BASICS OF DESIGN AND COMPOSITION IN TWO DIMENSIONAL ART- Part 5

In the Wind, Study for Collage.                                  © by Ruth Zachary

I have many books on Composition, and only one contained a list of the Elements and Principles of Design and Composition. That book is, Art Fundamentals, Theory and Practice, by Otto G Ocvirk, Robert Bone, Robert Stinson, and Philip Wigg, from the Department of Art at Bowling Green State University, published by Wm C Brown Co.1962. It was not very clear, and probably not up to date.

Another book from 1994 contained the information, but in a different arrangement.

So wanting a more modern consensus about these terms, I went to Wikipedia for definitions about Design and Composition.

I will incorporate abridged information from Wikipedia when relevant to the sequence that I have arranged so that it contributes to building on the foundation of previous  experience for those just beginning to embrace art in their lives.

Above all, this is intended for the beginner as well as the experienced artist, and people who already have an understanding of these steps of progression should know when to skip over points no longer helpful to them. By all means, I hope those people will just Read the Pictures!

ABRIDGED from Wikipedia:

In the visual arts—in particular painting, graphic design, photography, (the two dimensional arts) composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art, as distinct from the subject of a work.

(The categories of Genre or Subjects have been touched upon previously in earlier blog posts.)

“Composition can also be thought of as the organization of the elements of art according to the principles of art.”

“The term composition “means 'putting together,' and can apply to any work of art, …that is arranged or put together using conscious thought. In the visual arts, composition is often used interchangeably with various terms such as design, form, visual ordering, or formal structure, depending on the context.”

Design may be defined as the aesthetic arrangement of shapes and other elements within a two dimensional picture plane.

Writing on this post is the Copyright  © of Ruth Zachary.