The Six Principles of Design
Unity and Variety: Unity, in the art world, is a sense of ‘sameness’ throughout an art piece. It may display itself in a mundane way if the entire artwork maintains unity, such as a singular color or texture throughout, but it has merit.
Meanwhile, variety presents itself as the exact opposite end of unity—it is all about the numerous, diverse elements. Collectively, variety can be cohesive, but still offer a busy composition for the artist’s audience to take in.
Together, the juxtaposition of variety and the consistency of unity bring out harmony that was carefully crafted by the artist. See, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt, and how the color palette is overwhelmingly gold as it wraps around the subject. Yet the patterns of shapes offer various sizing and creating an illusion of differentiating texture.
Balance: Such as life, balance represents finding stability in the layout of all the components of an artwork. Balance can be conformed through symmetry—when the composition feels and visualizes equal structure on a mirrored plane—or can be purposefully altered through asymmetry for an unconventional presentation.
See, The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, and how it executes successful asymmetrical balance with a large wave to the left while still showing proper and interesting visual weight. Some could argue that the golden ratio is also present here.
Emphasis and Subordination: Artists often encounter an issue in how to make sure the main subject matter is brought to focus when there are several elements to consider. This is solved through emphasis, which is when a higher level of contrast is applied to the subject to draw the eye immediately whether that be through color values (light and dark intensity, etc.) or literal features that point to it.
As with subordination, the rest of the composition is not deemed of the same importance, so these are muted and neutral, almost dull. But the same level of consideration is given to create the overall focal point.
See, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, and how the coat of the man is a darker, deeper value than the mountains ahead of him. The cast of clouds is lighter and stays in the background to emphasize the rocky cliff that the subject stands on.
Directional Forces: The directional forces in art are the guiding paths that are either blatant through methods like arrows and grids or imagined through the elements being placed deliberately that the eye is inclined to follow. It is often dealt with in the matter of a horizon line and a vertical line, with diagonals that create either a triangular shape at the extreme points or show which direction and action is occurring.
See, Dance of the Lupine by John Burton, where a horizon line exists at the very top of the painting which shows how far out the path of flowers extends out to in the distance. A slanted line could be drawn from the upper left towards the bottom right showing that the field is three-dimensional. The zigzag line of the flowers adds visual intrigue.
Repetition and Rhythm: If something occurs multiple times in succession, then what is happening is repetition of the same thing over and over. When an artwork features repetition, the elements (whether that be colors, sound, size, etc.) work side by side to create a pattern that can be predicted due to what was shown previously.
As a response, rhythm is when the repeated aspects work cohesively and a sense of connection. Oftentimes patterns can be found in fabric art or clothing.
See, Golconda by René Magritte, it can present itself in surrealist paintings by repeating the same floating man across a shot of apartments. From silhouettes sharing the same pose, and the rectangular windows, there is an array of repetition.
Scale and Proportion: Scale in art is not too dissimilar to a scale used to weigh objects, but rather, it measures a subject’s relations to its surrounding elements. The size of the canvas, or the pieces within the canvas, should be determined beforehand so that the artist knows what they are dealing with. The bigger something is, the more space it takes up, and the smaller something is the less focus will be shined upon it.
That said, proportion is about the sizing of individual parts of a whole. For instance, determining if one exaggerates the size of a person’s eyes can create new meaning due to the enlargement or shrinkage of said body part.
See, Migrant by Jeff Jordan, a giant frog sits atop of a coastal town. This is not indicative of anything in real life as a frog cannot grow this large in nature. Thus, it creates a surrealist narrative that is done by pushing scale past what was deemed plausible.
