Organization in the visual
arts
Learning outcomes
1. Identify the different Principles of Design
2. Give examples of an art representing its principle of design
2. Elaborate Principles of Interpreting an Art
3. Interpret given visual arts using the principles of interpretation
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Principles of design
▸ The organization of the various elements of the
visual arts is governed by different principles of
design.
▸ Through these principles, the artist can form
more beautiful and interesting color harmonies
and more beautiful combinations of shapes,
texture and lines.
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1. Harmony
Harmony is essential to beauty.
In the visual arts, it is achieved by establishing a pleasing
relationship between the various elements. There is harmony if
the various parts of a design will give an appearance of
belonging together.
In other words, there must be unity. Repetition of angles and
curves, shapes, lines and colors will give a harmonious effect
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▸ Principles of Good Design: Proportion | Teresa Berna
rd Oil Paintings (teresabernardart.com)
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2. balance
▸ A pleasing relationship between the various
elements of a work of art is not the only requirement
for beauty. These elements must also be so arranged
that a feeling of balance and equilibrium exists
between them.
▸ Balance may either be formal or informal.
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▸ Formal balance. It is also called symmetrical
balance. This is achieved by making both sides
exactly alike. Objects of the same size and shape
when arranged on two sides of a center will produce
formal balance.
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▸ Informal or asymmetrical balance or occult
balance, is more difficult to achieve than formal
balance, however, the results are more interesting.
▸ It is achieved when objects of unequal weights or
unequal attractions are placed stronger attraction
are placed at the correct distances from the center
as when a large object or an object with a stronger
attraction is placed near the center while the smaller
object or one with less striking attraction is moved
farther out from the center.
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3. proportion
▸ Proportion is determined by a comparison of the
size of the different parts of an object or of an
arrangement.
▸ Objects which are “out of proportion” are not
pleasing to look at.
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4. rhythm
▸ In the visual arts, rhythm is achieved by the regular
or harmonious recurrence of lines, forms and colors.
▸ Rhythm is an organized movement, a beat, a
repetition.
▸ Through the repetition of lines or forms, a pattern is
produced which the eyes follows as it move the right
to the left.
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5. emphasis
▸ Whenever we look at a room, some parts easily catch
our attention and interest while other parts are not
noticed at all.
▸ This quality of design is called emphasis or
subordination.
▸ Emphasis is produced by the design or form that
catches our attention while the rest are
subordinated. It may be defined as giving the proper
importance to the parts or to the whole.
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Principles of interpreting art
Barrett, T. (1994). Principles for interpreting art. Art
Education, 47(5), 8-13.
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Artworks are always about something.
Subject matter + Medium + Form + Context = Meaning
It can serve as a definition of interpretation and it can
also be used as a guiding methodology for interpreting
works of art.
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To interpret a work of art is to understand it in
language.
▸ To interpret a work of art is to make sense of it. To
interpret is to see something as "representing
something, or expressing something, or being about
something, or being a response to something, or
belonging in a certain tradition, or exhibiting
certain formal features, etc. "
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Feelings are guides to interpretation.
▸ Emotions play a central role in interpreting works
of art and in understanding the world.
▸ If the feelings cannot be shown to emanate from
the artwork, they may be in the interpreter, but not
in the work of art. In such a case, we will learn more
about the interpreter and what he or she feels , but
we will not be learning about
▸ the art.
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The critical activities of describing, analyzing, interpreting, judging, and theorizing
about works of art are interrelated and interdependent.
▸ describing (telling what one sees)
▸ interpreting (telling what one thinks it means), judging
the work of art (telling how good one thinks it is),
▸ theorizing about the work (telling what counts as art,
for example).
▸ What one sees and how one describes are highly
dependent on how one under-stands: descriptive facts
are dependent on interpretive theory.
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Artworks attract multiple interpretations and it is not the goal of interpretation to
arrive at single, grand, unified, composite interpretations.
▸ The aim of interpretation is not to obtain the single,
right interpretation.
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There is a range of interpretations any artwork will
allow.
• as if they were Rorschach
▸ Artworks ought not to be treated
inkblots, with interpreters seeing in them anything they want
to see.
▸ A particular work of art is what it is because it is embedded in
a particular culture, time, and social practice, and it is made
with some human intent that can usually be recognized by
examining the work itself.
▸ Thus, interpretations of a work of art ought to be consistent
with the artistic conventions and intentions of the time at
which the work was made.
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Meanings of artworks are not limited to what their artists
intended them to mean.
▸ Knowing what an artist meant to mean when
making a work of art can be a tremendous aid to
understanding that work of art. Artists' intents can
play a significant role for interpreters who want to
formulate meanings about artists' works.
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Interpretations are not so much right, but are more or less reasonable,
convincing, informative, and enlightening.
Artworks are not the kind of things that yield simple
and single interpretations; and interpreters of artworks
are not the kind of responding individuals who are
looking for simple, single meanings.
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Interpretations imply a worldview.
▸ Some viewers interpret art on the basis of less articulated
theories. Others have more finely articulated and consistent
worldviews, based on study of philosophy, psychology,
anthropology, and other disciplines.
▸ Through these worldviews they interpret works of art.
Interpreters may operate on the basis of semiotic theory, for
example, or offer Neo-Freudian readings of all works of art they
encounter.
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▸ Sometimes the interpreters make their basic assumptions
about art and life explicit; more often, however, they leave
them implicit.
▸ Once the interpreter's worldview is identified, choices follow:
one can accept the worldview and the interpretation that it
influences or reject both the worldview and the interpretation,
accept the worldview but disagree with how it is applied to the
artwork, or reject the worldview but accept the specific
interpretation it yields.
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Good interpretations tell more about the artwork than they tell
about the interpreter.
▸ Good interpretations must clearly pertain to the work of art. All
interpretations reveal the interpreter, but the interpreter's
primary challenge is to direct the viewer to better perceive and
understand the artwork that is being interpreted.
▸ If one cannot relate the interpretation to the work of art being
interpreted, the interpretation may be too sub-jective. That is, it
may inform us about the interpreter, but it may fail to enlighten
the work of art and, hence, is not a good interpretation.
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The objects of interpretation are artworks, not artists.
In some conversations and writings about art, it is artists who
are interpreted rather than the artworks that they have made:
"Kara Walker is an angry woman." "Chris Ofili's just trying to
shock us. "
In critical discourse , however, it should be the art ob-jects that
are interpreted, not the persons who made them. We want to
be reading works of art and not be engaged in mind-reading.
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All art is in part about the world in which it emerged.
▸ Donald Kuspit , contemporary art critic and aesthetician,
reinforces this principle when discussing his decision to
include psychoanalysis in his interpretation of works of art: "I
began to feel that the artist is not exempt from life. There is
no way out from seeing art as a reflection or meditation or a
comment on life. I became interested in the process ,
including the artist's life. I became interested in how art
reflected life issues, or existential issues with which we are all
involved. "
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All art is in part about other art.
▸ Art does not emerge within an aesthetic vacuum. Artists are
generally aware of the work of other artists and often they are
especially aware of the work of certain artists.
▸ Even untrained artists are aware of and influenced by the
visual representations in their societies. This principle asserts
that all art can be interpreted with respect to how it is
influenced by other art.
▸ Art can be about life, about art, or both. An important guide
to interpreting any art is to see how it relates to or indirectly
comments upon other art, both "popular" and "fine. "
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Good interpretations have coherence, correspondence,
and inclusiveness.
▸ The merit of any interpretation can be judged by the use of
three criteria: coherence, correspondence , and inclusiveness.
▸ Coherence is an internal and autonomous criterion ,
correspondence is an external and dependent criterion, and
inclusiveness looks both at the work itself and its causal
environment.
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Interpreting art is an endeavor that is both individual and
communal.
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▸ We can think of acts of interpreting as having two poles, one
personal and individual, and the other communal and shared.
▸ An individual and personal interpretation is one that has
meaning to me and for my life. I may have formulated it for
myself, or re-ceived it from another and accepted it or
modified it.
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Some interpretations are better than others.
Many of the preceding principles clearly imply that some
interpretations are better than others; this principle states so
explicitly.
Whatever one says about a work of art is as good as what
anyone else says; all responses to art are sub-jective; all
subjects responding to art are equal in their abilities to
respond to art;
▸ everyone has equal rights to their opinions ; it is just talk about
art, and all matters pertaining to art are subjective anyway.
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The admissibility of an interpretation is ultimately determined by a
com-munity of interpreters and the community is self-correcting.
▸ This is an optimistic view of the art world and scholarship
that holds that artists, critics , historians, and other
serious interpreters will eventually correct less-than
adequate interpretations and will eventually put forth better
interpretations.
▸ This happens in the short run and in the long run. In the short
run, interpretations might be very nearsighted. This
principle asserts that eventually these narrow
interpretations will be broadened
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Good interpretations invite us to see for ourselves and
continue on our own.
▸ Good interpretations lead us to better experiences of works of
art than we would have had without those interpretations. In
the words of aesthetician Marcia Eaton , good interpretations
usually "bring us to see things we would have missed if left
on our own. "
▸ She goes on to say that interpreters invite us to look at
things and provoke us to continue on our own to view the
work. "
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