Composition - examples of note

[Mike McCarty]

I've used the above calculations to come up with the golden ratio point of interest for "El Jaleo." My calculation puts it at the point I've indicated with the red dot just above the guitar players head.

I would say that the more grand the composition, the more elements involved, the less use this measurement may be. If I apply it to the Valazquez below it comes up quite random in the upper left of center as indicated, yet, if applied to Vermeer's Pearl Ear Ring it hits the mark quite well.

And there is always the possibility that I have not applied the calculation correctly. I hope someone with more knowledge of this principle will come forward and tell what they know.

[Mike McCarty]

It has been brought to my attention that the above mentioned painting - Diego Velazquez's Las Hilanderas (The Spinners) c. 1657, is a reversed image. Thanks to Carlos Ygoa for bringing this to my attention. The image is reversed on the Art Renewal Center web site. It is indicated that the painting resides at the Museo del Prado, Madrid, so I trust that Carlos would know best. Makes you wonder how many other images are reversed, cropped or misrepresented in some way.

I've reworked the calculation mentioned above and noted the location with the red mark. It does make a difference. Diego now gives a sigh of relief.

Also, another not too shabby painting by Velazques: Juan de Pareja.

[Mike McCarty]

And once again with Diego Velazquez ...

Below is Las Meninas (Ladies in Waiting), 10'5" x 9'5".

For an interesting discussion regarding Velazquez and his paintings, and why this is the "Greatest painting in the world" you can click below:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/V/v...uez_atlee.html

And following I've listed three paintings by Thomas Wilmer Dewing. I think The Piano painting is really an interesting composition.

Lady with Lute
The Piano 1891
Woman in Purple and Green 1905 (I guess we'll have to imagine the colors)

Notice in this last painting how the back of the chair coincides with the line of her dress. This is a bit distracting to me and one of those little things that can be easily fixed.

[Tom Edgerton]

Mike--

My understanding (limited) of the Golden Mean is that it's plotted from both ends, and top and bottom, the result being four corners of a rectangle within the composition representing the four strongest points at which one could hang something compositionally important.

I haven't plotted it on "El Jaleo," but estimating by eye, it looks like if plotted from the right end, the mean point on the upper right of the rectangle would be about at the main dancer's chin, more or less. That would bring us very quickly to the head of the main character.

Make sense?

--TE

(Juan de Pareja is the one I'd go back in after if the Met caught fire.)

[Mike McCarty]

Tom, ET AL,

I'm going to try and get to the bottom of this "Golden Section."

Phi = 1.618033988749895
phi = .618033988749895

Pronounced Phi as in fish (pheel phree to jump right in).
Small "p" being the reciprocal of the capital "P".

The ratio, or proportion, determined by Phi (1.618 ...) was known to the Greeks as "dividing a line in the extreme and mean ratio" and to Renaissance artists as the "Divine Proportion." It is also called the Golden Section, Golden Ratio and the Golden Mean.

Just as pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, phi is simply the ratio of the line segments that result when a line is divided in one very special and unique way.

Divide a line (one side of your canvas) such that the ratio of the length of the entire line (A) to the length of the larger line segment (B) is the same as the ratio of the length of the larger line segment (B) to the length of the smaller line segment (C). In other words - (C) is to (B) as (B) is to (A).Conphused yet?

The Seurat example below, created by Seurat with full intention of following the golden section principles, is 300w x 195h pixels.

If we consider the whole first we would multiply the top of the canvas 300w by phi .618 and we would get 185. If we then follow over 185 clicks from the left this would be represented by the blue (and continuing down with the white) vertical line on the right. What we now have is two large rectangles which have that special relationship discussed above: A to B to C. Each of the two resulting rectangles would be considered a golden section.

If we then take the 195h and multiply it by phi .618 we get 120. Coming up from the bottom 120 clicks we see this represented by the horizontal blue line forming the rectangle at the top and bottom right. We now have two more rectangles on the right side of the canvas each being a golden section.

As you can see it goes even phurther, creating more from the last.

The idea was to place in these so called golden sections the important aspects of the composition.

And just phor the phun of it, and to phoster greater phlumux, it also holds true that if you take the 300h and divide it by 2.62 you will come up with 115, which is the other side of the 185 (totalling 300) that you get when multiplying 300h by phi .618.

And of course any of the multiplications by phi could be done as a division by Phi, it being the recipricol.

I would like to apply this to "El Jaleo" but my laptop software can't even draw a straight line. And besides, I'm tired of phiguring.

[Carlos Ygoa]

Tom:
to think juan de Pareja was a "warm up" to Innocent X because before doing the Pope, Velazquez had not done portraits in a while.
Mike, yes, "Las Meninas". Someone called it the Theology of Painting. Volumes have been written about this particular work, analyzed right down to the ground used on the linen--the red Cross of the Order of Santiago, the faces of the monarchs reflected in the mirror and all sorts of other comentaries. But what amazes me is the painter

[Mike McCarty]

I should point out that in my investigation of the Golden Section I did not come across anything that would indicate a single point of interest the way that I have indicating above. As Tom suggested, they are rectangular sections.

And to end the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend there is the Frenchman, James Jacques Joseph Tissot, 1836 - 1902.

This first is just the berries. I'm sure most people could guess the title if given a half a minute. To me this is about as charming as they get: Hide and Seek, 289x212 inches.

Next is a pastel on linen: The Princesse De Broglie, 66x38.

And then Mlle L. L. oil, 1864, 49x39,

and The Garden Bench oil, 1882

There's to many crusty old men displayed here, I'm going looking for a woman. I'm thinking Elisabeth Louise Vig

[Mike McCarty]

From her father she inherited a talent and taste for art, an amiable temper, a gift of wit; from her mother, a very handsome woman, she was dowered with a beauty for which she was as remarkable, and to which her many portraits of herself bear abundant witness. From very childhood she began to display the proofs of her inheritance - that happy disposition and that charm of manner that were to make her one of the most winsome personalities of her time. At her tenth year she fell to drawing on the margins of her books, filling them with little portrait heads - an incessant habit that set her teachers grumbling at her lack of respect towards grammar and history. But to her delighted father the grumbles were matter for laughter; in him she found an ally who was hugely proud to discover in his girl an inheritor of his gifts. It is told of the fond father that the girl having taken to him one day a drawing, Vigee cried out exultantly: "You will be a painter, my girl, or there never was one!"

The above was excerpted from the biography of Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun 1755-1842. I would highly recommend this short biography which can be read in it

[Mike McCarty]

Here are a few more that I thought had particular merit. There are so many to choose.

1- Alexandre Charles Emmanuel de Crussol-Florensac 1787
2- Hubert Robert 1788
3- The bather (daughter Julie) 1792
4- Infant lisant

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Mike, you are right. These are very lively self-portraits and I will have to read about her. Thanks for the link!

In the recent movie about "Marie Antoinette", it is amazing to see at what an early age the ruling of a nation fell upon the royal couple. When Marie Antoinette came to the French court, she was only 14 years old. Louis XVI was not much older either and in the movie it looks like they did nothing but party, totally oblivious to the affairs of the state. (The movie is only noteworthy for the beautiful costumes. )

That the young Le Brun would fit into that milieu is totally understandable and it would be interesting to see how her portraits of the royal family differ from those of her predecessor.