I decided that if I was going to have an art website, I should definitely have some content on the Elements of Art. The elements of art are the building blocks of an artwork. They include line, shape, form, value, color, space, and texture. These are the tools artists use when creating an artwork.
When you are familiar with the elements, you become more aware of the details which can make you a better artist and help you better appreciate the artwork of others and the message the artist is trying to convey.
Line
Line is a visual element that is used to define shapes and figures, indicate motion, and emotion. Line is the path of a point moving through space. Lines may be continuous, broken, any width, or any texture. The variety of line types make them a useful tool when creating art.
Direction of Line
The direction of a line can alter an artwork tremendously. Diagonal lines create movement and energy. Horizontal and vertical lines add strength and stability.
Contour Lines
Contour lines form the outside edge of a shape and outline all the figures and forms in an image, creating the illusion of shading and form.
Lines are also used to show shading – the shadows caused when light hits one side of an object, leaving the other in shadow.
Gesture Lines
Gesture lines are lines that show movement in an artwork, particularly of characters.
Implied Lines
Implied lines are not actually drawn, but we can connect the dots to create the lines in our minds. Our eyes follow them automatically to draw attention to specific parts of an artwork.
Implied lines are sight lines, which guide us throughout images. These help us know where to look, and show us what is important in the painting. Follow the gazes of figures in paintings as they look and point at one another.
Expressive Lines
Lines that show feeling and emotion are called expressive lines.
An example of expressive lines in art is when an artist uses wavy lines in contrast with a strong straight diagonal line to convey anxiety.
Shape
A shape is an enclosed area of space created through lines and/or color. Shape is the property of a two-dimensional form, usually defined by a line around it or by a change in color.
There are two types of shapes, geometric and organic. Most works of art contain both geometric and organic shapes.
Geometric Shape
Geometric shapes are precise areas that can be made using a ruler or compass. These shapes can be simple or complex and provide a sense of order to the artwork.
Piet Mondrian is an excellent example of an artist who used geometric shapes. In his Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red (1937-42), Mondrian, uses straight vertical and horizontal black lines to divide his canvas into rectangles of primary colors.
Organic/Free-Form Shapes
Organic shapes are complex and imprecise, but they provide a natural feeling to art.
Form
Form can be geometric or organic just like shape. However, form is always three-dimensional, measurable by length, width, and height, and encloses volume. Forms can be well-defined like a cube, or they can be free-form like an animal. They can be created by combining two or more shapes. They are also sometimes defined by the presence of shadow and how light plays against the form.
Value
Value refers to the lightness and darkness of colors in an artwork. White is the lightest value while black is the darkest. To create a tint of a color, the artist adds white. To create a shade, the artist adds black. Tints are cheerful pastel colors like pink, peach, or teal. Shades tend to be gloomier like dark grey, navy, or burgundy. For example, there are many tints in the Renoir’s Mother and Child, and many shades in Siqueiros’ Peasant Mother.
Color
Hue
Artists can use colors to duplicate those in reality, set moods, and highlight importance.
When we use the term “color”, what we usually mean is hue. Hues appear on the visible spectrum where we see the pure hues. These can be divided into primary, secondary and tertiary colors, as on the color wheel below.
Primary, secondary and tertiary colors
Primary colors are red, yellow and blue (the exception is the additive color system, which is used in computer screens, theater lighting and the like, and has red, yellow and green as its primary colors). All the rest of the colors can be made from these.
Secondary colors are made by mixing two primary colors: Red and yellow make orange, blue and red make purple, and so on.
Tertiary colors are made by mixing a primary color with a secondary color: purple and red make magenta, orange and red make red-orange, and so on.
Complimentary and analogous colors
The colors opposite one another on the color wheel (like red and green or blue and orange) are complementary colors. These colors tend to stand out boldly next to one another. These are therefore often used together, like red and green for Christmas, blue and orange for sport team logos. Colors next to one another on the color wheel (like red and orange or blue and green) are analogous colors, and these tend to blend together very well.
Warm and cool colors
The colors on the left of the color wheel are called cool colors and those to the right are warm colors. Warm colors which are reds, yellows, oranges, and red-violets, are those of fire and the sun. They appear to project. Cool colors which are blues, blue-greens, and blue-violets, are those of ice and the ocean. They appear to recede. Using cool or warm colors in an artwork can create very different moods.
Saturation
Intensity or saturation is how bright or dull a color is. It’s simply the degree of purity.
Henri Matisse tended to use very saturated colors, as in Red Room (Harmony in Red) (1908).
Contrast
Contrast is the amount of variation between the highest and lowest values in a work. This is most commonly talked about in photography, but can be applied to other types of artwork.
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Cliffs of Moher (1989) has very low contrast. There are no dark blacks, no stark whites; everything is in very similar shades of gray.
Modeling
Modeling is the creation of a sense of depth. It is achieved by gradations of dark and light or through color contrast.
Optical Mixing
Optical mixing is when the eyes visually blend brushstrokes of pure colors to create a new intermediate tone.
Palette
A palette is the selection of colors found in a work of art. It also refers to the thin board on which an artist holds and mixes pigments.
Pigments
Pigments are intensely colored compounds that are used to produce the color in paints and dyes. In paint they are finely powdered and mixed with a medium such as oil. They can be organic or inorganic.
Space
Space is the element of art that is concerned with how an artwork depicts depth. It is how artists make a two-dimensional surface look three-dimensional. Space can give the illusion of objects in an artwork being close, far away, or overlapping one another.
Linear Perspective
Linear perspective is the mathematical system where an artist uses lines to create the illusion of deep, three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface.
Piero della Francesca was one of the forerunners of linear perspective. In Ideal City, he used one-point linear perspective to show the depth of the space.
Atmospheric Perspective
Atmospheric perspective or aerial perspective, refers to how objects that are far away often appear fuzzier or less detailed than objects that are close due to the contrast between light and dark being increasingly reduced by the effects of atmosphere. Artists use value and shading to mimic atmospheric perspective and make their artworks appear realistic.
Positive and Negative Space
Artists use positive and negative space as elements of art. Positive space is the areas of the artwork filled with the content, and negative space is the space in between.
In Rodin’s The Cathedral, the empty negative space between the hands creates as much emotion and power as the positive space of the hands.
Texture
Texture is the feeling of a surface, real or the way it looks like it would feel. This might refer to the roughness or smoothness of actual objects and art media, or to the illusion of these properties.
Tactile or Actual Texture
Tactile texture is the actual feeling of a surface that can be touched. Think of the actual texture of a sculpture or a painting created with the impasto technique. Impasto is the technique of applying paint very thickly to the surface.
Visual Texture
Visual texture is the illusion of texture in an artwork. Think of a photograph of trees in a forest. The texture of the trees and leaves is seen, but the photograph itself is smooth.