Quiet is apparent when it is broken through contrast, whether by cries, squeals, or thunder. Contrast through counterpoint is a foundation of design from music to gardens to paintings. Visually we attend to arrangements with counterpoint found in opposing patterns. Opposing diagonals have long been a part of the painter’s tool box. The application of opposing diagonals comports with art historical models or schema. Artists try variations of standard models just as chefs try variations on recipes. Consider example 1, a painting by the American Impressionist Theodore Robinson in 1890 and then compare its diagonal patterns with those in a contemporary work by Ed Ruscha, example 2. Ruscha’s work is more abstracted but, the design principles are constant. Now consider the letter “Sigma” as represented in ancient Phoenician and Greek Ionian alphabets where it looks more like a sharpened capital M turned on its side. This fundamental letter-shape gets reconstituted as an organizing shape for paintings as you see in the following examples.
Example 1. Theodore Robinson painting.
Example 2. Ed Ruscha painting.
You can find this organizing shape throughout art history. Example 3 presents a work by the earlier 19th century romantic painter, Delacroix. His diagonals move in similar ways to both Robinson’s and Ruscha’s works.
Example 3. Delacroix painting.
In examples 4 and 5 compare the diagrammed paintings of the Ruscha and the Delacroix . See how Ruscha distills and inverts Delacroix’s counterpoint-diagonal model. Innovative Ruscha placed the eye-level horizon below the picture plane, i.e. below the visible picture.
Example 4. Diagrammed Delacroix.
Example 5. Diagrammed Ruscha.
In my two painting examples I present superimposed diagrams to emphasize how the design’s diagonals were arranged. In example 6 I stacked a series of chevron shapes and moved their respective vertices slightly off the centers. Example 7 presents the image without the diagramming.
Example 6. Diagrammed image.
Example 7. Image without diagram.
In example 8 I organize the upper distant section using a hub-and-spoke design which relies upon a common area of convergence for the diagonals. The larger, lower and darker area is united by a soft, arcing triangle directing itself toward the upper section. Example 9 presents this image without diagrams.
Example 7. Diagrammed image.
Example 8. Image without diagram.
John Vukelic
If the image was flipped would we then read the painting from pond to flowers or does the influence of the convergence of the diagonals win out and it would still read the same from flowers to pond? Is the convergence of diagonals a greater force than whether someone was taught to read left to right or right to left? An excellent post on the art of art Mr. Dunlop.
David dunlop
John,
The influence of the diagonals usually does not lose its legibility through image reversal. There has been much discussion of the topic of someone’s language base affecting the way they read an image. Arnheim concluded in his psychological studies of perception and art that generally we read an image from the starting in the lower left and circle around the picture plane. Classic Chinese horizontal scrolls were read horizontally but their landscapes were designed to be scanned vertically. I design my own images to be visually approached in different ways. Some pieces work by vertical scanning and others by horizontal scanning depending on the application of continuance principles and predesigned neuroscanpaths for sequenced foveal saccades.
Gail Ingis
Pervasively, the diagonal line is prevalent in all design, architecture, interior design, photography, graphic design, art and in all aspects of life. The diagonal line pulls you in, pushes you out, leads and directs. Kites have diagonal lines, who doesn’t love a kite? We don’t see enough of them anymore. Let’s go and fly a kite! Great post David, thank you!
Elaine Finsilver
So interesting
I can really see why you always do a sketch before you start your painting
.. Moving the diagonals around
“S” curves, spoke and wheel.. while still maintaining the integrity of the painting
Thank you David
Hillary Hostetler
Thank you David as always. I love reading your blog , just as I always loved your classes ! Am I wrong , or do some of these simultaneously work as the snail shaped golden section design ?
David dunlop
Hi Hillary,
Thank you for question on the golden section based on Fibonacci number sequences. The golden section is not fixed but an infinitely self refining ratio like Pi. Most artists of the Renaissance dismissed the golden section as ineffective; even DaVinci dismissed its utility after his experiment with it when designing the “Vitruvian man”. I tried a double blind experiment with my own students asking them to pick their preferred rectangle from a page of variously proportioned rectangles. No one chose the golden section. squares and extended horizontal rectangles were the favorites.
Patricia Scanlan
David, this blog is very instructive and really makes a strong point to me. I
see how I really need to work on design much more. Your paintings are so beautiful and I can’t stop staring at them. They draw me in and keep me there! Also, the colors and contrasts are stunning.
J. Doyle
Loved this lesson and would like to see more like this!
Patci Sawyer
Relationship, relationship = intelligence! Another example of a wise teaching.
Thank you David!
Najma Velshi
Very lucid on the design principles. Thank you!
Shirley Ploog
Great post David, so informative
Betsy Duncan
I always love when you explain and diagram the works. It makes the paintings come alive with motion and a reason for being!