Shaping the View: Composition Basics

Lesson One of the Curriculum Unit: Everything in its right place: An Introduction to Composition in Painting

Introduction

In this first lesson of the curriculum unit Everything in its Right Place: An Introduction to Composition in Painting, students will begin by learning the definition of composition in the visual arts and some of its most basic components.

Guiding Questions

• What is composition in the visual arts, and how does contribute to the success of an art work?
• How do the artist's compositional choices convey feeling, tone, or information to the viewer, and how do these elements guide the viewer's eye around the canvas?

Learning Objectives

• Define composition in the visual arts
• Identify elements of the composition in a number of art works
• Diagram and write an explanation of the compositional structure and focal point of a painting
• Explain how the artist's compositional choices work to guide the viewer's eye to important components of the image
• Discuss ways in which the compositional structure of a painting affects the tone of the painting, and communicates information or emotional content to the viewer

Preparing to Teach this Lesson

• Review the curriculum unit overview and this lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and websites. Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
• Note: All diagrams, line drawings, and questions for this lesson are available for students to download directly through the Student LaunchPad for this lesson. You can access all of the diagrams for this lesson plan directly through the Teacher LaunchPad. You should read through the Student LaunchPad in preparation for teaching this lesson.

Suggested Activities

1. Compose a Visual Symphony : Three sides to many stories

2. Compose a Visual Symphony: Variety of Visions

3. Compose a Visual Symphony: Pulling towards the Center

In this activity students will begin their introduction to composition in the visual arts, and will learn how to identify one of its major components.

What is composition in the visual arts? Initially, the most basic element of composition can be understood as what the painting is composed of-the objects that appear in the image. Have students view the following image, which is available from the EDSITEment-reviewed web resource The Metropolitan Museum of Art:

• Annibale Carracci's 1590 painting, Two Children Teasing a Cat

Ask students to list the objects and figures of which this image is composed. Students should note the inclusion in the image of two children—a boy and a girl—a cat, a table, and two crawfish.

Identifying the objects and figures in an image is only the first step in investigating an art work's composition. An important component of a painting's composition is the relationship of each of these objects or figures to each other. Returning to the Carracci painting, ask students to gaze at the image while paying attention to the way in which their eyes naturally move around the canvas. Students should take notes on where their eyes fall, follow, and finish. Have students draw on a separate piece of paper, or on the PDF drawing of the painting's composition available in the Student LaunchPad, the direction their eyes move while gazing at the image. Did they draw a recognizable shape?

Have students download the following set of diagrams from the Student LaunchPad. As you can see from the diagrams, the shape produced by the composition of objects in this painting is a triangle. Next, have students look at the following image from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and ask them to note the shape of the composition, as they have with the Carracci image.

• Emmanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware

• Why have both of these artists chosen to orient their triangular composition the same way?

While it is a very common compositional structure, not all paintings have a triangular composition. In this activity students will be investigating some paintings which have differently structured compositions.

Divide the class into small groups of three or four students and assign one of the following images to each of the groups. Ask students to work together on identifying the compositional structure of the image they have been assigned.

The images are available from the EDSITEment-reviewed website The National Gallery of Art:

• George Catlin's Ojibbeway Indians in Paris
• George Catlin's Snow Shoe Dance- Ojibbeway

In the second painting students may identify the overall shape as a pyramid. But is it only a pyramid? Ask students to concentrate on the way in which the figures are positioned. They will most likely be able to identify an ellipse that is created from the figures that encircle the central post. This image should help students to remember that many compositions are not made up of one simple structure, but are made up of several structures interacting with each other.

Next, have students view the following image, which is available from The National Gallery of Art:

• Vittore Carpaccio's The Flight into Egypt

Ask students to share with the class their groups' findings. Have students access the line drawing and diagrams of this image through the Student Launchpad to aid in discussing the compositional shape of Carpaccio's painting. In this case students may initially identify the shape as an oval similar to that found in the Catlin painting. Ask students to try to identify the shape of the two main elements in the painting- that of Joseph on the right, and of Mary, Jesus, and the donkey on the left. If they approach each of the elements separately, what shape would they identify?

You may wish to direct students to look at the angle of the donkey's neck and the angle of Joseph's body. What shape or form do these two components of the painting form? Students will most likely identify the composition of each of these elements as resembling pyramids. Have students look at the diagrams accessible from the Student LaunchPad to help in identifying the shape of each element more closely. How do these two diamond shaped elements interact with each other?

Ask students to concentrate on the angle that is formed by the meeting of Joseph's arm and body with the face of the donkey. Here students should see the formation of a loose "V." This point is emphasized in the diagram available from the Student LaunchPad. What shape do students see in this PDF?

Students should be able to identify a rough figure eight that encircles the two main elements of Carpaccio's painting. This painting is slightly more complicated than the previous images they have seen, but it is also an interesting way of raising the question that is the focus of the next activity: Why do painters choose to structure the compositions of their paintings in certain ways?

The composition of paintings is often designed to highlight or draw the viewer's attention to a particular part of the image. This might be a specific figure- such as the main figure in the narrative that is being depicted- or a particular action that is taking place within the scene. In this activity students will investigate the ways in which artists design their compositions using methods that will draw their audience's eyes to the parts of their paintings they feel are most important.

One way in which artists sometimes choose to highlight the most important figures or actions of their works is by placing those elements at the center of the composition. As in the previous activity, divide the class into two groups. Have students from one group view the following image, which is available from the The National Gallery of Art:

• Cima da Conegliano's Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist

• Sandro Boticelli's Adoration of the Magi

• Why do you think the artist has placed the Madonna and Child at the apex of the compositional pyramid?
• What does this placement within the picture frame, and within the composition, tell the viewer about those figures?

• What are the elements which make up the main shapes that appear in this composition?
• Why do you think that the two triangles overlap at that point in the painting?

• Jacques-Louis David's The Death of Socrates

Ask students to focus on the action that is taking place at the center of this image. This may help them to focus on the way in which the ellipse is cinched at the central point of the canvas, creating the figure eight that can be seen in the diagram available from the Student LaunchPad.

In order to answer this question it may be helpful for students to know about the story that is behind this image. David is depicting the death of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who is shown as the white haired man sitting on the bed with his left arm raised. He was sentenced to death by hemlock poisoning for "corrupting" Athenian youth through his philosophical lectures. One of his students—Plato—is shown with his back to the viewer and his face hidden from his teacher even as he passes the bowl of poison to Socrates.

• Why do you think that David decided to use these shapes in the creation of this image?
• Why do you think that David chose to focus on the action of Plato passing the poison to his teacher rather than on Plato's anguish?
• How do the two shapes—the oval and the figure eight—work together to focus the viewer's attention on the most important elements of the image?

• Do the compositions of these images have anything in common?

• Why do you think that the artist has chosen to place the focal point where he has placed it?
• How does the rest of the painting's composition relate to and interact with the central focal point?

Assessment

• Jean-Francois Millet's Haystacks: Autumn
• James Peale's Still Life: Balsam Apple and Vegetables
• Winslow Homer's On the Stile
• Jean-Honoré Fragonard's A Young Girl Reading

Have students then write a paragraph on the back of the diagrams they have drawn explaining the composition of the painting as they have explained it to their peers. Students should hand in their diagrams and paragraphs.

Extending the Lesson

• Students will find a treasure trove of visual resources using the EDSITEment-reviewed websites The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. If you have time in your class you may wish to assign each student to use these web resources to find examples of specific compositional elements. Ask them to find examples on these web sites of:
  • A pyramid-shaped composition
  • A figure eight-shaped composition
  • An oval-shaped composition

Return to curriculum unit overview-Everything in its right place: An Introduction to Composition in Painting

Next lesson

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art [http://www.metmuseum.org]
  • Guide for learning about and identifying composition
    [http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/gw/el_gw.htm]
  • Annibale Carracci's 1590 painting, Two Children Teasing a Cat
    [http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOne.asp?dep=11&isHighlight=0&viewmode=1&item=1994%2E142]
  • Emmanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware
    [http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOnezoom.asp?dep=2&zoomFlag=0&viewmode=0&item=97%2E34]
  • Jacques-Louis David's The Death of Socrates
    [http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOnezoom.asp?dep=11&zoomFlag=0&viewmode=0&item=31%2E45]
  • Jean-Francois Millet's Haystacks: Autumn
    [http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOnezoom.asp?dep=11&zoomFlag=0&viewmode=1&item=60%2E71%2E12]
  • James Peale's Still Life: Balsam Apple and Vegetables
    [http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOnezoom.asp?dep=2&zoomFlag=0&viewmode=0&item=39%2E52]
• The National Gallery of Art [http://www.nga.gov]
  • Fra Carnevale's The Annunciation
    [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=362+0+none]
  • George Catlin's Ojibbeway Indians in Paris
    [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?50138+0+0]
  • George Catlin's Snow Shoe Dance- Ojibbeway
    [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?50162+0+0]
  • Vittore Carpaccio's The Flight into Egypt
    [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?38+0+0]
  • Cima da Conegliano's Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist
    [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?43+0+0]
  • Sandro Boticelli's Adoration of the Magi
    [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=30+0+none]
  • Winslow Homer's On the Stile
    [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?88475+0+0]
  • Jean-Honoré Fragonard's A Young Girl Reading
    [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?46020+0+0]
• Art Institute of Chicago [http://www.artic.edu/aic/]