatic scene to increase the visual tension for the viewer, while Adams deliberately makes use of low dissimilarity to underscore the drabness of the mural surrounding the figure on the cycle.

Caravaggio, Guiditta Decapitates Oloferne, 1598, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Italian Art, Rome. This work is in the public domain

vi. Colour

Colour is the nearly complex artistic element because of the combinations and variations inherent in its employ.  Humans respond to color combinations differently, and artists written report and use colour in part to give desired direction to their work.

Colour is fundamental to many forms of art. Its relevance, apply and function in a given piece of work depend on the medium of that work. While some concepts dealing with color are broadly applicative across media, others are not.

The total spectrum of colors is contained in white low-cal. Humans perceive colors from the low-cal reflected off objects. A red object, for example, looks ruddy because it reflects the carmine part of the spectrum. It would be a dissimilar colour under a different calorie-free. Color theory kickoff appeared in the 17^th century when English mathematician and scientist Sir Isaac Newton discovered that white light could be divided into a spectrum by passing it through a prism.

The study of color in fine art and design often starts with color theory. Colour theory splits up colors into three categories: chief, secondary, and tertiary.

The basic tool used is a color wheel, developed past Isaac Newton in 1666. A more than complex model known equally the color tree, created by Albert Munsell, shows the spectrum fabricated up of sets of tints and shades on connected planes.

There are a number of approaches to organizing colors into meaningful relationships. Most systems differ in structure only.

Traditional Model

Traditional color theory is a qualitative effort to organize colors and their relationships. Information technology is based on Newton'southward color bike, and continues to be the most common organization used by artists.

Blue Yellow Blood-red Colour Wheel. Released under the GNU Free Documentation License

Traditional color theory uses the same principles as subtractive color mixing (see below) but prefers dissimilar primary colors.

• The principal colors are red, blue, and yellow. You find them equidistant from each other on the color bicycle. These are the "elemental" colors; not produced by mixing any other colors, and all other colors are derived from some combination of these 3.
• The secondary colors are orangish (mix of red and yellow), green (mix of blue and yellow), and violet (mix of blue and blood-red).
• The tertiary colors are obtained by mixing one master color and one secondary color. Depending on amount of colour used, different hues can exist obtained such every bit blood-red-orange or yellow-green. Neutral colors (browns and grays) tin can be mixed using the 3 primary colors together.
• White and blackness lie exterior of these categories. They are used to lighten or darken a color. A lighter color (made by calculation white to it) is called a tint , while a darker color (made by adding black) is called a shade .

Colour Mixing

Recall about color as the result of light reflecting off a surface. Understood in this way, color tin be represented as a ratio of amounts of primary color mixed together. Color is produced when parts of the external light source's spectrum are captivated by the material and not reflected back to the viewer'southward middle. For example, a painter brushes blueish paint onto a canvas. The chemical limerick of the paint allows all of the colors in the spectrum to be captivated except blue, which is reflected from the paint's surface.  Mutual applications of subtractive color theory are used in the visual arts, color press and processing photographic positives and negatives.

• The principal colors are red, yellow, and blue.
• The secondary colors are orange, green and violet.
• The tertiary colors are created by mixing a primary with a secondary color.
• Blackness is mixed using the 3 master colors, while white represents the absenteeism of all colors. Note: because of impurities in subtractive color, a true black is incommunicable to create through the mixture of primaries. Because of this the result is closer to brown. Similar to additive color theory, lightness and darkness of a color is determined by its intensity and density.

Subtractive Color Mixing. Released under the GNU Free Documentation License

Color Attributes

There are many attributes to colour. Each one has an effect on how nosotros perceive it.

• Hue refers to colour itself, but likewise to the variations of a color.
• Value (as discussed previously) refers to the relative lightness or darkness of i color side by side to another. The value of a color can brand a difference in how it is perceived. A color on a night background will appear lighter, while that same color on a calorie-free groundwork will appear darker.
• Saturation refers to the purity and intensity of a color. The primaries are the most intense and pure, only diminish as they are mixed to form other colors. The creation of tints and shades also diminish a colour'south saturation. Ii colors work strongest together when they share the same intensity.

Colour Interactions

Beyond creating a mixing hierarchy, colour theory also provides tools for agreement how colors piece of work together.

Monochrome

The simplest color interaction is monochrome. This is the use of variations of a single hue. The reward of using a monochromatic color scheme is that you get a high level of unity throughout the artwork because all the tones chronicle to one another. See this in Mark Tansey's Derrida Queries de Man from 1990.

Analogous Colour

Analogous colors are similar to 1 another. As their proper name implies, analogous colors tin can be found next to ane another on any 12-function color wheel:

Analogous Color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

You tin can see the effect of analogous colors in Paul Cezanne's oil painting Auvers Panoromic View

Color Temperature

Colors are perceived to have temperatures associated with them. The color wheel is divided into warm and cool colors. Warm colors range from yellow to red, while absurd colors range from yellow-green to violet.  Yous can achieve circuitous results using just a few colors when you pair them in warm and cool sets.

Warm cool color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are establish directly opposite one another on a colour bicycle. Here are some examples:

• purple and yellow
• greenish and cerise
• orange and bluish

Complementary Colour, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Blue and orange are complements. When placed nearly each other, complements create a visual tension. This color scheme is desirable when a dramatic effect is needed using only two colors.

7. Texture

At the most bones level, Three-dimensional works of art (sculpture, pottery, textiles, metalwork, etc.) and compages accept bodily texture which is often determined by the textile that was used to create it: wood, rock, bronze, clay, etc. 2-dimensional works of art like paintings, drawings, and prints may attempt to show implied texture through the use of lines, colors, or other ways. When a painting has a lot of bodily texture from the awarding of thick paint, we telephone call that impasto.

The first image below is a sculpture, and similar all iii-dimensional objects it has actual texture.

The adjacent 2 images are details from the painting The Arnolfini Portrait by January van Eyck. Here, the artist has created implied texture. If you were to touch this painting y'all would not feel the fabric of the clothing and rug, the wooden floor or the smoothen metallic of the chandelier, but our optics "run into" the texture.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-sac-artappreciation/chapter/oer-1-9/

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