make art...
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I think a lot about just why a good art image is better than the rest. And about what makes that accomplished artist's eye better than most people's.
Have you found the secret to the best art? Me neither. Doesn't mean I haven't learned a few things. Things with seem pretty obvious, but still may not have received the attention they deserve.
Lately, I've been thinking about Design and about Essence. Seems to me that the artists who make images I relate to best take a designer's approach to their seeing and expression. It's as if they filter the world through their cultivated design sense and show us strong designs that come out the other side - designs which also happen to have subjects and stories, of course.
These subjects and their stories sit way up high on a strong scaffold of design. The chaos and complexity of the real world and the triviality of the default point-of-view (POV) give way to designed balance, strength and simplicity. Sure, the subject and the story usually must come through to dominate the visual communication - but in a more potent form after undergoing that purification and distillation of design.
What I'm thinking is that these successful images work by using strong design to capture and transmit essences. In other words, a mature design sense guides and enables the artist to express their unique personal vision not only in their technique, but in their ability to capture essence. And that essence has everything to do with the spiritual and emotional power of their work.
Of course, chiaroscuro (the play of light and dark in a composition, without considering color) is a big part of any image's design. It includes the geometry and visual balance and a lot of the influence on the viewer's eyepath. And in most scenes, it has everything to do with lights, highlights, contouring and shadows. That is, Chiaroscuro is strongly driven by lighting. Then there is color, another strong design driver. And the corners and borders of the image frame also have their influence. Lets add in the psychological and social effects, like eye contact, the symmetry of human artifacts, iconic objects, atmospheric and water effects and such.
Unless I've forgotten something, it seems that POV (including framing), chiaroscuro (including lighting), color and pyscho-social effects are some of the main elements the artist manipulates in using design to capture essence.
But design isn't a "one-filter-fits-all" kind of thing. Something unique to the scene (and in the artist) has to drive a design. That something is the artist's pre-visualization of their image, whether from the world or from their imagination.
So, the most successful artists, to my mind, are the ones who capture the essence of a scene using a strong design. Those of us who walk around looking at the world through the viewfinder of a camera know just how difficult it is to find and record essence in a scene - minus all the clutter, chaos, triviality and complexity of the world.
Here's an example of what I mean. It's one of my 3D modeled outdoor scenes. A 3D modeled scene makes a good example, because we have complete control of all those design elements. But it could just as well be a real scene with a real painter or photographer in it - substituting time of day, weather or painters "artistic license" for lighting changes, a handy upthrust of land for a higher POV, etc.
First, lets look at a poorly located artist's placement (POV), at eye level, and with simple default lighting from an overhead sun.
Next, we see grayscale versions to better show the chiaroscuro.
And finally, saturated color versions to emphasize the use of color in the designs.
Wishing you a creative future!
_jim coe
