When John Ruskin outlined the Renaissance principles of composition, the principle of radiation was a fundamental pattern. The idea of the radial burst or sunburst (sometimes referred to as the web-in-spokes) is ancient, not only pan historic but also pan cultural and pan global. From indigenous Americans to ancient Egypt we have portrayed the sun as a circle with radiating lines. If that radiating point is off centered in the picture plane as I have done in the first example then, the attention builds toward the vertex of radiation. First painting example:
The First example with radiation diagram:
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If I wave or undulate the radiating lines then the painting acquires not only a stronger vertex but a stronger sense of motion as well. In this example, ” Exterior to Grand Central Station” the lines curve and bend as they radiate:
Next, I overlay a schematic of a radial burst with other organizing patterns like the zig zag pattern that follows the arrangement of the fish. The fish wind back while the semi-circle radial burst which underlies the fish radiates in an opposing direction. Here the antithetical directions sustain the unity of the work just as much as the complementary harmony of red-orange vs. green.
and its diagrammed example,
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The last example is an oil on copper of mine. The figures implied future movement gives dynamism to the radiating compositional idea. We don’t need to see the lines of radiation; the figures suggest them.
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