02-12-2020

Composition – Most Important?

Most Important

Why do teachers say Composition is Important?

If you have ever been to an art workshop with a master painter,

or even watched a video class with an expert painter,

you will hear the word Composition come up over and over, as most important.

What the Heck?

What the Heck is it anyway?

Composition is the “composing of all the visual elements in the picture plane”. 

Wait, What?

Students are usually confused by what Compo is, how you use it, why it’s drilled into our heads.

It all seems so complex! 

 One  way to look at composition in painting, is to pull back and look at the big picture of “Composition” across ALL the arts.

Across All Artforms

Pull back your focus and think about Composition in comparison with other artforms.

It’s used in Music, Singing, Dance, Theatre, Writing, Performance, even Films. 

Let’s take a look at how it’s used in some of these.

Movies –  Everyone watches Movies, so let’s use that.

Composition in Movies

Movies have a story structure, right? We all know they have a beginning, a middle and an end.

The beginning sets up a problem of some sort.

The middle has most of the action.

The climax is the most intense part.

The end has the resolution of the problem. 

Thus we are satisfied as movie watchers.

The screenwriter used Composition to “compose” the story plot to satisfy the viewer. 

When all the story elements are arranged in a great way, the plot builds up to a great satisfying ending, we say its a great movie.

Now, let’s transfer that analogy to painting.

Great Movies and Great Paintings?

The skills of the writer in “composing” the movie  story, and plot elements, are a very good analogy to your study of “composing” your paintings

 The Painter can use the same idea to “compose” a scene in a painting. 

Composing the Painting in a thoughtful way can satisfy the viewer of the picture, just as the viewer of the great movie is satisfied at the end. 

On Purpose

All Paintings have a composition. All movies have a composition. Good, Bad, or Ugly, its there. On purpose or Not.

Even if the student is not aware of what they are doing, their painting still HAS a composition, even though it may be bad. They just don’t know what they are doing.

Just like a bad movie, a bad composition in painting is not on purpose, but its still bad.

You crop your view of a flower  in close, like Georgia O’Keeffe? Or do you include a whole meadow of flowers? 

That’s a composition. 

Whether you are doing on purpose or not.

Boring or Geurnica?

In the end, if the subject is composed in a way that gets the artists idea and feeling across, then it is successful.

It makes you feel something or see something the way the artist intends.

After all, the artist has an idea that they are trying to convey to the viewer. 

Think of Picasso and his Geurnica painting. Its emotionally moving and powerful. It makes people feel deeply, it makes people think deeply, it makes people cry. It is not boring.

There is no right or wrong way to compose your subject, just more effective, or less effective.

If the movie is bad, you can feel it. The story seems lost and goes nowhere.  It’s boring. 

Same with a painting. It feels boring.

Effective or Useless?

A more succinct way of saying it is – did the artist’s idea come across in an effective way?

Did they use all the elements of composition in a successful way, so that you “feel” what they want you to feel, or “see” what they want to convey about the subject? 

Conveying the message of the artist is a main function of why composition is important.

Mastery of Message

Artist Georgia OKeeffe cropped her flower paintings in very close up.

This allows the viewer to see the minute details of all the inner folds of the flower petals.

The intensity of the extreme close up forces the viewer to see what O’Keeffe was trying to convey- the complex intricate beauty of the flower.  Some say it conveys also suggests the beauty of the female body parts.

See more of her compositions at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. www.okeeffemuseum.org. .

Effective? Yes.

Mastery = Effective Message = Successful Composition

So, we study composition to master the use of its effectiveness, so our work is successful.

Sometimes we use it well, sometimes not so much.

 It’s the continuous study that hones our skills and allows us to be successful more often than not.

Movie Messages

Next Movie you watch, notice if you thought the story was Good or Bad.  Moving or Boring.

Did the movie have something to say about Life, Love, Death, Religion, Politics, Justice, Society, or Humanity?

Good Movie = Effective Message = Successful Composition of all the elements in the Movie

Now consider this concept Across All Artforms.

Good Paintings have intentional messages from the Painter.

The Composition helps convey the Message, that’s why its important.

Who knew you could kick back on the couch watching movies, and learn all this?