The Role of Hierarchy in Composition

Session 4: from multiplicity to subordination

4.1 General
The main idea to remember is that pictorial unity became the main objective of painting during the 16th century. The new vision united all the painting's shapes and textures that were competing for attention into a unified whole and at the same time allow them to retain their individuality.

In previous centuries individuals and groups were composed into planes but they were disconnected and did not form any coordinated recessional movement within the pictorial space. The creation of overlapping planes for the foreground, middle-ground, and background (FMB) that created a more naturalistic recessional space.

Some paintings had been designed to be read in bands from bottom to top (earth to heaven or heaven to earth) such the FMB was flattened to the picture plane. Another style dictated the painting was read in terms of overlapping bands that gave the illusion of moving into the picture in a more life like naturalistic fashion. This system required all human and non-human objects in the painting to be scaled in proportional size to reflect a more natural relationship to the real world. It is worth noting that these changes in western art occurred in conjunction with the alphabetization of the western world. Ideas about people and things were no longer ranked in terms of there emotional value but in relation to their position in the alphabet - e.g. cows and horses were now listed before kings this was most upsetting to kings who were also having to put up with artists wanting to make the king more normal sized and priests who had to agree that god could be scaled to a more life size.

So the multiplicity problem became one of placing important figures in prime locations within the pictorial field - much like arranging actors on a stage - but still maintaining overall unity.

4.2 Unity through Multiplicity: We use Leonardo's Last Supper as a sample starting point for our base style category titled Classical. Other names have been used to identify this style: e.g.intellectual, solid, solar - meaning daylight that exposes every part of a scene.

The light is evenly distributed over forms that are equally modeled. Facial expressions contribute to the emotional content. The figures sitting behind the long table form a plane and the figure of Christ is centralized - given slightly different clothing colours and is isolated to a degree. All the shapes are delineated by an edge or contour and the main shading used is known as edge shading. There are no dark shadow areas containing objects which require a concentrated effort to determine their identity.

To sum up: we have defined classical art as using 1) clear outlines, 2) edge shading, 3) equalized distribution of light, 4) shadow that describes the shape of the form, 5) the ability of the viewer to imagine a finger moving around and over every part of the form. 6) light and shadow are completely attached to the form in aiding its description, 7) shadow areas do not conceal all or part of their contents, 8) there is a precision quality to our classical approach.

4.3 Unity through subordination The 17th century gave birth to a new vision and to illustrate this vision we will use Rembrandt's Night Watch to illustrate our second style category titled Baroque. It should be noted that about 200 years ago 12inches was cut off the bottom of this painting in order for it to fit a wall - thus compromising its original composition.

The classical style allowed everyone's facial features to be given equal likeness in a group portrait and positions of importance were assigned to people of importance. The new style was more concerned with the play of light on objects than the identity of individual people. That meant some objects would get more light than others. Parts of those other objects may be completely obscured by shadow and not be easily identifiable.

Light and shadow are detached from clearly defining the identity of objects and become design features used to express overall movement. It is a nocturnal style as opposed to a daylight style. A style of subordination mystery and change as opposed to the classical style of revelation exposure and timelessness.

To sum up we define baroque art as: 1) eliminating parts of the contour such that the object is no longer completely defined by a contour line - this results in the eye moving over the surface of objects, 2) pictorial space is organized into recessional planes that merge as they move into the distance, 3) light is used to as design and not specifically to identify objects, 4) shadows partially and sometimes completelyobscure objects, 5) there is what classicists consider an imprecise sloppy quality to our baroque approach.

We have previously studied this under the titles :focal point, center of interest, a-chromatic center ( maximum small area of light and dark contrast) , chromatic center ( maximum small area of pure intense colour contrast). All of which because of contrast attract's the eye to a shape or the intersection of shapes.

We have also previously studied the application of different intensities to foreground (strongest) , middle-ground (more neutral) and back-ground, (weakest) as a means of organizing eye movement within the pictorial space.

As you can see the word hierarchy or pyramid either of which would be more appropriate in describing this concept.

A more detailed description which relates to our previous studies in creating pictorial depth through the unity or pyramid approach is provided for your review as follows:

The more you decrease the intensity of the middle-ground plane in relation to the foreground plane and decrease the intensity of the background plane in relation to the middle ground plane you are creating a hierarchy of differences between the planes. The more intense planes attract the eye more than the less intense planes. This creates a centralized focal area with the other areas being made subordinate or having less eye attraction strength. All the subordinated planes work together with the dominate plane to form a whole.

4.4 Examples:

4.4.1 Example of Unity by Multiplicity (matrix)

We will view the graphic on page 10 of our reference book: "Thoughts on the North" by Bruno Cote

I would evaluate this painting as having a design bias towards unity by multiplicity. Normally we would look for clarity of objects in the foreground and equal clarity of objects in the background to determine a multiplicity style. If we consider brush strokes as objects then the foreground brush strokes used to describe rocks and water are as equally clear as the brush strokes used to define tree foliage and clouds in the middle and background.

my reasoning for classifying brush strokes as objects is that the trees in the background are clearly represented by individual brush strokes. A similar clarity appears in the foreground rocks and the brush strokes used to build those rocks which in turn are equal in clarity to the trees in the background.

My overall evaluation places this work in unity by multiplicity.

4.4.2 Example of Unity by Subordination (pyramid)

We will view our second example by using the graphic on page six.

This painting is an example of unity by subordination. Strong clearly contrasted shapes in the foreground followed by less contrasted shapes in the middle-ground, followed by even less contrasted shapes in the background.

My overall evaluation of this work is unity by subordination.

See following Graphic examples which apply to this web site version of my notes: