The Element of Art That Describes the Relative Lightness or Darkness of a Hue Is Known as

1. Line

There are many unlike types of lines, all characterized by their length being greater than their width. Lines tin exist static or dynamic depending on how the artist chooses to use them. They help determine the movement, direction and energy in a piece of work of art. Nosotros see line all around united states of america in our daily lives; telephone wires, tree branches, jet contrails and winding roads are just a few examples. Expect at the photograph below to see how line is part of natural and constructed environments.

In this image of a lightning storm nosotros can run into many different lines. Certainly the jagged, meandering lines of the lightning itself dominate the paradigm, followed past the straight lines of the skyline structures and the coast line. There are more subtle lines also, like the lights along the buildings.  Lines are even implied past the reflections in the water.

The Nazca lines in the arid littoral plains of Peru date to nigh 500 BCE were scratched into the rocky soil, depicting animals on an incredible scale, so big that they are all-time viewed from the air. Let'south await at how the different kinds of line are made.

Diego Velazquez'southward Las Meninas from 1656, ostensibly a portrait of the Infanta Margarita, the daughter of King Philip IV and Queen Mariana of Espana, offers a sumptuous amount of artistic genius; its sheer size (well-nigh ten feet square), painterly style of naturalism, lighting effects, and the enigmatic figures placed throughout the canvas–including the creative person himself –is one of the slap-up paintings in western art history. Let's examine it (below) to uncover how Velazquez uses basic elements and principles of art to accomplish such a masterpiece.

Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, 1656, oil on canvass, 125.2" x 108.7". Prado, Madrid. CC By-SA

Actual lines are those that are physically present. The edge of the wooden stretcher bar at the left of Las Meninas is an actual line, as are the picture frames in the background and the linear decorative elements on some of the figures' dresses. How many other actual lines tin you observe in the painting?

Implied lines are those created by visually connecting ii or more than areas together. The gaze to the Infanta Margarita—the blonde central figure in the composition—from the meninas, or maids of laurels, to the left and right of her, are implied lines. They visually connect the figures. By visually connecting the space between the heads of all the figures in the painting we have a sense of jagged implied line that keeps the lower function of the composition in motion, balanced against the darker, more static upper areas of the painting. Implied lines can also be created when 2 areas of unlike colors or tones come up together. Can you identify more unsaid lines in the painting? Where? Implied lines are institute in three-dimensional artworks, too. The sculpture of the Laocoon below, a figure from Greek and Roman mythology, is, along with his sons, being strangled past sea snakes sent past the goddess Athena every bit wrath against his warnings to the Trojans not to take the Trojan horse. The sculpture sets implied lines in move as the figures writhe in agony against the snakes.

Laocoon Group, Roman copy of Greek original, Vatican Museum, Rome. Photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen. CC Past-SA

Straight or classic lines provide structure to a limerick. They can be oriented to the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal axis of a surface. Straight lines are by nature visually stable, while still giving direction to a composition. InLas Meninas, you can see them in the canvas supports on the left, the wall supports and doorways on the right, and in the background in matrices on the wall spaces between the framed pictures. Moreover, the small horizontal lines created in the stair edges in the background aid anchor the unabridged visual design of the painting. Vertical and horizontal straight lines provide the most stable compositions. Diagonal straight lines are normally more visually dynamic, unstable, and tension-filled.

Straight lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Expressive lines are curved, calculation an organic, more dynamic grapheme to a work of art. Expressive lines are often rounded and follow undetermined paths. In Las Meninas you tin run across them in the aprons on the girls' dresses and in the dog's folded hind leg and coat blueprint. Look again at the Laocoon to see expressive lines in the figures' flailing limbs and the sinuous form of the snakes. Indeed, the sculpture seems to be fabricated up of nothing but expressive lines, shapes and forms.

Organic lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

In that location are other kinds of line that encompass the characteristics of those above yet, taken together, assistance create additional artistic elements and richer, more varied compositions. Refer to the images and examples below to become familiar with these types of line.

Outline, or contour line is the simplest of these. They create a path effectually the edge of a shape. In fact, outlines ofttimes define shapes.

Outline, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Hatch lines are repeated at short intervals in by and large one direction. They give shading and visual texture to the surface of an object.

Hatch, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Crosshatch lines provide additional tone and texture. They tin exist oriented in any direction. Multiple layers of crosshatch lines can give rich and varied shading to objects by manipulating the pressure of the drawing tool to create a big range of values.

Crosshatch, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Line quality is that sense of character embedded in the way a line presents itself. Certain lines have qualities that distinguish them from others. Difficult-edged, jagged lines take a staccato visual motion while organic, flowing lines create a more than comfortable feeling. Meandering lines tin be either geometric or expressive, and you can see in the examples how their indeterminate paths animate a surface to different degrees.

Lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Although line as a visual element more often than not plays a supporting role in visual fine art, at that place are wonderful examples in which line carries a strong cultural significance as the primary subject matter.

Calligraphic lines apply quickness and gesture, more than alike to paint strokes, to imbue an artwork with a fluid, lyrical graphic symbol. To see this unique line quality, await up the work of Chinese poet and artist Dong Qichang, dating from the Ming dynasty (1555-1637). A more geometric instance from the Koran, created in the Standard arabic calligraphic style, dates from the 9^thursday century.

Both these examples show how artists apply line as both a form of writing and a visual fine art course. American artist Mark Tobey (1890–1976) was influenced by Oriental calligraphy, adapting its form to the act of pure painting within a modern abstruse style described as white writing.

ii. Shape

A shape is defined as an enclosed area in two dimensions. Past definition shapes are ever flat, but the combination of shapes, color, and other means can make shapes appear three-dimensional, as forms. Shapes can be created in many ways, the simplest past enclosing an expanse with an outline. They tin also be made past surrounding an expanse with other shapes or the placement of different textures next to each other—for instance, the shape of an island surrounded by water. Considering they are more complex than lines, shapes are usually more important in the arrangement of compositions. The examples below give united states of america an idea of how shapes are fabricated.

Geometric Shapes, eleven July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

Referring back to Velazquez'south Las Meninas, it is fundamentally an arrangement of shapes; organic and hard-edged, light, dark and mid-toned, that solidifies the composition within the larger shape of the canvas. Looking at information technology this way, we can view any work of art, whether two or three-dimensional, realistic, abstruse or not-objective, in terms of shapes alone.

Geometric Shapes vs. Organic Shapes

Shapes can be further categorized into geometric and organic. Examples of geometric shapes are the ones we tin can recognize and proper name: squares, triangles, circles, hexagons, etc. Organic shapes are those that are based on organic or living things or are more than costless grade: the shape of a tree, face, monkey, cloud, etc.

3. Course

Form is sometimes used to depict a shape that has an unsaid third dimension. In other words, an artist may effort to make parts of a flat image appear iii-dimensional. Notice in the cartoon below how the artist makes the dissimilar shapes appear three-dimensional through the use of shading. It's a flat image only appears 3-dimensional.

This epitome is complimentary of copyright restrictions.

When an image is incredibly realistic in terms of its forms (as well as color, space, etc.) such every bit this painting by Edwaert Collier, nosotros telephone call that trompe l'oeil, French for "fool the center."

Edweart Collier, Trompe l'oeil with Writing Materials,
oil on canvass, c. 1702.
This image is in the public domain.

4. Space

Space is the empty surface area surrounding or between real or implied objects. Humans categorize space: at that place is outer space, that limitless void we enter beyond our sky; inner space, which resides in people's minds and imaginations, and personal space, the important but intangible area that surrounds each private and which is violated if someone else gets too close. Pictorial space is apartment, and the digital realm resides in cyberspace. Fine art responds to all of these kinds of space.

Many artists are as concerned with space in their works as they are with, say, color or course. There are many ways for the artist to nowadays ideas of infinite. Retrieve that many cultures traditionally use pictorial space as a window to view realistic subject matter through, and through the subject field matter they present ideas, narratives and symbolic content. The innovation of linear perspective, an implied geometric pictorial construct dating from fifteenth-century Europe, affords us the accurate illusion of 3-dimensional infinite on a flat surface, and appears to recede into the distance through the employ of a horizon line and vanishing point(s) . You lot can see how one-point linear perspective is ready in the examples below:

I-Point Linear Perspective, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

I-point perspective occurs when the receding lines appear to converge at a unmarried point on the horizon and used when the flat front of an object is facing the viewer. Note: Perspective tin exist used to show the relative size and recession into space of whatsoever object, merely is most constructive with hard-edged three-dimensional objects such as buildings.

A classic Renaissance artwork using one point perspective is Leonardo da Vinci's The Concluding Supper from 1498. Da Vinci composes the work past locating the vanishing betoken directly behind the head of Christ, thus drawing the viewer's attention to the center. His arms mirror the receding wall lines, and, if we follow them as lines, would converge at the same vanishing point.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1498. Fresco. Santa Maria della Grazie. Piece of work is in the public domain.

Two-indicate perspective occurs when the vertical edge of a cube is facing the viewer, exposing two sides that recede into the altitude, i to each vanishing bespeak.

Two-Betoken Perspective, xi July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

View Gustave Caillebotte's Paris Street, Rainy Weather condition from 1877 to run into how ii-signal perspective is used to requite an accurate view to an urban scene.  The artist'south composition, however, is more complex than just his use of perspective. The figures are deliberately placed to straight the viewer'southward eye from the front right of the picture to the building'south front edge on the left, which, similar a send's bow, acts as a cleaver to plunge both sides toward the horizon. In the midst of this visual recession a lamp post stands firmly in the middle to arrest our gaze from going right out the back of the painting. Caillebotte includes the piddling metallic arm at the top right of the post to direct united states again along a horizontal path, now keeping us from traveling off the elevation of the canvas. As relatively spare as the left side of the work is, the creative person crams the right side with difficult-edged and organic shapes and forms in a complex play of positive and negative space.

The perspective organization is a cultural convention well suited to a traditional western European idea of the "truth," that is, an authentic, clear rendition of observed reality. Even subsequently the invention of linear perspective, many cultures traditionally use a flatter pictorial space, relying on overlapping, size differences, or vertical placementof components in a ii-dimensional work of art. Examine the miniature painting of the Third Court of the Topkapi Palacefrom fourteenth-century Turkey to contrast its pictorial space with that of linear perspective. It'due south composed from a number of different vantage points (as opposed to vanishing points), all very flat to the motion picture plane. While the overall image is seen from to a higher place, the figures and trees announced as cutouts, seeming to bladder in mid air. Notice the towers on the far left and right are sideways to the picture plane. The trees and people occupying the upper parts of the image are meant to be perceived as further from the viewer as compared to those copse, buildings and people located nearly the bottom of the painting. This is an example of vertical placement.

As "wrong" as it looks, the painting does give a detailed description of the mural and structures on the palace grounds.

Third Court of the Topkapi Palace, from the Hunername, 1548. Ottoman miniature painting, Topkapi Museum, Istanbul. CC By-SA

After nearly five hundred years using linear perspective, western ideas about how infinite is depicted accurately in two dimensions went through a revolution at the beginning of the 20^th century. A young Castilian artist, Pablo Picasso, moved to Paris, then western civilization'southward capital of art, and largely reinvented pictorial space with the invention of Cubism, ushered in dramatically by his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907. He was influenced in role by the chiseled forms, angular surfaces and asymmetry of African sculpture (refer back to the Male Figurefrom Cameroon) and mask-like faces of early Iberian artworks. For more than information nigh this of import painting, mind to the following question and answer.

In the early on 20th century, Picasso, his friend Georges Braque and a handful of other artists struggled to develop a new infinite that relied on, ironically, the flatness of the picture plane to comport and animate traditional subject matter including figures, still life and landscape. Cubist pictures, and somewhen sculptures, became amalgams of different points of view, light sources and planar constructs. It was equally if they were presenting their discipline matter in many ways at one time, all the while shifting foreground, middle basis and background so the viewer is not sure where one starts and the other ends. In an interview, the artist explained cubism this way: "The problem is now to laissez passer, to go around the object, and give a plastic expression to the issue. All of this is my struggle to break with the two-dimensional attribute*"(from Alexander Liberman, An Artist in His Studio, 1960, page 113). Public and disquisitional reaction to cubism was understandably negative, just the artists' experiments with spatial relationships reverberated with others and became – along with new means of using colour – a driving force in the development of a modern art movement that based itself on the flatness of the picture airplane. Instead of a window to await into, the flat surface becomes a basis on which to construct formal arrangements of shapes, colors and compositions. For another perspective on this thought, refer dorsum to module one'due south discussion of 'abstraction'.

You lot tin see the radical changes cubism made in George Braque'due south mural La Roche Guyonfrom 1909. The copse, houses, castle and surrounding rocks comprise nearly a single complex form, stair-stepping upwardly the canvas to mimic the afar hill at the elevation, all of it struggling upwardly and leaning to the right inside a shallow pictorial infinite.

George Braque, Castle at La Roche Guyon, 1909. Oil on canvas. Stedelijk van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands. Licensed through GNU and Artistic Commons

As the cubist style developed, its forms became even flatter. Juan Gris's The Sunblindfrom 1914 splays the yet life information technology represents across the canvas.  Collage elements like newspaper reinforce pictorial flatness.

Juan Gris, The Sunblind, 1914. Gouache, collage, chalk, and charcoal on canvas. Tate Gallery, London. Image licensed under GNU Free Documentation License

It's not then difficult to understand the importance of this new idea of infinite when placed in the context of comparable advances in science surrounding the turn of the nineteenth century. The Wright Brothers took to the air with powered flight in 1903, the same year Marie Curie won the first of two Nobel prizes for her pioneering piece of work in radiation. Sigmund Freud's new ideas on the inner spaces of the mind and its effect on behavior were published in 1902, and Albert Einstein's calculations on relativity, the idea that space and fourth dimension are intertwined, first appeared in 1905. Each of these discoveries added to human understanding and realligned the way we look at ourselves and our world. Indeed, Picasso, speaking of his struggle to ascertain cubism, said "Even Einstein did non know it either! The condition of discovery is outside ourselves; just the terrifying matter is that despite all this, we can just find what we know" (from Picasso on Art, A Selection of Views by Dore Ashton, (Souchere, 1960, folio 15).

Iii-dimensional space doesn't undergo this central transformation. It remains a visual and actual relationship between positive and negative spaces.

v. Value and Contrast

Value (or tone) is the relative lightness or darkness of a shape in relation to another. The value calibration, bounded on one finish by pure white and on the other by black, and in between a serial of progressively darker shades of grey, gives an artist the tools to brand these transformations. The value calibration beneath shows the standard variations in tones. Values near the lighter end of the spectrum are termed high-keyed, those on the darker stop are depression-keyed.

Value Scale, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC BY

In ii dimensions, the use of value gives a shape the illusion of form or mass and lends an entire composition a sense of lite and shadow. The two examples below show the effect value has on irresolute a shape to a form.

2D Form, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC Past

3D Course, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC BY

This same technique brings to life what begins every bit a simple line drawing of a immature man'southward head in Michelangelo's Caput of a Youth and a Correct Hand from 1508. Shading is created with line (refer to our discussion of line earlier in this module) or tones created with a pencil. Artists vary the tones past the amount of resistance they utilize betwixt the pencil and the paper they're drawing on. A drawing pencil's leads vary in hardness, each one giving a different tone than another. Washes of ink or colour create values determined by the amount of water the medium is dissolved into.

The use of loftier contrast, placing lighter areas of value confronting much darker ones, creates a dramatic upshot, while depression contrast gives more subtle results. These differences in effect are evident in 'Guiditta and Oloferne' by the Italian painter Caravaggio, and Robert Adams' photograph Untitled, Denver from 1970-74. Caravaggio uses a high contrast palette to an already dramatic scene to increase the visual tension for the viewer, while Adams deliberately makes use of low dissimilarity to underscore the drabness of the landscape surrounding the figure on the wheel.

Caravaggio, Guiditta Decapitates Oloferne, 1598, oil on sheet. National Gallery of Italian Art, Rome. This work is in the public domain

half-dozen. Color

Color is the well-nigh complex artistic element because of the combinations and variations inherent in its use.  Humans respond to color combinations differently, and artists study and use color in part to give desired direction to their work.

Color is key to many forms of art. Its relevance, apply and part in a given work depend on the medium of that work. While some concepts dealing with colour are broadly applicable across media, others are not.

The full spectrum of colors is contained in white light. Humans perceive colors from the light reflected off objects. A cherry-red object, for instance, looks red because information technology reflects the red part of the spectrum. It would be a different color under a unlike calorie-free. Color theory first appeared in the 17^thursday century when English language mathematician and scientist Sir Isaac Newton discovered that white light could exist divided into a spectrum by passing it through a prism.

The study of color in art and design oft starts with color theory. Color theory splits up colors into three categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

The bones tool used is a color wheel, developed past Isaac Newton in 1666. A more than complex model known every bit the color tree, created by Albert Munsell, shows the spectrum made upwardly of sets of tints and shades on connected planes.

In that location are a number of approaches to organizing colors into meaningful relationships. Most systems differ in construction but.

Traditional Model

Traditional color theory is a qualitative endeavour to organize colors and their relationships. It is based on Newton's colour wheel, and continues to be the most mutual system used past artists.

Bluish Yellow Red Color Wheel. Released under the GNU Gratis Documentation License

Traditional colour theory uses the same principles as subtractive color mixing (see beneath) only prefers different master colors.

• The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. You discover them equidistant from each other on the color wheel. These are the "elemental" colors; not produced by mixing any other colors, and all other colors are derived from some combination of these three.
• The secondary colors are orange (mix of red and yellow), green (mix of blueish and yellow), and violet (mix of blue and red).
• The tertiary colors are obtained by mixing one primary colour and one secondary color. Depending on amount of color used, different hues can be obtained such as ruddy-orangish or yellow-green. Neutral colors (browns and grays) tin can be mixed using the iii primary colors together.
• White and black lie outside of these categories. They are used to lighten or darken a color. A lighter colour (made by adding white to information technology) is called a tint , while a darker colour (fabricated by adding black) is chosen a shade .

Colour Mixing

Think about color every bit the result of low-cal reflecting off a surface. Understood in this style, colour can be represented as a ratio of amounts of principal colour mixed together. Color is produced when parts of the external light source's spectrum are absorbed past the material and not reflected back to the viewer's eye. For instance, a painter brushes blue pigment onto a canvass. The chemical limerick of the pigment allows all of the colors in the spectrum to be absorbed except bluish, which is reflected from the paint's surface.  Common applications of subtractive color theory are used in the visual arts, color press and processing photographic positives and negatives.

• The primary colors are red, yellowish, and blueish.
• The secondary colors are orange, green and violet.
• The third colors are created by mixing a main with a secondary color.
• Black is mixed using the 3 primary colors, while white represents the absence of all colors. Note: because of impurities in subtractive color, a true black is impossible to create through the mixture of primaries. Considering of this the event is closer to dark-brown. Similar to condiment colour theory, lightness and darkness of a colour is determined by its intensity and density.

Subtractive Color Mixing. Released under the GNU Gratis Documentation License

Color Attributes

In that location are many attributes to color. Each one has an consequence on how we perceive it.

• Hue refers to colour itself, but besides to the variations of a color.
• Value (equally discussed previously) refers to the relative lightness or darkness of 1 color next to another. The value of a color tin make a difference in how it is perceived. A color on a night groundwork will appear lighter, while that same colour on a light background volition appear darker.
• Saturation refers to the purity and intensity of a color. The primaries are the most intense and pure, but diminish equally they are mixed to form other colors. The creation of tints and shades also diminish a color'south saturation. Two colors work strongest together when they share the same intensity.

Color Interactions

Beyond creating a mixing hierarchy, colour theory also provides tools for agreement how colors work together.

Monochrome

The simplest colour interaction is monochrome. This is the use of variations of a single hue. The advantage of using a monochromatic color scheme is that you go a loftier level of unity throughout the artwork because all the tones relate to one some other. See this in Mark Tansey's Derrida Queries de Man from 1990.

Coordinating Color

Analogous colors are like to one another. As their proper name implies, analogous colors can exist plant next to one another on any 12-part color wheel:

Coordinating Color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC By

Y'all tin see the result of analogous colors in Paul Cezanne'south oil painting Auvers Panoromic View

Color Temperature

Colors are perceived to take temperatures associated with them. The colour cycle is divided into warm and absurd colors. Warm colors range from yellowish to blood-red, while absurd colors range from yellow-green to violet.  You tin achieve complex results using just a few colors when y'all pair them in warm and absurd sets.

Warm absurd color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are found directly opposite one another on a color wheel. Here are some examples:

• purple and yellow
• greenish and blood-red
• orange and blue

Complementary Color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC Past

Blueish and orangish are complements. When placed near each other, complements create a visual tension. This color scheme is desirable when a dramatic effect is needed using only two colors.

seven. Texture

At the most basic level, 3-dimensional works of fine art (sculpture, pottery, textiles, metalwork, etc.) and architecture have actual texture which is often determined by the material that was used to create it: wood, stone, statuary, clay, etc. 2-dimensional works of art like paintings, drawings, and prints may try to evidence implied texture through the employ of lines, colors, or other ways. When a painting has a lot of actual texture from the application of thick paint, we call that impasto.

The first paradigm below is a sculpture, and similar all three-dimensional objects it has actual texture.

The next two images are details from the painting The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck. Here, the artist has created implied texture. If yous were to touch on this painting you would not experience the fabric of the wearable and carpet, the wooden floor or the polish metal of the chandelier, but our eyes "see" the texture.

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