Vocabulary

1.     Balance: the dispensation of visual weight within a composition

Imbalance: happens when opposing or interacting forms are out of balance in a composition

·      An unbalanced image leaves the viewer with a sense of uneasiness

2.     Horizontal & Vertical Placement

·      Concerning the balance of an image, we are almost always referring to its horizontal balance (the right and left sides of the image)

·      Along with horizontal balance, artists also give much consideration to vertical balance in works of art.

·      Vertical balance refers to the imagined horizontal axis that divides a work into top and bottom

·      Artists and designers are able to manipulate vertical balance to freely fit a certain purpose or theme

3.     Symmetrical balance: occurs when like shapes are repeated in the same position on both sides of a vertical axis

·      The simplest form of balance

Man's Shirt (front view), Chikat, Alaska.
c. 1890-1900.
Woven from goat's hair on a cedarbark base, 443/4" (114 cm) long.
National Museum of the American Indian. Smithsonian Institution (#20961).

4.     Asymmetrical balance: found when dissimilar objects possess equal visual weight or equal eye attraction

·      Can be achieved with…

o   Value (contrast of light & dark)

§  Attracts our eye’s attention

§  A smaller, darker element is visually equal to a larger, lighter one

o   Color

§  We are attracted and drawn to color

§  It can be seen as visually heavy

El Jaleo, 1882.
John Singer Sargent.
Oil on canvas, 911/2 x 1397/8".
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

o   Color & value in combination allow for a great difference of shapes on either side of the center axis and still make equal eye attraction possible

o   Shape & texture

§  Visual texture with a variegated light and dark pattern is more interesting for the eye than a smooth surface

§  Texture and pattern can help to balance the strength of shapes

5.     Radial balance: occurs when all visual elements in a composition are balanced and focused around a central point which they radiate from

The Rose, 1958-1966.
Jay DeFeo.
Oil with wood and mica on canvas, 1287/8 x 921/4 x 110".
Collection of Whitney Museum of Art.

7.     Shape: a visually recognized area that is created by an enclosing line, or by color and value changes, defining the outer edges

·      Also known as form

·      Usually a two-dimensional element

Volume: the appearance of height, width, and depth in a form

Mass: the amount of space taken up by a given object

·      Volume and mass are usually applied to three-dimensional elements

8.     Naturalism: skillful representation of the visual forms, image, and proportions as they are seen in nature with an illusion of volume and three-dimensional space

Distortion: departure from an accepted perception of a form or object; often a manipulation of established proportional standards

9.     Abstraction: visual representation that may have little resemblance to the real world.

·      Can be created through processes of simplification or distortion in attempts to communicate an aspect of concept or form

·    My Fire and water panel is abstract in that there are not recognizable figures or forms, only shapes and lines which create a dynamic sense of depth. The concepts that are informing my work on this project are related to the powers of water and how they can be translated into emotive shapes and lines.

1.     Non-objective: type of art that contains no representation of, or reference to, the natural world; the artwork is the reality

2.     Curvilinear: rounding forms that tends to imply curving compositions and shapes

3.     Rectilinear: made up of straight lines

4.     Positive shape: any object/shape that is distinguished from the background

Negative shape: empty space or unoccupied areas surrounding the figures or objects in a composition

1.     Three ways to depict the illusion of depth:

1. Size

2. Overlapping

3. Vertical location

2.     One-point perspective: system of special illusion in two-dimensional art based on the convergence of parallel lines to a common vanishing point, usually found on the horizon.

3.     Two-point perspective: a scene that is viewed through an angle, with no objects parallel to the picture plane and with edges receding on two points on the horizon line

4.     Isometric projection: spacial illusion that happens when lines receding on the diagonal remain parallel instead of converging towards a common vanishing point

·      Used commonly in Oriental and Eastern European art

5.     Equivocal space: an ambiguous space in which it is difficult to distinguish the foreground from the background; your perception seems to alternate from one to the other

Yellow, 1956.
Al Held.
Acrylic on paper mounted on board, 57.5 x 77.5 cm.
Oeffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, Switzerland.