Glenn Hirsch, Instructor www.glennhirsch.com

1. Composition is the
arrangement of shapes
to keep the eye moving
with pleasure.
Glenn Hirsch

2. Ilya Repin

3. line has rhythm

5. Giovanni Tiepolo

6. Claude Lorraine

7. Paul Signac

8. Victor Hugo

9. Positive and Negative Shapes
create rhythm

10. M.C. Escher

11. Jackson
Pollock

12. Diebenkorn

13. Picasso

14. Robert Bechtel, watercolor

15. DIAGONALS keep the eye moving

16. Gericault

17. Giovanni Tiepolo, 1760

18. Anders
Zorn

19. Anders Zorn, watercolor

20. Goya

21. Victor Hugo

22. Andrew Wyeth

23. Stephen Scott Young, watercolor

24. SCALE unites smaller shapes into large
shapes by unifying the color

26. Victor Hugo

27. Nicolas Poussin

28. translation of value
dark on top of light
light on top of dark

29. A ‘translation
of value’ white
against dark,
and dark
against light
Georges Seurat

30. Nicolas Poussin

31. Value studies are a means of simplifying, organizing, and
expressing the essential massing of light and dark.
To appreciate abstraction it’s important to understand that
this is really about structural contrasts and relationships,
not things.
Using a limited number of tones is a way to sift out the
clutter of small details to get to the poetry of the big
abstract tonal structure – the real bones of the subject.

32. Guercino

33. Caravaggio

34. Victor Hugo

35. Translation of value -
light against dark, and
dark against light.

36. Mo Seder

37. Positive and Negative Shape creates rhythm
Repetition creates rhythm
Scale creates impact
Diagonals keep the eye moving all over the picture
The exchange of value creates relationships