* Note: Rembrandt graphic above: 200 years ago the bottom section of this painting was cut off to make it fit a wall - I have added a band to simulate the original composition proportions.

Principle no. 1
To be a creative artist is to understand the language of art such that you can shape it to express your feelings through artistic thoughts.

Principle no. 2
The language of art is not a scientifically accurate language. The language of art is based upon the application of tendencies and as such creates more variety of interpretation between people than absolute agreement between people.

If you have not read the supplementary material on Pre-classical and Classical tendencies: click here to do so

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 allowed 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.

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.

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 completely obscure objects, 5) there is what classicists consider an imprecise sloppy quality to our baroque approach.

When dealing with our two basic styles we must keep in mind the dynamic duality of the style concepts that make up these two basic styles;

1) linear to painterly;
2) plane to recession;
3) closed to open space;
4) multiplicity to subordination;
5) clarity to realitive clarity;

Remember to always think in terms of the mixtures between the two concepts within each style catagory. Style catagories are mixtures much like the grey scale between black and white or the range of colors obtained by the mixtures of yellow and blue - much like the moving graphic above. With this shifting idea in mind we begin our separate analysis of the five style catagories.
...................

...web introduction to be continued...mean while see my current lecture notes below...

......................................................