The document discusses various techniques for creating rhythm and movement in painting compositions, including: 1) Using positive and negative shapes, repetition of shapes, and diagonals to keep the eye moving across the painting. 2) Varying scale of shapes to create impact and unite smaller shapes into larger forms. 3) The exchange of light and dark values, with dark shapes against light or light against dark backgrounds. 4) Creating patterns through repetition that establish rhythmic movement through the work.

1. Composition
in Painting
The Arrangement of Shapes
to Keep the Eye Moving
with Pleasure
Glenn Hirsch, Instructor

2. Positive v. Negative Shape create rhythm
Repetition of shape creates rhythm
Diagonals keep the eye moving
The exchange of value creates relationships
Scale creates impact

3. Positive v. Negative Shapes
create rhythm

4. Do you see bats
or angels?
Hopefully you see both
alternating in an energetic
rhythm
of back and forth
(M.C. Escher 1930)

5. Franz Kline, 1953

6. Henri Matisse

7. Jackson
Pollock,
1944

8. Gustav
Courbet,
1855

9. Graham
Sutherland
1944

11. Vladimir Volegov

12. DIAGONALS keep the eye moving

13. Theodore Gericault
Study for Raft of the Medusa
1819

14. Ilya Repin

15. Anders Zorn
watercolor

16. Anders Zorn, watercolor

17. Stephen Scott Young, watercolor

18. Stephen Scott Young, watercolor

19. watercolor and colored pencil

21. SCALE unites smaller shapes into large
shapes to create more power

22. Adam Hirsch

23. Raphael (left),
Rubens (right)

24. Serov

25. Francis Picabia
1913

26. Exchange of value
dark on top of light
vs.
light on top of dark

27. An ‘exchange
of value’
white
against dark
and dark
against light
Georges Seurat,
1885

28. Nicolas Poussin

29. Mo Seder

30. Vladimir Volegov

31. Pattern creates rhythm
through repetition

32. Tomb of Nakht 1500 BCE

33. Gustave Klimt, 1905

34. Evenly spaced
Deborah Oropallo 1989
Staggered, uneven

35. Leonardo’s art
isn’t as much
Botticelli’s art
is all about
pattern

36. Botticelli detail from
The Trials of Moses
Sistine Chapel

38. Édouard Vuillard
(French, 1868-1940)
Vuillard lived with his mother, a dressmaker, and was very familiar
with pattern.
His art is decorative with intricate patterns marked by a gentle humor
and executed in a delicate, soft color to create soft and complex
rhythms.