[Steven Stahlberg]

An exaggerated sketch where I'm testing some of my own theories. Anybody here have something to share on the subject of composition?

[neebhore]

Sure as hell looks interesting. I like the wings and the colours... not so sure about the whole "vague" look to it.
I do like it though!

[Anthony]

It almost has some energy pushing up right. But because of the curving of all the lines down/left in the end, it tends to sort of fall off in that direction. A couple ways to help that I think; 1)the Dragonfly himself might be sharper, and not taper off left, and 2)The counter line on right might not bend around. Bending it like that makes the DG head more of a secondary focal point. Unfortunately there isn't another focal point! Also the light areas go down/left as well. It makes it sort of a sleepy pic-not a bad thing inherently, but not what I think you were headed for.

[SoMK]

I like this a lot.. I like the strength of the impact of the right.. A few "scratchy/graty" textures would be cool too and could harden a bit the "soft" wholeness of the pict but I like it a lot anyhow !

[dead]

So waht was the theory?

[Vgta]

Talk about a Golden Mean at work.
The compostion is a perfect example of it. The contrast of color and variety makes it interesting even if the subject matter isn't clearly defined.

Yeah, I've been studying your stuff. Thanks for putting it up btw.

[schabe]

yeah great color and composition but its a little to 'vague' i think

[burn0ut]

yea whats the theory?
my eye jumps all over the image

[Steven Stahlberg]

Thanks, I might try to define it more, add more texture etc, though it works right now for testing what I wanted to test. I just received proof -
burnOut wrote 'my eye jumps all over the image', and - muaha! - that's exactly the effect I was after!

Let me explain a little. I was trying to come up with a physical, evolutionary reason why humans like certain compositions better than others. It seems to be a universal trait, but there didn't seem to be any immediately obvious survival value to it. Well not obvious to me anyway.
I think I found a reason though, and if it's right, it might help me make better images. He, I can at least hope...

The fovea (the spot on the retina where we see things sharply) is only 4 mm across, and needs to move rapidly all over the place to be able to 'read' the surrounding world. These eye-movements are called 'saccades'. It's mostly automated (not done consciously).

Now my theory is, when we look at an image, the more image area covered in a group of saccades, say during a few seconds or so, the better we feel - it makes some deeper structures in our brains 'happier' to scan the environment quickly and efficiently, as opposed to getting caught and snagged, and leaving gaps and holes in the coverage. (I guess our survival depended on such at one time, and still does sometimes...) I think this could be a big factor in what makes a composition pleasing to us, getting long curving slanting edges leading to many varied focii (one focus taking clear precedent). (I say curving and slanting because these are the best strategies to quickly fill a rectangular space like most images are. We call slanting lines dynamic, seem to prefer them for that reason, but I think it may also be because it leads the eye quicker across more of the image.)

So what would make our saccade-automation not work at optimum? Basically what we tend to call 'bad composition', I think.

For example: A large white canvas with a black sphere smack in the middle. Our foveas won't move around freely in the white area by automation, not much anyway, we'll have to force our eyes to study that part.

Another: 2 exactly equal black spheres balanced in the middle. Same problem.

A third: now the black spheres are much smaller, just dots, and many more, but still equally sized and spaced, all over the image. Even worse, like op-art from the sixties - it can give you a headache, even give people seizures if the pattern is just right.
Instead the distribution of the little black spheres should be more like this, the one on the right being the better of the two according to my theory.


Sorry for rambling, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

[ June 14, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[Gimbal8]

I'd say you nailed it.

I was reading through the stuff on your site earlier today and remembered something about the brain that I learned from somewhere (don't remember where). But it had something to do with seemingly random 'misfires' sent through the brain that seem to help us form ideas better then normal. It forces nuerons to connect in ways that normally wouldn't and possibly form ideas we normally would not have. Maybe some of these new connections will be useless, but sometimes they may lead to something sublime. Makes me wonder if this is one in the same thing you were speaking of or if it is something entirely different.

Anyway, I like the ideas your working with and your doing a great job putting your ideas to the test.

Here are my thoughts/questions on the matter (just kinda thinking aloud so they might not be well thought out). Our vision covers more horizontally then vertically. So would it this picture be any less pleasing to be rotated 90 degrees? Actually it is equally pleasing on its side, but for some reason I don't like it as much with it rotated 180 degrees, with the darks being more on top then the lights. Any ideas on that?

That greyish area in the upper left coner. I keep going back to it. There is nothing there to look at but my eye keeps going back to it. In fact it seems as though once my eye moves to the darker and more detailed area on the right lower side, it then tend to push my focus away to the emptier, lighter grey spot at the upper right corner. You know the saying about nature seeks a balance, the way a substance of higher concentration tends to move towards areas of lower concentration etc. The same thing seems to be going on with the focus on this picture. There seems to be push and pull dynamics at work. Perhaps we not only find an image pleasing when our eye is led across the image, but also if it keeps our eye in motion with these different contrasting dynamics.

I'd imagine a metal ball that takes on different electric charges when enough positive or negative charge is present. When it rolls into a heavy negatively charged area it becomes negatively charged and then gravitates towards the positively charged areas (or repelled from negatively charged areas due to like charges being present).

Ok, that's enough rambling for me for now. I have to get to the store before it closes or I'll be out of soda.

[feebsaint]

I was intrigued by this one at a glance... something ridiculously important to me, and something I struggle to achieve at times.

Composition, color, theme, mood... all incredible. I want to say it needs refining, but I'm not sure that it does. I'm a slave to less is more, not to the extreme of seeing a blank canvas, mind you... but the forms and design of this really gets me.

Kudos, my fine fellow.

[geoman2k]

man thats some amazing stuff ytou have there. i'm not sure if i understand it all tho... so its better to have a main focus on the painting, then smaller less important focuses around it? or am i missing the point? i'm _very_ intruiged by this thread... wow...

[Anthony]

I think perhaps this is being read into a little more deeply than need be. Let's seperate what's good composition from what makes us feel good or safe or happy. When we say something has good composition, it means that the composition is purveying the message or feeling that the artist intended in a strong fashion. This is rarely to make the viewer comfortable with the image. I would say more often conflict is an integral part of the great paintings throughout history. However, since we can all agree on that, let's focus on what you were suggesting about why we feel more comfortable about some images than others. We can ignore colors, since obviously certain colors have always represented bad or dangerous things, and others good or happy things. No ambiguity there. Let's stick strictly to composition and shapes. Shapes are again fairly obvious: snarled shapes, spikey shapes, twisted shapes-these all are associated with bad things, whether it's thorns on a bush or fangs in a wolf or the twisted funnel of a tornado.

Composition is different. The reason being that life doesn't have composition. The only aspect, then, of composition that exists in and of itself, it how we look around an image-as you brought up, our eye movements. However, composition itself is made up of shapes. "Dynamic" curves shouldn't be more comfortable evolutionarily, because the natural instinct is again change, fast movements, etc. It's not a calm friendly concept. But curves are. A flowing curve is a symbol in things good, such as a woman's outline, a green hill, an innocent eye on a child, etc. Compare that to a convuled curve, such as a coiled snake, a jagged mountain, or a squinty eye. My point being that I think that the less our survival instinct as far as awareness of our surroundings comes into play, the better we feel. In general, danger is associated with these functions, if a situation causes these reactions, it can only be because the brain reacts as though there's a danger. If the brain is allowed to peruse the image, prod it at its leisure, then it doesn't enter into this state. People normally don't notice things in everyday life. They're not aware of a sign overhead or even the car next to them, even though they're in clear view. The reason? The brain isn't in that mode. But if the person swerves and almost hits that car, they'll instantly become aware of the cars all around them. A perfect example of a painting that you have to examine for a long time before really seeing what it is is, of course, Leonardo's Mona Lisa. The composition does not lend itself to being seen all at once. But it's a most comfortable painting to look at, gaze at. I can't stress enough that the other elements of design play as large a role in the feel of a painting as composition. Especially in more abstract images, color and subject matter and shapes play a bigger role. Harmonious colors and nice shapes will always help. Dark over light will always be less comfortable-that's why people telling ghost stories put the flashlight pointing up at their faces.

All in all, I don't think that taking in a whole painting right away is really a comfortable way to see a painting. Good composition, as said, accomplishes what the artist intended. Often it's to tell a story. If it's to make someone warm and fuzzy, then rounded shapes, harmonious colors, and no energy or conflicts in the composition will work fine. But contrast is the bread and butter of art-light/dark, soft/hard(sfumato), composition lines crossing, warm/cold colors, saturated/desaturated, details/rough, etc. It's the conflict that seperates Frazetta from Boris, Jerome from the countless hoards of comic artists. Enough spleel for me for one night!

[Steven Stahlberg]

Geoman2: Hehe, I'm not sure I understand it myself. Still trying to clarify and develop, writing about it here helps a lot...

At the moment what I think I mean is, yes, one main focus, and from there a hierarchy of lesser focii, sort of like the emperor with his ministers and their vice ministers and their assistants and their secretaries... "There can be only one!" cause if you have 2 equals at the top, the eye will jump like a table-tennis ball back and forth in a tight little trajectory, which according to my theory would be bad.

(I'm guessing the less important a focus is, the more similar focii there could be without harming the composition.)

Spacing is crucial. Imagine you have this task: on a canvas 500x500 pixels wide, using a simple hard-edged brush 50 pixels in diameter, you have to color it in so there are no areas of background color left wider than a 100 pixels or so; and you have to do it as quickly as possible. This is similar to the job our eyeballs have, looking at an image. (Or at a screen or out a window...) You probably shouldn't start in the center, it would be quicker if you started a bit off-center and then dragged the brush round the canvas in wide slanting curves, each time going almost to the edge before turning, sort of like a ricocheting bullet I guess.

So I should place my focii with this in mind, the main one off center, the others spread around the remaining area, not too tightly bunched, not too evenly spaced, making sure a few of the smaller ones end up near the outside edge, and that some line up to form 'paths', this is what I tried to do in the image above.

Feebsaint, thanks! Gimbal8, about turning it upside down, I think we're kinda programmed to subconsciously see any image divided into a darker and brighter side as "sky" and "ground", and since we don't really love hanging upside down, we prefer the sky to be up. About the negative-positive building up, yes I think there is a 'restlesness' in our eyes that gets stronger the longer they stay looking at the same spot - if they stay totally still for too long we feel very uncomfortable. In fact, if the eyes are totally immobilized we go practically blind within a few seconds.

[ June 15, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[Steven Stahlberg]

Ok, another reply while I'm warmed up.

Anthony:
You raise good points, but I think the composition I'm talking about is something more basic, deeper inside us so to speak, than what you mentioned, if I understand you correctly.

An example: I can create something warm and fuzzy, or dark and horrible, using the same principle (one strong focus, a few less strong, more mediums and many weak ones spaced in the most 'seeing-efficient' way). The resulting image will not be less romantic, or less scary, or less whatever, just because I've followed a structure that helps it being seen or read quicker.

In fact the opposite is true, I could dramatically lessen the impact of any image, no matter what it's meaning or message, by doing all the wrong things.

The Mona Lisa is a good example. The main focus is the eyes (as in any portrait), after that I'm led around the image in an excellent way, see my scribble for an interpretation of roughly how I think my eyes 'walk' around it. Note the triangular paths, note how they cover most of the canvas... note how Leonardo has muted the hands so very much, to lessen their importance as a focus.



It would still be a good composition if we blurred it, applied filters to it, rotated it, desaturated it.
But I could very easily destroy the good composition by simply placing a large white or black square somewhere in there. So composition - the way I use the term here - would seem to have very little to do with any feelings or meanings we might get from any particular art work.

I don't think composition is made up of shapes and curves, these things belong on a higher level in our awareness. Composition's made up of places where the eye goes, and maybe stops, and then continues. It's made up of edges and contrasts. Our vision is edge-detection based on it's lowest level (each small group of rods and cones is basically an edge-amplifier, similar to the Sharpen filter in Photoshop). Our eyes will follow edges like a wagon wheel will follow ruts in the street. You can easily steer the eye off the image surface, and this would be very bad no matter what your image contains, since presumably you created your image for people to look AT it, not away from it. It would also greatly annoy the audience.

I didn't mean we have to take in any painting in an instant, nor that we have to feel 'comfortable' with every image. It will take several seconds for our eyes to walk around a large image, and then we go around again, and again... the process can take a minute or two. But there seems no sense in making it longer and more difficult than necessary on purpose, it would be like screwing up the type in a book so it's harder to read.

Oh well, it's bedtime...

[Kjetil Nystuen]

Hi Steven,

Nice subject! I haven't had the time to read carefully through all this text, I just read through it quickly. So forgive me if I am repeating myself.

I am a big fan of Caravaggios paintings, along with many other Baroque painters. Many of these painings has a relatively simple compositions. The compositions are often triangular. There are big aeas left in darkness, which doesn't catch the eyes interest. The eye is drawn to the bright areas. These areas are often very small. But by using these areas effectively, you get the idea of the overall shape of the object. Eventhough you can't actually see much of it.

Here is an excellent example of the great masters work. With triangular composition and everything.
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/caravaggio/st_peter.jpg.html

-Kjetil

[Steven Stahlberg]

Hi Kjetil!
Yes I agree about Caravaggio, one of the greatest masters of all time. Yes, he was a genius at composition, and so his work provides an excellent source to test my rambling on - hope you don't mind me defacing his work like this, it's for a good purpose.

In the first series I've taken the original and tried to plot the focii, then tried to plot the most likely paths taken by the eye between the focii. Now this is just a guess and I'm sure it's not exactly right, but you get the general idea anyway.



Note how varied the focii are in size and placement. Note how the path covers most of the image, without falling off the outside edges of it.

Now here's an example where I've tried to screw up his perfect composition as badly as possible, in two different ways: in the first I've made the 'mistake' of having too many equal focii too evenly spaced, and in the second, two focii equally strong closely spaced in the middle.



I hope this clarifies more about what I'm trying to do. I find it hard to find words to explain this, and I'm not a very good writer, that's why I'm resorting more and more to visuals.

Steven

[Vgta]

Okay, now here is a question that just popped into my head. We understand compostion and that the placement and variety of things helps a painting, drawing, etc appear pleasing to the eye or at least attracts the eye. Now what about color on a final piece?
Even if the composition is wrong couldn't color attract the eye just as well?
Hope you see where I am trying to go with this. I'll give it some more thought and try to explain it better.

[William H. Daniels]

VGTA: I think color and composition go hand in hand. However, the important thing is contrast. Our eyes are attracted to areas of contrast; edges of forms where dark & light meet. Rembrandt was a master of this. Even though his colors are muted, he used reduced contrast in his overall composition, with areas of high contrast to draw the eye into his focal point.

In using color to determine where the focal point of an image is, we often use contrasting colors like black and white, red and green, etc. or differences in saturation.

I agree with Steven that we seem to like images with multiple "hot spots" but I think the arangement of these spots is important in that our eyes feel more comfortable flowing from one point to another, rather than jumping to random spots.

[LordArioch]

Vaguely Freudian, but interesting.

[Steven Stahlberg]

I think you're right, William, the arrangement is very important, and the flow.

I just came up with a different way to describe it: imagine you have a nice large tabletop, begging to have a model train track built on it. You also have a very cool model locomotive, lots of track, as much as you might ever need, but not much of anything else. You also have lots of time, and there's nothing esle to do, so you decide to build a track...

Problem: how do you keep from getting bored running your model train around the same track again and again? Seemingly simple answer, with hidden difficulties: build a very complex system that covers as much of the table top as possible (while still leaving some 'breathing space'), so your train can go around it on many different routes.

I think I'm getting closer to formulating some kind of general rule here... see, if you place Grand Central Station right in the middle of the table you limit the variety of routes.
And again, if you don't build your track out to the edges you limit the options.
And, if you build the track to the edge of the table and past it, the train keeps running off the track.
And - if you cover the whole table in track, with intersections and branchings everywhere, the risk for derailing or getting lost increases.

The Caravaggio image above is perfect that way. The track here is very well built, I could study it for a very long time, my eyes constantly finding new paths.

Hey, maybe this should be in Discussion instead, didn't mean to ramble on so much... but less people would see it there I guess... well let me know if you think it should be moved.

Steven

[Sc00p-]

Well if you're trying to put this on as "your theory" be my guest, but the theories behind contrast and proximity have been around since the first brush-stroke, and from your examples, is exactly what we're talking about.

As for the image, it does have the nice obscurity that I like to see in an image, so that's good. I also like the positioning of the elements (good cropping, nothing centered, and the like).

For my critique, it lacks certain contrast, or the contrast that it does have, seems to have been done a bit quickly, with what looks like a sharpen tool. Im sure it was no accident to do this, but it could've been more subtle, unless you're going for some natural vs. digital thing happening in the piece, I see that a lot.

Overall, nice composition, mission accomplished.

[quaternius]

More than an interesting thread! Lots of thought-provoking comments. Yeah, you're right, this should probably be in the discussion area, but what-the-heck...

Steven, I was wondering what you think of Edgar Payne's treatise on composition, or Andrew Loomis' fairly thorough treatment? You're writing about controlling where the eye of the viewer travels, I've always thought Payne and Loomis,(among others), did a great job explaining how to make it work.

One thing tho'- and like you say, this is hard to put into words, I'm not sure I understand how your locii theory differs from creating a basic center of interest and using geometry or fractals to create secondary and tertiary points of interest? High value contrast, bright colors,larger shapes, or converging lines being the primary ways to create centers of interest,(which I see in your image by the way).

For example, Degas use the triangle quite a bit in his compositions. He might use points of the same color (eg. red) in a triangular pattern, then use other colors or shapes for overlapping triangles - the triangles all being different shapes and sizes. They could just as easily be rectangular shapes or other polygons - but triangles are always nice and simple and strong. If you "connect-the-dots" in your locii diagrams - aren't you creating geometric compositional shapes as well? Then, your larger locii shapes would be including the other elements such as contrast, color, etc. to create secondary, tertiary, etc. points of interest. However, there's also "line" or "edge" in your subject picture which you're using to move the eye around too - I'm not sure I understand how you're relating this to your locii theory - (I'll go re-read your comments again).

Important subject... keep goin'!
Good coffee-break time. But too much writing about drawing, not enough actual drawing for me...my brain hurts now, so I think I'll stop with the words and go back to working on this illo I'm supposed to have done today.

[William H. Daniels]

I don't know if you did this on purpose, but...



...you put your focal point on one of the four "magic points" for good composition. It's pretty simple. Divide your image into three rows and three columns. The four points created by the intersections are excellent places for the eye to come to a rest. They feel comfortable. Learned this way back in college but haven't thought about it since. Since I am more of a designer than an illustrator, this kind of thing is my forte. This is my bread and butter, especially since I work for a newspaper, and newspaper ads have little enough going for them (dull!). The design HAS to be coherent.

[Gimbal8]

This thread rules.

I noticed people have a tendency to feel there is too much thought going into this and that it really doesn't need to be so complicated. I agree with that only to a point.

Reading about these ideas will of course help you understand it better. But nothing can compare to the type of understanding you get when you find out about these things through your own thought process. Also, once this information is acquired, it is much easier to make it simple. To paraphrase Bruce Lee on the subject of learning martial arts: Before I took martial arts, a kick was just a kcik and a punch was just a punch. But while I was taking martial arts, a kick wasn't just a kick and a punch wasn't just a punch. Now that I've mastered martial arts, a kick is just a kick and a punch is just a punch.

The 'just a punch' from before he took martial arts compared to the 'just a punch' after he mastered martial arts are two different things.

I think it is okay to cover the same ground others have. Steve may very well be on his way to learning something others have not known. Or perhaps not. Only one way to find out. Trudge forth and think, think, think.

I don't think anybody is advocating otherwise, I just want people to continue to think about things in different ways and not just stagnate on the tried-and-true methods they might have picked up from someone else.

That's my diatribe for tonight. Sorry it wasn't more usefull to the subject at hand but my bird-brain is tired and needs a nap.

[Anthony]

I think we may be argueing semantics Steven - you say that composition is made up of the way the eye moves around the painting-I say that composition is the lines and curves that make up the flow of the painting. It's the same thing-eyes follow the flow, it's just a different way of looking at it. Let's look at Gerome's Police Verso, a great painting.

Now, to find the compositional lines, I look at shapes, values, movement, etc. The basic elements of design in other words. I come to this:

We have the major part of the picture horizontally laid out, with some verticals, and then the diagonals creating tension in the image. Focal areas lie on or next to places where the different types of lines cross. So the two biggest are the gladiator and the foreground crowd, as it should be. Now, if you look at the painting and follow your eye movements, you'll be drawn to those points first. But the basics of composition aren't to be read quickly- indeed, often a story being unfolded is best not read quickly. I'm not more comfortable when I'm walking through a forest if I instantly know everything that's in the forest and where it is. The peace comes of not worrying or knowing about what's hiding behind the trees or under the rocks. But even as I say that, I can see that it depends on your personality type. Some people may not be able to relax and accept their situation so readily, and so they may get nervous about not knowing something quickly. I think savoring the experience is the fun part, and if I have to look and think at each stage of a painting, it's better than if I can run around it quickly and understand it all immediately. Slow and fast sections, traps and gulleys, and open plains in composition are part of the fun, part of the trip through a painting.

Interestingly enough on the Mona Lisa, two things. I don't look at her eyes first, I look at her mouth, then down her chest, bounce off the top of her dress and land on her hands, and sort of muse on them for awhile. Then off left, up the winding path, feeling myself walking along, along the coast, and then to the eyes, then off right. But I'm flowing around along compositional lines, which is the same as your tracing eye movements. Different words, same thing. Even though the Mona Lisa's tiny, it still eludes ready understanding more than almost any other painting.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Sc00p: I'm not trying to claim ownership of any theory of composition. I did call the thread "thoughts on composition" and that's all it is.

Though to tell the truth I actually haven't seen these exact thoughts anywhere else before; I've been looking on the internet for years for something like it - please let me know if you see a good link. The closest I came was a Lithuanian eye doctor.

It seems the scientists are not interested in composition, and the artists are not very interested in the science behind it. I've met up with similar problems in 3d, trying to find references for how the living human body looks and works.

The existing systems and philosophies on composition are simply lists of what works and what doesn't, not really objective scientific explanations on the basic principles at work. Sure, they work, and maybe I should just stop worrying about it and keep on painting, but a part of me keeps asking "why does it work like this?" I don't claim to have found any real answers yet, just tantalizing hints.

I used the words "my theory" simply because that's shorter and clearer than writing "my thoughts on composition" all the time. Let me know if you have a better term.

Quaternius: no I haven't read Payne or Loomis on composition, I'll do a Search right not. How does my thinking differ from what you said? Hm, I guess it might be that I'm looking for the neurological connection, though this may prove to be completely useless to me as an artist, if I ever find what I'm looking for. On the other hand, maybe not, I won't know until I find it.

Yes, "my" pattern creates shapes too, volumes, negative spaces, or whatever people may call them. But IMHO they are less important, relating to the edges of contrast as writing paper relates to the text written on it. These spaces must be there, but it's the edges the eye 'reads', not the spaces. That's why objects usually look cooler when we draw outlines around them, like in 2d animation. In fact the Line could be described as a super-edge, and that would explain why we love line drawings so much, when they don't really exist in reality. It's simply because we like edges, the sharper and more contrasty the better. No, I'm not saying there should be black and white edges all over your art work - the other rules of composition must still be involved as well.
But without any edges, or with nothing but extremely blurry edges, we feel lost and kind of 'blinded'.

I know I'm rambling, but I'm hoping after this discussion things will be a little clearer to me. Have patience, as I've hinted before, I'm NOT a born writer, I have to work really hard at this.

William: yes that was on purpose.

Here's another version of the dragonfly, I've edited it according to some comments and after having my thoughts clarified and looking at the Caravaggio... I think the composition works better now, what do you think?



Steven

[ June 15, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[worthless_meat_sack]

Hmm...

I know this goes without saying, but this is all totally my own warped opinion.

This is a subject I have thought quite a bit about. I was always intrigued by the idea of finding the physical basis of why my brain says "more" when I look at an artist I like and "less, please" when I look at 70's wallpaper.

But first, a confession. I have had many arguments with teachers over the years about various theories of composition. In my opinion about 99% are total crap, made up by bored art history professors who struggle to make art quantifiable, and therefore academically respectable. It is their job, after all! I have never seen a rule that cannot (and is often) broken successfully.

If there were some way of creating a work of art that has universal appeal, then you would expect that you could show it to a bushman from New Guinea and he would go “totally cool!” Art is learned, to a great extent, I feel. But we have all had the experience of seeing our favorite artists work for the first time and having out heads blown off, a real physical sensation. There are artists that I am in awe of now that I did not understand and could have cared less about 5-10 years ago. If there were a physical component to art, you would think this would not be true.

I think if there were universal responses wired into our brains, all art would have something in common. I have not found that yet. You might also expect to be able to create art that every person would respond to in a similar way. I think that is what is cool about art, it is a great Chinese puzzle that binds up the totality of who a person is, not just a physical response.

Steven, I think it is so cool that you are interested in this kind of thing. I can only wish you luck in the pursuit. If you revolutionize the art world, I will be right there saying “I knew that guy when…” You could spend a career trying to answer these questions, and people have. So if it interests you in a general way, the way it does me, great. But if you want to learn about it to make your art better, I gave up on that a long time ago. It’s like using a telescope to find God, so you can figure out which Church to go to on Sunday. I found my time was much better spent making art.

When I am struggling with the composition of a picture, and I do struggle a lot, I think just about what looks cool. I purposefully don’t go any deeper than that.

The risk you run in trying to measure these things is the art will die. That is not a touchy-feely statement. Look at art history and you see the back and forth of the classical vs. the romantic, the measurer vs. the rebel. Usually a guild or academy or group decides that they have indeed discovered what is real art. The movement quickly atrophies and dies soon after. A formal structure is what classical art is all about.

I think is an acquired, learned taste, and I am glad about that, really. It shows me that there is no such thing as good art, it is rather arbitrary. This guarantees that I will be surprised where I am in the future in what I respond to.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Anthony: that's a wonderful, beautiful, atmospheric image, perfectly rendered, and with a strong story to tell, but with a somewhat weak composition. But when an image has all those other things going for it, it works anyway. I think the artist purposely diluted the focus of the image to improve that almost filmic 'story-telling' quality, to get more detail in there.

meat_sack: you and me both know I'm not going to revolutionize anything. I'm just having fun finally being able to talk to other artists about something that's been on my mind.

Yes, I most certainly do think there are some universal responses to visual impressions hardwired into every single normal human.
For instance, a babie's bonding with it's parents is vital to the survival of our species. So we have instincts concerning the human face, gut responses we can do nothing about.

Humans everywhere are remarkably similar genetically speaking, compared to other species. It's been found that people like that bushman from New Guinea you mentioned react the same as you and me to photos of people with different expressions. He will almost always identify which expression is which. He will like the smiling face better, and prefer the beautiful face to the ugly. He will prefer clear smooth skin to wrinkled or pathological skin. He will probably prefer a woman with a visible waist to one without one. And so on. These responses then seem universally hardwired into us, and quite possibly other responses are too.

You may be thinking of higher level reactions to a whole finished piece of art, what I'm after is something more basic, and not to the whole work but to some aspects of it.

I agree it's the diversity that's cool about art; I'm not advocating any specific style of art. I just want to understand what makes a good foundation, so my house doesn't come crashing down when it's finished.

No, I wouldn't expect to be able to create art that everybody responds to in a similar way, that would be ridiculous.

Steven

[Anthony]

I'd have to disagree about the composition in the Gerome. Although it's very simple, and doesn't really fit into your theory(thus after you see the main and secondary focal points, you have to participate in the image by looking around it, following the various compositional lines), it makes the viewer think about the parts, the brain makes sense of them, and then pieces them together. The story is told, and much more effectively than if the composition were smoother or more complex. It doesn't have the dynamicism of, say, a Frazetta-but not everything needs that. This image doesn't have the comfort of musing on the pathways of the Mona Lisa. But it's more comfortable than if it had a faster, more readily seen composition. Not only would that be less pleasing, it would not tell the story he wants told as effectively.