Principles of Design

Some

PRINCIPLES OF DESIGNREPETITION VARIATIONCONTRASTBALANCE – symmetry/asymmetryEMPHASIS - accentECONOMY PROPORTION SCALE

Some

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Repetition in ArtCreates visual rhythm

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and patterns

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Rhyme in poetry

The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

William Wordsworth, “The World Is Too Much with Us” (1807)

Alliteration & assonance in poetry

TO THE STONE-CUTTERS Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeatedChallengers of oblivionEat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,The square-limbed Roman lettersScale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as wellBuilds his monument mockingly;For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sunDie blind and blacken to the heart:Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts foundThe honey of peace in old poems.

Robinson Jeffers, 1924

Andy Warhol, Orange Disaster

No. 5, 1963

Eadweard Muybridge, photographer

Some repetition in music

PHILIP GLASSEINSTEIN ON THE BEACH

(an opera)

Monet Poplars . . .

Monet Poplars . . .

Monet Poplars . . .

Charles Demuth, The Figure 5 in Gold, 1928

Cimabue, Madonna

Enthroned, 1280-90

TEXTBOOK p. 185

VARIATION:the alliance between repetition and surprise

The extensive poem, moreover, satisfies another two-fold requirement, one that is closely related to the rule of variety within unity: repetition and surprise. Repetition is a cardinal principal in poetry. Meter and its accents, rhyme, the epithets in Homer and other poets, phrases and incidents that recur like musical motifs and serve as signs to emphasize continuity. At the other extreme are breaks, changes, inventions - in a word, the unexpected. What we call development is merely the alliance between repetition and surprise, recurrence and invention, continuity and interruption.

Octavio Paz, “Telling and Singing” in The Other Voice

The Four Evangelists, from the Gospel Book of Charlemagne, early 9th century

TEXTBOOK p. 135

dancers

CAILLEBOTTE, GustaveParis: A Rainy D ay, 1877, Oil on canvas, 83 1/2 x 108 3/4"

CONTRAST

Martin MunkacsiBlack Boys on the Shore of Lake Tanganyika(1931) photograph

Night Attack on the Sanjo Palace (detail)Japan, Kamakura period, second half of the 13th CenturyHandscroll; ink and color on paper

16 1/4 x 275 1/2 in.

David Hockney, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1971

Contrasts & Oppositions in Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist

• Diagonal/horizontal• Straight/curved lines• Air/water/Earth fire?• Natural/artificial• Clothed/(nearly) naked• Tint/shade (light/shadow)• colors

What is the psychological relationship between the two men? Which of them is the “artist” in the title? Is it two

sides of one person, the “artist”?

Degas Waiting

Contrasts in Degas’s Waiting (1882, pastel)

WHITE – BLACKCOLOR – NO COLOR

OPEN – CLOSEDYOUNG – OLD

PERFORMER – SUPPORTERBUSY – EMPTY

INWARD GAZE – OUTWARD GAZE

TWO GIRLS FISHINGJohn Singer Sargent, 1912 (American, b.1856, d.1925) 22 x 28 1/4 in. (55.9 x 71.8 cm) 

organizational contrast – just variation?

organizational contrast

A and Not A

EMOTIONAL CONTRAST

A in tension with Not AA in conflict and struggle with Not AA completed by Not AA united with Not AA in harmony with Not A

Rogier van der WeydenNetherlandish, 1399/1400 - 1464Portrait of a Lady, c. 1460oil on panel, painted surface: 34 x 25.5 cm (13 3/8 x 10 1/16 in.) panel: 37 x 27 cm (14 1/16 x 10 5/8 in.)

Broad, plain areas contrast with tangle of fingers

Winslow HomerAmerican, 1836 - 1910Right and Left, 1909oil on canvas, 71.8 x 122.9 cm (28 1/4 x 48 3/8 in.)

James McNeill WhistlerAmerican, 1834 - 1903Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl 1862oil on canvas, 213 x 107.9 cm (83 7/8 x 42 1/2 in.)

White-on-white,but what animal nature lurks?

John Singer SargentAmerican, 1856 - 1925Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911oil on canvas, 63.8 x 76.2 cm (25 1/8 x 30 in.)

Appropriate clothes?

Gilbert StuartAmerican, 1755 - 1828The Skater (Portrait of William Grant), 1782oil on canvas, 245.5 x 147.4 cm (96 1/4 x 58 in.)

Stately, stable figure – on skates!

BALANCE

symmetry

E Q U I L I B R I U M

Leonardo da Vinci, Proportions of the Human Figure (“Vitruvian Man”)

TEXTBOOK p. 192

Shiva, bronze temple sculpture, Chola Era (9th-13th C.), South India

DurerDancing Peasants1514

Master of the Saint Lucy LegendBruges, active c. 1480 - c. 1510Mary, Queen of Heaven, c. 1485/1500oil on panel, painted surface: 199.2 x 161.8 cm (78 7/16 x 63 3/4 in.)

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, 1939

Alfred Sisley, The Chemin de By through Woods at Roches-Courtaut, St. Martin's Summer, 1880

Assymetical balance?

Assymetical balance?

H. H. Richardson 1880-1883Crane Memorial Public LibraryQuincy, Massachusetts

Assymetical balancein music?

A concerto sets a soloist or small group of soloists “against” an orchestra

EMPHASIS

accent

David Hockney, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1971

Andy Warhol, Orange Disaster

No. 5, 1963

not a good example of EMPHASIS

ECONOMY limitation of a composition to a few essential elements; usually a voluntary constraint that is part of the creative processSPECIFIC TO AN INDIVIDUAL WORK, NOT THE GENRE , TYPE OR MEDIUM

Examples in music: deriving everything from a single theme (musical idea), limiting the number of pitches, type of instrument, etc. Steve Reich, Music for Pieces of Wood, Clapping Music, or other piecesDC Meckler, Bliss (1999)Morton Feldman, Three Voices (1982)

Picasso, Femme

ECONOMY – very little suggests a lot

Picasso, Guernica, 1937 p. 410

PROPORTION

PROPORTIONPROPORTION

Leonardo: The Last Supper, 1498

Diego Rivera, The Flower Carrier, 1935, 48x48 in.

Joseph Mallord William TurnerBritish, 1775–1851. Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), 1840

Oil on canvas, 35 3/4 x 48 1/4 in.

Shahn, Ben, Vacant Lot, 1939Watercolor and gouache on paper mounted on plywood panel, 19 x 23 in

Carlo CrivelliVenetian, c. 1430/1435 - 1495Madonna and Child Enthroned with Donor, 1470tempera on panel, painted surface: 125.3 x 50.7 cm (49 5/16 x 19 15/16 in.) including unpainted margins: 129.5 x 54.4 cm (51 x 21 7/16 in.)

donor

Proportion in musicA matter of time, usually lots of time.Example: 3 Beethoven string quartets (Op 59, 1, 2 & 3). Each in 4 movements.No. 1 – BIG 1st mvtNo. 2 – nervous 1st mvt, BIG 2nd mvtNo. 3 – BIG finale (4th mvt)

SCALE

SCALE - the size of a work compared to the environment: miniature, human, monumental. The term can also apply to musical works, although it has an entirely different meaning than “musical scale.” (“A symphony is a large-scale musical work when compared to a song.”)

Claes Oldenburg, Knife Ship I, 1985

Vinyl-covered wood, steel, and aluminum with motors, dimensions variable, maximum height 31 feet 8 inches x 40 feet 5 inches x 31 feet 6 inches.

Miniature

Leaf from Futuh al-Haramain (Description of the Two Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina), mid-16th century; Ottoman, 8x5 in.

a bit bigger . . .

Some examples of time scales in music

Less than a minute - Miniatures – Chopin, Webern, Schoenberg

Pop songs – 3-6 minutesEarly symphonies – 25-35 minutesLater symphonies – 45 min - 1 hrLongest – Mahler – 1 ½ hrsShort opera – 2 hoursAverage opera – 3-4 hours (including intermissions)Long opera – 5 hoursLongest traditional opera – Wagner’s RING – 18 hours

Robert Motherwell, Elegy for the Spanish Revolution No. 34, 1953-54

Georgia O’Keefe on scale & flowers:

Nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small—we haven’t time—and to see it takes time, like to have a friend takes time. . . . So I said to myself—I’ll paint what I see—what the flower is to me—but I’ll paint it big. . . . I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

Geogia O'KeeffeAmerican, 1887–1986, White Rose with Larkspur, No. 2, 1927, Oil on canvas;

40 x 30 in.

Geogia O'KeeffeJimson Weed 70x84 in

Scale has to do with the size of the work itself

PRINCIPLES OF DESIGNREPETITION VARIATIONCONTRASTBALANCE – symmetry/asymmetryEMPHASIS - accentECONOMY PROPORTION SCALE

Some

George BellowsAmerican, 1882 - 1925Both Members of This Club, 1909oil on canvas, 115 x 160.5 cm (45 1/4 x 63 1/8 in.)