Lauren Wesley
Foundation Design I
Design Basics: Chapter 4 Scale/ Proportion
Introduction:
Ø Proportion- refers to relative size, size measured against other elements or against some mental norm or standard.
o Connotation- Proportion can best be described as a measurement of elements put together to produce a “fit” art piece.
o Example: Richard Roth. Untitled. (1983). The small stool and the clues provide a scale reference for judging the size of the sphere.
Ø Montage- Art work created from small pieces; a picture or other work of art composed by assembling, overlapping, and overlapping many different materials or pieces collected from different sources, such as photographs, magazines, and other pictures.
o Connotation- Montage is in comparison to a collage. Its grouping and overlapping artwork, pictures, and others things into a big layout.
Ø Hieratic scaling- when the artist establishes not only an obvious focal point but indicated the relative conceptual status of the ruler and his subjects.
o Connotation- Hieratic scaling is the process that the artist undergoes when laying out a focal point.
Scale of art
Human Scale Reference
Ø One way to think of artistic scale is to consider the work itself- its size in relation to other art, in relation to its surroundings, or in relation to its human size.
Scale of Art
Context
Ø Earthworks are unique in the grandeur of scale.
Scale within art
Internal Proportions
Ø The second way to discuss artistic scale is to consider the size and scale of elements within the design or pattern. The scale here, of course, is relative to the overall areas of the format- a big element in one painting might be small in a larger work. Again, we often use the term “proportion” to describe the size relationships between various parts of a unit. To say an element in a composition is “out of proportion” carries a negative feeling and it is true that such a visual effect is often startling or unsettling. However, it is possible that this reaction is precisely what some artist desire.
Scale within Art
Contrast of Scale
Ø Scale can attract our attention in different ways, depending on the artist’s purpose. Scale can be used to draw our notice to the unexpected or exaggerated, as when small objects are magnified or large ones reduced.
o Example: Mark Fennessey. Insects IV. (1965-66). This wash drawing is startling, now seen enlarged to page-filling size. Just the extreme change in scale attracts our attention.
Scale Confusion
Ø Surrealism- is an art form based on paradox, on images that cannot be explained in rational terms.
o Connotation- Surrealism can be described as art form that can’t be described in regular terms.
o Example: Rene Magritte. Personal Values. (1952). This painting shows one such enigma, with much of the mystery stemming from confusion of scale. We identify the various elements easily enough, but they are all the wrong size and strange in portion to each other.
Proportion
Notions of the Ideal
Ø Golden rectangle- has influence art and design throughout the succeeding centuries. The fact that this proportion is found in growth patterns in nature and lends itself to a modular repetition has given it some authority in the history of design.
Ø Golden Mean- is width is to length as length is to length plus width (w:l as l:l + w)
o Connotation- Golden mean is width to length and vice versa.
Reproduction of Artwork
Who designed it?: Gustave Moreau
How was it designed?:
When was it designed/publicly announced?: French, 1826-1898
Fun Facts: Moreau, a virtually unknown artist at the age of thirty-eight, triumphed at the Salon of 1864 with his interpretation of the myth of Oedipus and the Sphinx. The painting represents the moment when Oedipus confronts the winged monster outside Thebes and must solve her riddle to save his life as well as those besieged Thebans.
The work shows Moreau’s awareness of Ingres’s version of the subject (Musee du Louvre, Paris), painted in 1808, which Moreau had sketched. It also demonstrates his familiarity with works by the early Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna, whose paintings Moreau had studied at the Louvre. Moreau’s choice of a mythological subject and his deliberately archaizing style distinguished his painting from the Realist and naturalist currents of the 1860s.
This painting is really interesting. While at the Met in N.Y. I discovered this! This painting has a since of surrealism because it can’t be described in regular terms. The proportion of the two figures within the painting are positioned just right to attract the viewer’s eye. I believe that the artist chose to use hieratic scaling to present a main focal point which would most likely be the woman’s lower part of body. The viewer’s eye is drawn to that particular point because it stands out more than the other things in the painting.
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