Designs For A Dark And Stormy Night

Here is our  story, good against evil, light against dark. Finding the light is our quest.  Light is the life-giver. As diurnal creatures we are attracted to light. We design our paintings and dramas around the quest for the security, benefits and  promise of light. Our fundamental  stories  are quests, from Romeo and Juliet  to Tales of Ulysses. They get repeatedly reconstituted  throughout time. Similarly,  fundamental  designs from the history of painting  are repeated.  They reflect our biology, our questing nature.   Light presents itself best when contrasted against darkness.  A dark and stormy setting is perfect  for  magnifying the value of light.  We look for and toward the light which is usually best experienced as a shape framed by darkness, the portal of illumination seen from within the cave. In designing a painting, an oculus (circle) of light gets our attention –  especially if we have reinforcing shapes (arrows), further directing our attention (see Example 1, diagram).

Example  1.

This design, used in various combinations,  has been valuable to artists wishing to create powerful dramas and arresting images.  First, consider the circle of light in the field of darkness. In Example 2 is a Rembrandt (the one stolen from the Gardner Museum in Boston).  Rembrandt  uses the oculus of light in the upper left wrapped round  by a dark and stormy sky.  He also uses a tilted triangular shape (ship and waves) to unify the light and dark areas. In Example 3, Turner returns to the stormy sky motif with a circle of light, in fact, he offers two circles of light one large and one small containing the sun. Our divided attention helps glue the two sides of the painting together.  Turner will use this oculus of  light design repeatedly but,  usually coupling it to another design form.  In Example 4, a watercolor (whose contrast I have exaggerated),  you see Turner has now placed the oculus of light on the right side. Example 5 offers a small painting by Daubigny painted 50 years after Turner’s example. It’s the same  design.

Example 2.  Rembrandt:

Example 3.  Turner:

Example 4.  Turner.  Here the oculus of light has moved from the left to the right side:

Example 5.  Daubigny, like the Turner in Example 3:

Contemporary artists use the oculus of light as well. Example 6 demonstrates Gerhard Richter’s use of this unifying and arresting principle in an abstraction.
Example 6.  Richter:

In example one I showed a green circle penetrated by two reverse triangles or wedges.  The triangles (wedges) overlap.  The overlapping triangle is dominant and appears closer. Examples of this design form  reach back to antiquity.  Example 7 presents an example of Rembrandt using both the  oculus of light and  contradicting overlapping wedges to build a strong design in his windmill painting.
Example 7. Rembrandt with graphic overlay:

Example 8.  Rembrandt’s Mill without overlay:

The next suite of examples  all illustrate the design of  contradicting occluding triangles. In  these examples I have  graphically overlaid  colored lines indicating the location of  reverse wedge designs. First, with Example 9 , is another small Rembrandt.  That is followed by other landscapes and seascapes all using this reverse wedge or contradictory triangle design.  Whenever you find the sea and the land meeting in a painting look for this design. It is quite common.
Example 9. Rembrandt with graphic overlay:

Example 10. Rembrandt without graphic overlay:

Example 11.  An early Monet with graphic overlay:

Example 12.  Hadleigh Castle by the Sea by Constable with graphic overlay.

You can find the undiagrammed bottom leg of the left triangle easily. Trace the  line of the ruined wall.

Examples 13 and 14 are without graphic overlays but, at this point they are no longer necessary for you to discover the reverse wedge design.  You see how obvious it is.
Example 13.  Antoine Guillemet, 1870s:

Example 14.  Luigi painting the Loire Valley in the 1870s:

I  conclude with a few examples of mine in which I transform  the reverse triangle/wedge design. Here, I illustrate how to turn the oculus of light into a triangular wedge shape. And,  as you saw in the Richter, Example 6, the oculus need not always be circular but it can be rectangular, like a soft square or rhombus.  I also want  to illustrate how simplification of the design can increase its emotive power.  Example 15  shows a painting with a problem: it has a fractured design in the sky.  The layering does not cohere. There is no central oculus. There is no wedge of light. There is only a slight serpentine pattern of light leading the viewer back into space near the horizon.
Example 15.

Example 16  is another painting which uses both the reversing triangle principle and a large geometric shape of light.
Example 16.

Example 17 demonstrates how I borrow the light shape (cloud) from the painting above in Example 16 and introduce it to the painting in Example 15. I now have simplified the sky design. The wedge of light on the horizon is more localized as well. The painting has more coherence and more drama.
Example 17.

Example 18 shows a painting with a more complicated sky than Example 19. It is the same painting, just an earlier version.  Here,  the sky is too complicated and misses a single dominant area of light to attract our attention. The upper sky offers a large “U” shape of light directing attention toward the horizon but, another wedge of light lies along the horizon. There is too much confusion for a powerful drama to occur. By minimizing the  light above into a much smaller single angled area. Next, I  place the light on the horizon inside an elongated triangular wedge  which  includes both the sky and the landscape below it. Now, I  have increased the sensation of space and drama (seen in Example 19).
Example 18. Before consolidation of the light into a singular wedge:

Example 19.  After consolidation of the light: