Element and Principle of Art - Assignment 02

Artists use many techniques to unify their great artwork. Balance, variety, linear perspective, atmosphere perspective, directional force, scale, and proportion are the several techniques use by artists. The balance of an artwork can achieve through either symmetric or asymmetric. Linear perspective is simply how the object in the space appear to the eye; which in another word the point of view.  Artists use atmospheric perspective, scale and proposition to create the illusion of depth of field. 

This painting is created between the years 1481-1482 in high renaissance period by Pietro Perugino. This brilliant painting’s name is “The Delivery of the keys to Saint Peter,” and it’s located in Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. This painting shows the moment when Christ gives the keys of the heavenly kingdom to the kneeling St. Peter. In this particular painting, Perugino used linear and atmosphere perspective to create the depth of space. The background has three architectural structures and vanishing point place at the door of the middle one along the horizon. Objects appeared in the close range has dark and bright colors, and objects in far distance like mountains painted in pale blue color. Perugino also used overlapping plane to show who’s in the front and who’s in the back of the group of people. Three architectural structures are painted in symmetric balance. However, painter uses warm and hot colors and complex/simple, large/small forms in the foreground and the middle ground to balance the painting asymmetrically.

Asymmetrical balance is not like symmetric balance which is the near or exact matching of left and right side of an artwork. Asymmetric balanced artworks don’t have same left and right sides. Instead of making left and right side the same, artists use various elements such as shapes, colors, forms and value to balance the gravity of an artwork. For instance, warm colors, complex and large forms have more visual weights compared to cool colors, simple and small forms. The painting attached below is a great example for an asymmetrical artwork.

 This painting painted by Johannes Vermeer during 1662 -1663 and, it’s called “Woman Holding a Balance.”  Focal point of this painting is the women holing a balance; a large complex form which is in right of the center. Painter balanced the painting by relatively large plain empty area to the left. The large dark blue form (shadowy form) is balance out the warm colored small bright area.

Scale is size relation of one to another and placement in the picture plane. It can change the meaning of an artwork. Scale is often used to create a visual illusion. However, ancient artists used scale to represent the importance of their subject matter or theme. For example, Egyptian pharaohs are look bigger compared to other figures in Egyptian paintings.  This painting called “Personal Values” by Rene Magritte is an example that showing how scale can change the meaning of an artwork. In this painting, abnormal sized everyday objects are placed in a room without a proper order. These everyday objects are a comb, a matchstick, a bar of a soap, a wine glass and a shaving brush. The scale distortion of these objects made viewers to think about relationship with their personal items. . If these objects were painted in their normal size, this painting wouldn’t be this interesting and alter the meaning. This would be just another painting.