“In figure painting, the type of all painting, I have endeavoured to set forth that the principal if not sole source of life enchantments are Tactile Values, Movement and Space Composition.” IfsValuesSpaceFiguresMovementPaintingSourceTypeSolePrincipalCompositionEnchantmentSource Of LifeTactileFigure Painting Author:Bernard Berenson
“Is there in painting an effect which arises from the being together of repose and energy in the artist's mind? - can both repose and energy be seen in a painting's line and color, plane and volume, surface and depth, detail and composition? - and is the true effect of a good painting on the spectator one that makes at once for repose and energy, calmness and intensity, serenity and stir?” MindTogetherArtistEnergyLinesEffectsColorPaintingDepthDetailsSurfaceArisePlanesIntensitySerenityVolumeCompositionSpectatorsCalmnessReposeBeing Together Author:Eli Siegel
“Then you learn about composition, you learn about old masters, you form certain ideas about structure. But the inhuman activity of trying to make some kind of jump or leap, where , the painting is always saying, 'What do you want from me? I can only be a painting.' You have to go from part to part, but you shouldn't see yourself go from part to part, that's the whole point.” WantTryingKindI CanIdeasWholeFormCertainEducationPaintingMastersActivityStructureLeapCompositionInhuman Author:Philip Guston
“Only when the habit of one's consciousness to see in paintings bits of nature, madonnas and shameless nudes... has disappeared, shall we see a pure painting composition.” BitsConsciousnessPaintingHabitPureCompositionShameless Author:Kazimir Malevich
“Painting is always strongest when in spite of composition, color, etc., it appears as a fact, or an inevitability, as opposed to a souvenir or arrangement.” FactsStrengthColorPaintingSpiteEtcStrongestCompositionArrangementsInevitabilitySouvenirs Book:Robert Rauschenberg Source: Robert Rauschenberg
“A landscape painting in which composition is ignored is like a line taken from a poem at random: it lacks context, and may or may not make sense.” MayLinesTakenPaintingLandscapeMake SenseCompositionIgnoredLandscape Painting Author:Walter J. Phillips
“In large studio paintings... composition, or arrangement, may be better studied, and nearer perfection, washes may be more suavely graded.” MayPaintingPerfectionStudiosCompositionArrangements Author:Walter J. Phillips
“I have found in my still-life work that I seem to be able to tell what objects are important to me by what tends to stay in the painting as it develops.” StillsImportantSeemsAbleFoundObjectsPaintingCompositionStill Life Author:Richard Diebenkorn
“I was doing something that the officials or art commission probably didn't consider important... I was experimenting with different kinds of realistic art, impressionism and the more decorative compositions of different forms of painting, which took away from the earlier photographic realism that I was doing.” KindArtImportantDifferentFormPaintingExperimentsOfficialsRealisticDifferent KindsRealismCompositionImpressionism Author:E. J. Hughes
“I started when I was nine. Really, everything I know about color theory, composition, drawing, and painting, I learned when I was a kid.” KnowsKidsColorPaintingTheoryDrawingNineCompositionDrawing And Painting Author:David Salle
“Photography is unlike any other art form. In the other arts there is always a continuous interplay between the artist and his art. He has the painting or sculpture before him. What we have tried to do is to provide a medium for "artistic expression" to anyone with only a reasonable amount of time. By giving him a camera system with which he need only control his selection of focus, composition and lighting, we free him to select the moment and to criticize immediately what he has done. We enable him to see what else he wants to do on the basis of what he has just learned.” WantNeedsGivingArtDoneMomentsFormArtistFocusPaintingExpressionAmountPhotographyBasesCamerasMediumsArtisticReasonableCriticizeCompositionSelectionSculptureSelectLightingArtistic Expression Author:Edwin Land
“In your works, you have realized what I, albeit in uncertain form, have so greatly longed for in music. The independent progress through their own destinies, the independent life of the individual voices in your compositions, is exactly what I am trying to find in my painting.” TryingFormIndividualVoiceDestinyProgressPaintingIndependentCompositionUncertainIndependent Life Author:Wassily Kandinsky
“When I became tired of oil painting at one stage, I used collage and this proved to be influential in the design and composition of my later works.” UsedStageDesignPaintingTiredOilCompositionInfluentialCollagesOil Painting Author:Myfanwy Pavelic
“There is a kinship between music and painting - with the same words used to describe both, as when a musical composition is said to have color and a painting to have rhythm.” SaidUsedColorPaintingMusicalRhythmCompositionKinshipMusical Composition Author:Alton Tobey
“When we look at a painting, listen to a piece of music, read a novel, or watch a movie we are taking in the artist's composition. The composition is the totality of the work.” LooksArtistWatchesNovelPiecesPaintingCompositionTotality Author:Mike Svob
“For pure joy, I look at a small painting by Arbit Blatas. An ocean liner is at the center of the composition, perhaps ready to depart. It holds the promise of discovery.” LooksJoyPaintingReadyPromisePureOceanDiscoveryCompositionPure Joy Author:Antonio Damasio
“In some exquisite critical hints on "Eurythmy," Goethe remarks, "that the best composition in pictures is that which, observing the most delicate laws of harmony, so arranges the objects that they by their position tell their own story." And the rule thus applied to composition in painting applies no less to composition in literature.” StoriesLawLiteratureStylePositionObjectsPaintingHarmonyCriticalDelicateCompositionObservingRemarksExquisiteHints Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
“For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people even as contexts, societies and cultures change. For the scientist, the goal of a theory is to convey "truth for now"--to replace an old truth, while accepting that someday this theory, too, will be replaced by a new "truth," because that is the way science advances.” PeopleIfsWayMovingArtistCultureGoalAcceptingSuccessfulPaintingTheoryTruth IsAspectScientistUniversalMusicalSomedayCompositionReplacedLiteralUniversal TruthCulture ChangeSociety And CultureMusical Composition Author:Daniel Levitin
“From building a fire one can learn something about artistic composition. If you use only small kindling and large logs, the fire will quickly eat up the small pieces but will not become strong enough to attack the large ones. You must supply a scale of sizes from the smallest to the largest. The human eye also will not make its way into a painting or building unless a continuum of shapes leads from the small to the large, from the large to the small.” IfsWayHumansEnoughUseEyeStrongFirePiecesBuildingPaintingShapesSizeScalesArtisticSmallestCompositionStrong EnoughContinuumHuman EyesSmall PiecesKindling Author:Rudolf Arnheim
“Sometimes the things I learn making paintings or drawings - composition, colour, expressionism, texture - can directly influence the making of a film. Sometimes it's great that they are different, and simply taking a break from one medium to spend time with another, recharges the batteries and I feel refreshed.” FeelsDifferentSometimesFilmBreakInfluencePaintingDrawingMediumsColourCompositionEnd TimesSpend TimeTextureBatteriesExpressionismTaking A Break Author:Dave McKean
“I do very, very, very simple, skimpy doodles, nothing too committed. Because people tend to fall in love if they like it - if you color it in and they like it, then they want exactly those colors, even if they were just indications. You really have to do it as simple as possible so they can concentrate on the idea and composition. And then all of the energy goes into making the final piece. And the final piece can be anything - it can be a drawing, a painting, a collage - and usually, it's obvious what that should be. Usually, the idea dictates what medium you use.” PeopleIfsWantShouldIdeasUseFallEnergySimplePiecesColorPaintingFalling In LoveFinalsCommittedObviousDrawingMediumsCompositionIndicationCollages Author:Dave McKean
“My greatest lesson in composition was looking at paintings.” PaintingLessonsComposition Author:Larry Clark
“To my way of thinking, the concept drawings that Rembrandt did, the drawings he made that he used to model his artists, to work out the compositions of his paintings: those are cartoons. Look at his sketch for the return of the prodigal son. The expression on the angry younger brother's face. The head is down; the eyebrow is just one curved line over the eyes. It communicates in a very shorthand way. It's beautiful, expressive, and, in a peculiar way, it's more powerful than the kind of stilted, formalized expression in the final painting.” ThinkingWayLooksKindMadeEyeBeautifulFacesUsedArtistLinesPowerfulPaintingSonBrotherExpressionReturnModelsConceptsAngryFinalsCommunicateWork OutDrawingMy WayJust OnePeculiarCompositionCartoonEyebrowsWay Of ThinkingExpressiveProdigalsShorthandYounger BrotherProdigal Son Author:Jim Woodring
“If I came out a photographer it's because I knew about painting, composition, and the handling of light.” IfsLightPaintingPhotographerComposition Author:Lola Alvarez Bravo
“Though I consider The Chronology of Water to be an anti-memoir for very precise reasons, it is an art form, and thus as open to "critique" as any other art form. Memoir has a form, formal strategies, issues of composition and craft, style, structure, all the elements of fiction or nonfiction or painting or music or what have you.” ArtReasonFormWaterFictionIssuesStylePaintingElementsStrategyStructureMemoirCraftsNonfictionCompositionFormalPreciseCritiqueChronology Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“I think, at the L.A. County Museum of Art, I saw my first example of Kerry James Marshall, who had a very sort of heroic, oversized painting of black men in a barbershop. But it was painted on the same level and with the same urgency that you would see in a grand-scale [Anthony] van Dyck or [Diego] Velazquez. The composition was classically informed; the painting technique was masterful. And it was something that really inspired me because, you know, these were images of young, black men in painting on the museum walls of one of the more sanctified and sacred institutions in Los Angeles.” ThinkingKnowsMenFirstsArtYoungBlackLevelsSawsExamplePaintingWallInstitutionsSacredInspiredTechniqueScalesLos AngelesMuseumsHeroicCompositionVansUrgencyCountyBarbershop Author:Kehinde Wiley
“My Father is a photographer, so it was always around. I was trained in painting, so I learnt a lot of skills about composition, light, colour, the formal attributes of images.” LightFatherPaintingSkillsPhotographerColourAttributesCompositionFormal Author:Patricia Piccinini