I have previously written to you about several design principles but, not yet discussed how to synthesize three or more principles into the same painting to improve unity. There are other unifying principles, color, contrast, various forms of harmony, themes, perspective systems and more but, I will save those for another time. The principles my two painting examples demonstrate are curvature, radiation, and the zig-zag or meander( a favorite topic for Hogarth). They work together to generate design unity and to magnify the dynamic potential of the subject. John Ruskin described the advantages of curvature. He noted that a straight line offers the viewer less volume and movement than a curved line. In my first example of the surface of a pond ( a painting on copper)
you may observe the deep blue territory forms a slight arc. The meander lines are indicated in black and, they are not straight but, slightly curved. The reflected trees radiate from a point well below the bottom of the picture and, have some slight curvature. I strengthen the picture’s unity when I overlay the meandering shapes ( black lines), the radiating shapes( green lines) and the horizontal curved edge at the bottom of the dark blue (black line). In my second example,
an architectural interior, I use a variety of renaissance design principles as described by Ruskin. I use the principle of repetition which proposes that a pattern is repeated but, it is never exactly repeated, each element of repetition becomes a flawed echo of the others. My columns and their interstitial spaces are continuously varied, not quite twinning with the others. The principle of curvature can be seen in the three red lines indicating horizontals with slight arcs. If these were made straight the picture would lose volume and motion. I let the figures loosely follow a meander pattern out through the columns.
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