I was hoping we could have a thread where we analyze different pieces of art.
I have an assignment for a college art class to make a composition (including several figures) that portrays an assigned emotion. My emotion is Fear.
I'm studying from other pieces, old masters' and such, to get ideas. I'm particularly interested in learning about how the angles and shapes within a specific piece may influence the feeling it conveys, i.e. horizontal lines causing stability, and diagonals having more movement.
Pic related is difficult for me to find anything other than the prominent darks giving way to the blood reds, and of course the expression of the figures, that allows this painting to be successful. Placement-wise, all I see are two figures in the center of the plane.
I should add that the assignment is a charcoal drawing, so I can't rely on color to help. That's why I'm primarily focusing on general compositions.
>>2276987
You can move beyond angles and shapes and go for general focus points like faces, its what humans are best at interpreting and focusing on.
Personally whenever I see this piece my eye immediately darts towards the focal point of Ivan the Terrible's haunted eyes, and then quickly runs a S-pathway through his son's figure, from head to foot, leading to the end of the spear/scepter and following along its length until I see the blood.
Its a very nice composition.
>>2276993
Same, I see the eyes. So wild and exaggerated.
Thanks for the input.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, the son's hand is resting on Ivan's arm/shoulder, and it sorta seems to me like he could've been pushing away(?)
There's a crapload of triangles all over the place. If I kept outlining them all the entire canvas would be green. And they're pointing every which-way. So maybe that helps give the piece that maddening look. Triangle is also just a sharp pointy stabby shape, so you know some violent shit has just gone down.
There's a bunch of diagonals going in different directions also, perhaps helping to make it disheveled and tense, despite it being an image of two kneeling and embracing figures.
I like that shadowy serpent-looking figure in the background too, it looks like a decorative arm-rest/end of a bench. A representation of a dark side of Ivan's psyche?
>>2277247
I see someone went to art school.
>>2277247
>repin did the hipster triangles before it was cool
>>2277247
ayy lmao
>>2277274
This. It's like 4th grade when the english teacher tries to tell you some bullshit symbolism behind a blue blanket.
>>2277247
:^)
>>2276987
Dutch angle (tilted horizon) can be worth knowing about. The term is lifted from cinematography and is often used in horror themed illustration. Very popular in card illustrations too (applibot etc). Don't think I've ever seen it in fineart though.
>>2277309
That is very interesting. Thank you!
Bump.
>>2277673
Analysis: Sargent was a genius. He composes values here so your eye runs down from the guitars, along the players and catches at the point of highest contrast- the dancer. That's it, Sargent is known for just painting amazing pictures with little to nothing behind them conceptually. His biggest critique was seriously 'he's so good at painting, its wrong that he makes pictures for the rich, he should be making statements about society and muh concept'.
>>2277673
holy fuck this is good
>>2277673
Every single time I look at this picture for a moment I can hear the sound of the chords and her feet hitting against the ground, the people cheering from the back clapping for a moment before the colors take me back.
Fucking Sargent man, the way the shadows play in the background indicating movement, the black masses of color that blend into the ground, the little highlights on the guitars, the limited color palette and that rich contrasting white color on her dress and those beautifully drawn hand twists, this is just perfect.
btw here's a high res version
>>2277673
>>2278302
>>2278312
>>2278329
I'm a pretty massive Sargent fan, but for some reason I never much liked this particular one if his. Just a lot of small things don't jive with me. Her pose looks unnatural and awkward, the background people don't feel very alive to me and don't feel harmonious, the two guitars are handled so differently, the painting just feels awkward in general. There's of course some pieces of it that I like, but on the whole I don't feel it is fully successful. I don't think I've met other people who agree with me on this one though.
>>2278302
Why would you look at the guitars first ?
You can barely see them against the wall.
Its more likely to see the dancer or the people sitting.
>>2278562
It's the first time I'm seeing El Jaleo (embarrassing because love Sargent's work), but I have to agree that my eyes were drawn by the guitars first. The reason probably being they're bright isolated shapes in a dark, central area of the painting. They then led me to the figure of the dancer.
>>2278594
>>2278594
I think >>2278302 was talking about the guitars on the wall, not the guitars being played. Speaking of the guitars, it looks like Johnny forgot to finish rendering the leftmost one on the wall. What a hack.
>>2278330
>I don't think I've met other people who agree with me on this one though.
and rightfully so. you collossal faggot.
>>2278330
Hate to say "It's supposed to be like that" but I think it is. The painting looks frightening to me. The way her shadow looms off her body. The shadows of the musicians. The guy to the left of her looks dead, too. And the far right woman's dress looks almost like blood. On top of that, it isn't particularly colorful. The dancer's skin is pale. I think it successfully makes me uneasy.
>>2278562
>>2278664
I think the guitars being played help to point to the direction of the dancer. The two on the wall complete a rhythm, and help balance out the wall plane although the shadow is obviously overtaking it.
I'll just keep bumping with different works I like/am innerested in.
>>2278674
>Hate to say "It's supposed to be like that" but I think it is. The painting looks frightening to me. The way her shadow looms off her body. The shadows of the musicians. The guy to the left of her looks dead, too. And the far right woman's dress looks almost like blood. On top of that, it isn't particularly colorful. The dancer's skin is pale. I think it successfully makes me uneasy.
Maybe the ghost-guitar belongs to another band member who died, that's why there is an empty chair. With an orange on it. Maybe a blood orange? They are apparently a symbol for death.
>>2278684
>Maybe a blood orange? They are apparently a symbol for death.
I've never heard that one.
>>2277247
This is like when people read into films to much when teaching classes and make you write essays on shot composition and how every element contains some symbolism.
Take a breathe and just view the art. The artist didnt intend for you to dissect it in this way
>>2278691
>I don't analyze images I like, or think about what I'm doing while making my own images.
Your loss.
>>2278691
I don't think he consciously decided to put all these 'triangles' and shapes in. But I think he understood how forms and their placement will lead the eye a certain way across the painting.
>>2277247
You're a fucking idiot.
For a start the pictures you have chosen as examples of fear are really other people's fear. The emotion produced in the viewer is clearly pity.
For Ivan the terrible you have figures on the ground and the POV is looking down at them. Ergo, the viewer is in a position of power over the figures.
To be more exact, the POV is from someone kneeling, giving the slight suggestion that the hypothetical person whose eyes you witnessing the scene from is benevolent.
Place the POV at a more extreme angle looking down then you have animosity towards the figures, as the POV would be someone towering over figures in helpless positions.
Furthermore, context and fucking cane in the foreground tell you this is a father who has clubbed his son in the head, he isn't looking off camera at a monster, Ivan is in deep terror and regret at his action.
Only Ivan's eye's express fear, if you are looking at composition alone, all you have here is pity.
You are doing this to annoy me.
Forgive the crudeness of my drawing here, but this is a quick composition that portrays that the viewer should be afraid. Low horizon line suggests that the figure is in a position of weakness, he is small, and looking upwards at something bigger than him. The figure is blocking out the light, closing you in, light suggests space, and darkness doesn't, so the figure has you trapped with no space.
Think about psychology, think about power and light. Think about the horizon and angles. Not random fucking angles either.
You can modify my basic composition here many different ways, put the camera off to the side a bit and put a couple of girls in the foreground with their backs to you, or sort of side on.
If you wanted to do a futurist piece, by all means pick out random meaningless angles and assign a movement value to them, but that isn't your homework, you're doing something figurative.
>>2278711
OP here, not guy you're replying to.
But thanks for the input.
Like I said, it was difficult for me to find anything about the composition that helped in causing me to feel fearful when seeing it. The eyes, where I said was the first place I look, is also the one place you said that expresses fear.
That is why I understood the painting to convey fear, because 'my' focal point is the eyes.
>>2278711
Hi, triangle guy here, I am not the OP and thus have not chosen the images.
You should probably experiment with making some images where you focus on your shape language. Just give it a try. Then you might be able to come up with something that isn't as trite as a big hulking black monster centered in the comp with a low camera angle and some fog in the background. Your next step would be to add some underlighting and a rimlight, and skew the horizon into a dutch angle, right? Right. Boring.
>>2278728
Oh, I'm glad that wasn't you, sorry.
Yes the eyes convey fear, but forget those. Composition isn't about that really. You have to look at the entire painting, and try to reduce that to the camera angle and the placement of the figures. Look at this, you can't really see fear anymore, but you can still see pity.
According to wikiart, he "painted this piece as a as an expression of his rejection of violence and bloodshed", which I think would back up what I'm saying. If he wanted to paint fear I think he probably would have shown actual violence in the piece, which doesn't really say "violence is bad", because he would be using violence to show that, does that make sense? It's way more subtle show Ivan being afraid than to strike fear into the hearts of his audience or into Ivan the son.
>>2278733
Yeah my composition was trite and boring, so? I didn't want to do OP's homework for him, I wanted to illustrate a point about composition. I don't see how shape language comes into it at all.
If I was doing something like that for real (and I wouldn't) I think the first thing I would do is work on my terrible anatomy.
Shape language probably is something that would be fun for me to explore, but as you could probably guess I'm a complete beginner and I'm working on drawing from life rather than from imagination at this stage. Besides, this thread isn't about me.
hi OP, this is kind of an interesting subject, even if it is just for a school assignment. Do you mean a kind of painting that depicts fear, or one that makes the viewer feel frightened? I feel when it comes to making the viewer feel frightened, you should look into horror movies and the methods they use to evoke fear. Obviously you can't use jumpscares, so focus more on the terror side of it.
I think that sometimes it's less about what you do show and more about what you imply. The pic I posted is kinda anime, but when I first saw it a few years ago I found it pretty spooky. It's just kinda unsettling, right? The blank stare, the lifeless smile, and the obscured face. And it's a really close and tight shot of the person's face, so it feels like you're uncomfortably close to them. The tilt of the head and the smile give the impression that the character's trying to be friendly, but the overall feel of the piece goes against that and makes it just feel uncanny. The face half in shadow is a little cliche, but it's what I feel was done best here. It's not like they just made the other half totally dark, there's still an indication of the whites of the eye, some strands of hair, and the jaw. There are some lighter values in the background too, but you can't quite tell what they are/what they're supposed to be, and the figure's so close that it feels like you can't just look past them... It's interesting! It makes me uneasy, like seeing your coat hanging from your door at night and thinking someone's in your room, but you can't turn on the light.
>>2278756
Very interesting. Thanks for having me see the piece in a different light. It did always have me feeling some empathy for Ivan, now that I think of it.
>>2278758
I mean to make a piece that expresses fear, rather than have a representation of it. If it makes the viewer feel fear too, then that's a plus.
I'd like to imply more than explain in the drawing, and keep some mystery. I think that's a large part of fear, maybe even the definition of it. Like in the previous Anon's drawing, your picture has a primary figure that is so overpowering. I'm not sure if I'd like to do something like that, and would rather show the figures in peril/terror from an unseen antagonist. I've also seen pictures like yours on the 'Chon before, and have been thoroughly spooped.
Pic related is tiny, and hardly a rich composition, but it's what your picture made me think of.
Here's 'The Hands Resist Him'.
It's gotten attention before over its supposed haunting.
It isn't hard to see why it would garner this kind of attention. Very uncanny. It lacks the movement and peril that I'd like to have in my drawing, though I think it easily makes the viewer uncomfortable, and maybe even fearful.
>>2278771
I think this is too in your face. There's images that get the same emotion across without drawing creepy children and hands scratching on a window. I'm too lazy to dig through my 600gb folder in order to find what I mean though.
>>2278779
According to the artist, he didn't mean for it to be eerie. The door is something about the realm of possibilities that the doll is guiding the boy into.
I do see what you mean though. Like he's relying a bit on symbols.
>>2278771
Fearful is the right word.
>>2276987
What makes that painting spook for me is the body language makes it look like the dad is alive and the son is dead, but the complection of their skin makes it look like the dad is the dying one. Plus that weird ass look he's giving.
>>2280053
He is dying. That's probably why. Good painting though it really annoyed me how it was used as a reaction image on /b/ and /r9k/
>>2277247
OH GOD I REMEMBER YOU
>>2280080
I'm not the guy that was putting grids over Jaime Jones' paintings if that's who you are thinking of. That is going too far and I can agree, it is bullshit. But anyone who doesn't pay attention to implied lines in their work, or what kind of shapes they are working with, and where those shapes are pointing... well, they are ignoring some pretty important stuff. Not to say that you sit there and plan out a bunch of triangles in your initial thumbnails, but as you are working on your piece you find bits here and there that you can nudge or emphasize to create better flow, pointers, contrasts, etc.
Is it a coincidence that there is a triangular shape happening in tones and folds of the rug in the lower left of the Ivan image, preventing your eye from leaving the image? Maybe. Probably not though. You see people do this all the time with a shadowy shape blocking the corner. Repin is just more subtle about it than your average digital fantasy-landscape noob artist. Then you have the fallen throw-pillow or whatever leading you back in. I also don't think it is a coincidence that Repin has so many jagged shapes in this piece. Shapes have a feel to them just as colors do, as well as a push and pull and opportunity for contrasts. They can create rhythms as well. So many artists on /ic/ would only draw things literally, it seems - two guys on a carpet, based off muh reference photos - and not bother to tweak the shapes to achieve a stronger piece.
Hey /ic/ why is this painting unsettling?
Not OP btw
>>2279839
Another image intended to be frightening or unsettling that utilizes several non-parallel diagonals, and triangular shapes. A pure coincidence, according to /ic, because Goya didn't know what the fuck he was doing and just winged everything and fell upon things by chance. No thought given to shapes, because shapes aren't an aspect of image making, apparently.
>>2280155
Wow, great example of an unsettling image that doesn't rely on monsters or gore or anything. And it doesn't have any of my controversial triangles, aside from the implied triangular shapes in the tones of the foreground flooring that leads us towards to door. Average /ic artist would just paint that floor all one tone and it would be much more boring. That maybe isn't really contributing to the unsettling quality, though.
I guess it is unsettling because it is empty, there are some shadowy areas, and we can't really see anything. Can't see into any of the rooms - sensory deprivation. That scary unknown. The wacky lines at the top of the image are unsettling too.
>>2280155
Personally I don't find Hammershoi's work to be unsettling (actually I get annoyed that it's the only reason he seems to ever get brought up considering how beautiful his work is), but I can guess at why others might see it as spooky.
This particular one has some weird distortions in the image for some reason, perhaps a scan from a book with the pages not flat. So the physical space feels slightly "off". Then there is no traditional subject in it. We naturally expect there to be a figure or something, maybe a vase or plant. But there's nothing. He just wanted to paint the room and doors. So the absence of a subject may be a bit unsettling. Plus the bit of window that is visible is just a tiny sliver--our view is mostly obscured. Why can't we see what's in the other rooms? Is the "subject" in there? Humans have a fear of the unknown, and this painting may give that feeling and unease. Why are there no people? Or can we simply not see them? Why is there no furniture or signs of life? This house feels oddly empty.
>>2280145
lol you don't know wtf you are talking about
>>2280155
it isn't
>>2280188
>This particular one has some weird distortions in the image for some reason, perhaps a scan from a book with the pages not flat.
Do you know this for sure? I thought the same thing at first, but looking through his other images, it looks like he intentionally fucks things up.
>>2280204
Fucking hell I thought I saw an aberration of a face or hand or of some sort by the window and was genuinely spooked.
>>2280204
Hm, no I don't know for certain. It seems an odd choice though. Like it's not consistent with how he "mispaints" the perspective in some other images, and most of his are fine for that sort of thing. Plus there are many other views of that same exact doorway in other paintings that he painted without any distortion.
But all versions online seem to be from the same original source image and have that distortion in it. It's a terrible quality image though so it's hard to say. I'd be curious to see it in real life. For what it's worth the museum it is housed at also has that image with the distortion on their website, and I see no reason for them to have an image from a book on their site if they have the original. So it may very well be in the painting, but I am hesitant to say anything for sure.
>>2280204
Ooh, I like this one. The distortion gives me a sense of vertigo, combined with not being able to see what I'm "standing" on and having a slight view of the ground. I want to keep my eye on the ground to make sure I don't fall, but it's captured by the window instead - and it being open in itself makes me wonder if someone may have jumped, further making me want/scared to look down. The wall texture towards the bottom of the frame also has quite a bit of interesting contrast, drawing your eye downwards but not quite enough to keep it away from that window.
>>2276987
this painting of ivan the terrible by repin is really what sparked my interest in art. it has now come to a point where i have decided to start learning myself. it just blows my mind every time see that painting, it gives me goosebumps.
>>2276993
People don't look at things following a line, why do all composition critics/suggestion say this?
It's been established for quite a long while that when humans look at things, we first focus on one smaller detail (like you say), and then see everything at large, a general, full-FOV's view.
Is this composition line thing a meme at this point?
>>2281435
Essentially even if our eyes don't follow smooth paths from one thing to another, images that have those paths are more pleasing to the eye in general than ones that have no organization at all. It's an understudied area though and no one has any real answers other than that.
>>2278756
>painted this piece as a as an expression of his rejection of violence and bloodshed
This. Jesus christ people should stop dickriding popular works of art and overanalyze the fuck out of them, it's pathetic.
>>2281436
I guess if there isn't any valid counter argument I'll take it it's a meme from snobby "muh feelings" fags.
>>2281438
Sure, I mean, feel free to disregard roughly 500 years of knowledge built up by some of the greatest artists of all time. Because some eye tracking software a couple years ago means they must all be entirely wrong, and everything they built is just a meme.
>>2281439
>can't be proven or demonstrated
>"knowledge"
I only disregard the 500 years old memes, not all art in general, no worries.
>>2280208
>tfw somebody saves your shitty eevee drawing as a reaction pic
>>2281435
You have one image where the focal point draws your attention through subject matter, detail, and tonal contrast. Then you have another version of this image where the focal point is exactly the same, but secondary objects are arranged such that they create lines leading towards the focal point. Guess which version of the image will have a stronger pull towards the focal point?
>>2281566
There will be no difference, because the focal point is the first thing you notice no matter what. It's not the other way around.
>>2280204
I can only guess, but I see this is all of his paintings. Either he does add faces or the paintings are so unsettling your mind can't help but "see" what's not there.
Like the one with the doors above - look at the window at the top of the door.
I used to be extremely scared of the dark and Villhelm's paintings look EXACTLY the way I would percieve every day objects/places when night time fell and I'd have to go to sleep.
If I were to own one of his paintings I would lock it in a cabinet in the attic and then NEVER go up there again, even though I love his work. Shit is haunted.
