Art 101
Composition
Art is a language, and its vocabulary is called “the elements of art.” When authors write, they arrange the words in specific ways to convey their personal message. The elements are those words and the artwork is the novel. Just like in science, these elements combine in different combinations to form the molecules and compounds that make up the universe and everything in it. Artists also take these basic elements and combine them in a variety of combinations to create their work of art. One element is “composition.”
Composition is the way in which the “stuff” in an artwork is arranged to best communicate the artist’s message. Composition in art is similar to composition in writing. Think about when you had to write essays for school. You started with an idea, topic or theme. What did you want to say about that topic? First, you would have researched your idea. What did others have to say about it? Next, you may have written an outline or a rough draft. This begins to lay out your arguments. Over time, you would have rewritten your essay two, three, four or more times, sculpting your ideas more and more. The argument might have needed tweaking or modifying as drafts developed, so you kept working it, modifying it, molding it. You constantly changed wording in sentences or rearranged the order of paragraphs for a better flow. Finally, however, you had an essay with which you were satisfied, that said exactly what you wanted to say and how you wanted to say it. This was your final draft, the one you turned in for the grade.
In art, the topic or theme is the subject, what the work is about. Studies are artists’ outlines and drafts. They might look at or copy past masters to understand the subject and to see what others have said about it. Artists sketch models, objects or landscapes, tweaking them, moving their parts, images or pieces around. They might play with lighting or shading and poses. After a while, they will combine items from separate studies into a larger one. Depending on the medium, maybe they’ll add or tweak colors. Sculptors might begin to work clay to see their ideas in three dimensions. Finally, after days or weeks of trial and error, they are satisfied with the drafts and are ready to begin the finished piece. This is the arrangement that they decided best communicates their message. Everything is just so. They have composed a work of art.
Let’s look at examples of composition…
These two paintings depict the last meal of Jesus Christ before His death. He is at a table with His twelve disciples. Both Leonardo da Vinci and Jacopo Tintoretto were Italians painting almost exactly one hundred years apart. Leonardo chose to show the scene head-on. The table is stretched out before us and the figures are all lined up along one side of the table, opposite us. Jesus is dead center and the Twelve are divided into two groups of six, flanking Him. The two groups are sub-divided further into two groupings of three. Leonardo composed this odd number of people, thirteen, into a simple, evenly balanced arrangement. Deciding on this very symmetrical placement, Leonardo had to decide which person is the odd man out—who sits alone, in the center, separate from the others. Fortunately, with this subject, this question was not very hard to answer. This is a very important story in Christianity whose central figure is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the “odd man out”. He is the central figure of the event so He goes in the center. Easy. In a lot of art, the center of the work is a place of importance. An easy way to highlight a significant figure or object is to place it in the absolute center or just off-center. Artists know the viewer’s eye goes there first so that position has value.
Look also how Leonardo arranges other objects in the painting. He has used another element called “perspective” to create the illusion that the flat surface upon which the scene is painted is actually a three-dimensional room that recedes into the distance. Jesus sits in the middle of that room. The back windows line the wall behind the figures with the center window perfectly framing Jesus, forming a type of halo or aura around Him. The back wall in turn also perfectly frames Him and forms a target-like image with Jesus at the bull’s-eye, then the window, and finally the edges of the wall. Another element called “line” also draws our attention to Jesus. The hangings on the side walls and the grid pattern on the ceiling create invisible lines that meet at, and radiate from, Jesus’ head. Leonardo designed this work so viewers can make these observations and infer the importance of Jesus and His centrality to the story.
Tintoretto’s painting is very different. The thirteen figures are also seated along the long sides of the table, but twelve are on one side, and one is alone on the other. Instead of seeing the table from the front, stretched out along the front of the picture plane, the table stretches away from us at an angle, extending from the front of the picture to the back. If you count the figures at the table, Jesus is still in the center of the group, but because of perspective, the back six look smaller, making Jesus look off-center. Also, one of their number is on the opposite side. He is with them but is also separated. This is Judas Iscariot, the traitor. Unlike Leonardo, who groups Judas with the others and puts him in the subgroup containing Peter and John, Jesus’ two closest disciples, Tintoretto separates him, symbolically removing Judas from the group and foreshadowing his betrayal and disgrace.
In this work, the artist fills the room with other people besides the Thirteen. Even angels hover overhead. The work is busy and noisy. To highlight Jesus in this mob, Tintoretto stands Him up and employs the elements of “color” and “light”. In a painting full of dark browns, tans and blacks, Jesus is clothed in pink and blue. A bright spotlight shines off Him. Instead of a window suggesting a halo, one radiates from Jesus’s head and is brighter than those on the Disciples.
Leonardo and Tintoretto both created works that tell the same story but their arrangement of the stuff within each painting communicates different ideas. Leonardo’s straight, balanced, symmetrical work conveys a clear, sober, stable message. Jesus is the linchpin of the scene, the fulcrum and the center-point from which all Christianity radiates. It also is a visual demonstration of the rationality and order with which helped define Renaissance society. Tintoretto’s work is chaotic and dramatic. It’s busy and noisy, anticipating the drama that the Last Supper symbolized, the brutal death of Jesus Christ a few hours later. Also, just as Leonardo’s painting is typical of his era, Tintoretto’s demonstrates the experimentalism of a later generation of art called Mannerism.
For sculptors, the three-dimensional nature of their work of art is a factor. Many times, they need to consider not only how the work looks from the front but from the sides and back too. An artwork can look very different depending on where the viewer is standing in relation to the piece. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s monumental Liberty Enlightening the World (1886) was composed to give different impressions depending on which side one views it. From the front, Liberty stands tall with her right arm raised high holding the torch of enlightenment. Her heavy robes hang from her body, the folds mimicking the vertical ridges of a Greek column. Her face is stern and emotionless. She is a pillar of strength and fortitude, an apt support for the light that cuts though darkness.
Moving to a side view, the statue has changed. From this angle she strides forward with a powerful step with the torch thrust ahead of her, lighting the way. Interestingly, under her rising right foot, the artist placed a crushed crown and broken chain. These items cannot be seen from ground level nor from the observation deck in her crown, so why include them? To complete the message of the work. Why is Liberty charging forward? From where? Where is she going? Liberty moves into the brightly lit future, trampling tyranny and slavery beneath her feet and leaving it all in the dark past. She is determined and serious, a force of nature and cannot be stopped. The statue is enormous. Freedom is a massive idea. Liberty is on a pedestal, lifted up above humanity. The viewer looks up—way up—at this towering Colossus with awe and wonder and inspiration.
When you look at art ask yourself “why?”, not “why did the artist make this?” That’s a different discussion. Ask “why is this here and that there?” “Why include that?” While looking, in your mind’s eye change something. Rearrange objects in the piece, change a color or remove something completely. Notice how it has altered. Artists arrange their works very carefully to communicate their message in the best possible way.
Lady Bison 