Learning Objectives

At the end of the lesson, you will be able to:

1. Identify and discuss the different elements of art.
2. Explain the significance of essential are the line,
texture, shape, value, form, color, and space in
making an artwork.
3. Describe the importance of color in making an
artwork beautiful.

INTRODUCTION
The elements of art are sort of like atoms in that both serve as "building blocks" for creating
something. You know that atoms combine and form other things. Sometimes they'll casually make a simple
molecule, as when hydrogen and oxygen form water. If hydrogen and oxygen take a more aggressive
career path and bring carbon along as a co-worker, together they might form something more complex,
like a molecule of sucrose.
A similar activity happens when the elements of art are combined. Instead of elements such as
hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, in art you have these building blocks:
1. Line 5. Texture
2. Shape 6. Value
3. Form 7. Color
4. Space

Artists manipulate these seven elements, mix them in with principles of design, and compose a
piece of art. Not every work of art contains every one of these elements, but at least two are always
present.
For example, a sculptor, by default, has to have both form and space in a sculpture, because these
elements are three-dimensional. They can also be made to appear in two-dimensional works through the
use of perspective and shading.
Art would be sunk without line, sometimes known as "a moving point." While line isn't something
found in nature, it is absolutely essential as a concept to depicting objects and symbols, and defining
shapes.
Texture is another element, like form or space, that can be real (run your fingers over an Oriental
rug, or hold an unglazed pot), created (think of van Gogh's lumpy, impasto-ed canvases) or implied
(through clever use of shading).
Color is often the whole point for people who are visual learners and thinkers.

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INPUT
ELEMENTS OF ART

1. Line
There are many different types of lines, all characterized by their length being greater than their
width. Lines can be static or dynamic depending on how the artist chooses to use them. They help
determine the motion, direction and energy in a work of art. We see line all around us in our daily lives;
telephone wires, tree branches, jet contrails and winding roads are just a few examples. Look at the
photograph below to see how line is part of natural and constructed environments.

In this image of a lightning storm we can see many

different lines. Certainly the jagged, meandering lines of the
lightning itself dominate the image, followed by the straight
lines of the skyline structures and the coast line. There are
more subtle lines too, like the lights along the buildings. Lines
are even implied by the reflections in the water.

The Nazca lines in the arid coastal plains of Peru date to nearly 500 BCE were scratched into the
rocky soil, depicting animals on an incredible scale, so large that they are best viewed from the air. Let’s
look at how the different kinds of line are made.

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 Diego Velazquez’s Las Meninas from 1656, ostensibly a Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, 1656, oil on canvas, 125.2” x 108.7”.
Prado, Madrid. CC BY-SA
portrait of the Infanta Margarita, the daughter of King Philip IV
and Queen Mariana of Spain, offers a sumptuous amount of
artistic genius; its sheer size (almost ten feet square), painterly
style of naturalism, lighting effects, and the enigmatic figures
placed throughout the canvas–including the artist himself –is one
of the great paintings in western art history. Let’s examine it
(below) to uncover how Velazquez uses basic elements and
principles of art to achieve such a masterpiece.

Actual lines are those that are physically present. The

edge of the wooden stretcher bar at the left of Las Meninas is an
actual line, as are the picture frames in the background and the
linear decorative elements on some of the figures’ dresses. How
many other actual lines can you find in the painting?

Implied lines are those created by visually connecting

two or more areas together. The gaze to the Infanta Margarita—
the blonde central figure in the composition—from the meninas, or maids of honor, to the left and right of
her, are implied lines. They visually connect the figures. By
visually connecting the space between the heads of all the
figures in the painting we have a sense of jagged implied line
that keeps the lower part of the composition in motion,
balanced against the darker, more static upper areas of the
painting. Implied lines can also be created when two areas of
different colors or tones come together. Can you identify
more implied lines in the painting? Where? Implied lines are
found in three-dimensional artworks, too. The sculpture of
the Laocoon below, a figure from Greek and Roman
mythology, is, along with his sons, being strangled by sea
snakes sent by the goddess Athena as wrath against his
warnings to the Trojans not to accept the Trojan horse. The
sculpture sets implied lines in motion as the figures writhe in
Laocoon Group, Roman copy of Greek original, Vatican Museum, Rome.
agony against the snakes.
Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen. CC BY-SA

Straight or classic lines provide structure to a composition.

They can be oriented to the horizontal, vertical, or diagonal axis of a
surface. Straight lines are by nature visually stable, while still giving
direction to a composition. In Las Meninas, you can see them in the
canvas supports on the left, the wall supports and doorways on the
right, and in the background in matrices on the wall spaces between
the framed pictures. Moreover, the small horizontal lines created in the
stair edges in the background help anchor the entire visual design of
the painting. Vertical and horizontal straight lines provide the most
stable compositions. Diagonal straight lines are usually more visually
dynamic, unstable, and tension-filled.

Straight lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

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 Expressive lines are curved, adding an organic, more dynamic character to a work of art.
Expressive lines are often rounded and follow undetermined paths. In Las Meninas you can see them in the
aprons on the girls’ dresses and in the dog’s folded hind leg and coat pattern. Look again at the Laocoon to
see expressive lines in the figures’ flailing limbs and the sinuous form of the snakes. Indeed, the sculpture
seems to be made up of nothing but expressive lines, shapes and forms.

Organic lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

There are other kinds of line that encompass the characteristics of those above yet, taken together,
help create additional artistic elements and richer, more varied compositions. Refer to the images and
examples below to become familiar with these types of line.

Outline, or contour line is the simplest of these. They create a path around the edge of a shape.
In fact, outlines often define shapes.

Outline, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

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 Hatch lines are repeated at short intervals in generally one direction. They give shading and visual
texture to the surface of an object.

Hatch, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Crosshatch lines provide additional tone and texture. They can be oriented in any direction.
Multiple layers of crosshatch lines can give rich and varied shading to objects by manipulating the pressure
of the drawing tool to create a large range of values.

Crosshatch, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Line quality is that sense of character embedded in the way a line presents itself. Certain lines
have qualities that distinguish them from others. Hard-edged, jagged lines have a staccato visual
movement while organic, flowing lines create a more comfortable feeling. Meandering lines can be either
geometric or expressive, and you can see in the examples how their indeterminate paths animate a surface
to different degrees.

Lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

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 Although line as a visual element generally plays a supporting role in visual art, there are wonderful
examples in which line carries a strong cultural significance as the primary subject matter.
Calligraphic lines use quickness and gesture, more akin to paint strokes, to imbue an artwork with a
fluid, lyrical character. To see this unique line quality, look up the work of Chinese poet and artist Dong
Qichang, dating from the Ming dynasty (1555-1637). A more geometric example from the Koran, created in
the Arabic calligraphic style, dates from the 9th century.
Both these examples show how artists use line as both a form of writing and a visual art form.
American artist Mark Tobey (1890–1976) was influenced by Oriental calligraphy, adapting its form to the
act of pure painting within a modern abstract style described as white writing.

2. Shape
A shape is defined as an enclosed area in two dimensions. By definition shapes are always flat, but
the combination of shapes, color, and other means can make shapes appear three-dimensional, as forms.
Shapes can be created in many ways, the simplest by enclosing an area with an outline. They can also be
made by surrounding an area with other shapes or the placement of different textures next to each other—
for instance, the shape of an island surrounded by water. Because they are more complex than lines,
shapes are usually more important in the arrangement of compositions. The examples below give us an
idea of how shapes are made.

Lines, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Referring back to Velazquez’s Las Meninas, it is fundamentally an arrangement of shapes; organic

and hard-edged, light, dark and mid-toned, that solidifies the composition within the larger shape of the
canvas. Looking at it this way, we can view any work of art, whether two or three-dimensional, realistic,
abstract or non-objective, in terms of shapes alone.

Geometric Shapes vs. Organic Shapes

Shapes can be further categorized into geometric and organic. Examples of geometric shapes are
the ones we can recognize and name: squares, triangles, circles, hexagons, etc. Organic shapes are those
that are based on organic or living things or are more free form: the shape of a tree, face, monkey, cloud,
etc.

3. Form
Form is sometimes used to describe a shape that has an implied third dimension. In other words, an
artist may try to make parts of a flat image appear three-dimensional. Notice in the drawing below how the
artist makes the different shapes appear three-dimensional through the use of shading. It’s a flat image
but appears three-dimensional.

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 When an image is incredibly realistic in terms of its forms (as well as color, space, etc.) such as this
painting by Edwaert Collier, we call that trompe l’oeil, French for “fool the eye.”

Edweart Collier, Trompe l’oeil with Writing Materials,

oil on canvas, c. 1702.

4. Space
Space is the empty area surrounding or between real or implied objects. Humans categorize space:
there is outer space, that limitless void we enter beyond our sky; inner space, which resides in people’s
minds and imaginations, and personal space, the important but intangible area that surrounds each
individual and which is violated if someone else gets too close. Pictorial space is flat, and the digital realm
resides in cyberspace. Art responds to all of these kinds of space.
Many artists are as concerned with space in their works as they are with, say, color or form. There
are many ways for the artist to present ideas of space. Remember that many cultures traditionally use
pictorial space as a window to view realistic subject matter through, and through the subject matter they
present ideas, narratives and symbolic content. The innovation of linear perspective, an implied geometric
pictorial construct dating from fifteenth-century Europe, affords us the accurate illusion of three-
dimensional space on a flat surface, and appears to recede into the distance through the use of a horizon
line and vanishing point(s). You can see how one-point linear perspective is set up in the examples below:

One-Point Linear Perspective, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

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 One-point perspective occurs when the receding lines appear to converge at a single point on the
horizon and used when the flat front of an object is facing the viewer. Note: Perspective can be used to
show the relative size and recession into space of any object, but is most effective with hard-edged three-
dimensional objects such as buildings.
A classic Renaissance artwork using one point perspective is Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last
Supper from 1498. Da Vinci composes the work by locating the vanishing point directly behind the head of
Christ, thus drawing the viewer’s attention to the center. His arms mirror the receding wall lines, and, if we
follow them as lines, would converge at the same vanishing point.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1498. Fresco. Santa Maria della Grazie. Work is in the public domain.

Two-point perspective occurs when the vertical edge of a cube is facing the viewer, exposing two
sides that recede into the distance, one to each vanishing point.

Two-Point Perspective, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

View Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Weather from 1877 to see how two-point perspective
is used to give an accurate view to an urban scene. The artist’s composition, however, is more complex
than just his use of perspective. The figures are deliberately placed to direct the viewer’s eye from the
front right of the picture to the building’s front edge on the left, which, like a ship’s bow, acts as a cleaver
to plunge both sides toward the horizon. In the midst of this visual recession a lamp post stands firmly in
the middle to arrest our gaze from going right out the back of the painting. Caillebotte includes the little
metal arm at the top right of the post to direct us again along a horizontal path, now keeping us from
traveling off the top of the canvas. As relatively spare as the left side of the work is, the artist crams the
right side with hard-edged and organic shapes and forms in a complex play of positive and negative space.
The perspective system is a cultural convention well suited to a traditional western European idea of
the “truth,” that is, an accurate, clear rendition of observed reality. Even after the invention of linear
perspective, many cultures traditionally use a flatter pictorial space, relying on overlapping, size

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differences, or vertical placement of components in a two-dimensional work of art. Examine the miniature
painting of the Third Court of the Topkapi Palace from fourteenth-century Turkey to contrast its pictorial
space with that of linear perspective. It’s composed from a number of different vantage points (as opposed
to vanishing points), all very flat to the picture plane. While the overall image is seen from above, the
figures and trees appear as cutouts, seeming to float in mid air. Notice the towers on the far left and right
are sideways to the picture plane. The trees and people occupying the upper parts of the image are meant
to be perceived as further from the viewer as compared to those trees, buildings and people located near
the bottom of the painting. This is an example of vertical placement.
As “incorrect” as it looks, the painting does give a detailed description of the landscape and
structures on the palace grounds.

Third Court of the Topkapi Palace, from the Hunername, 1548. Ottoman miniature painting, Topkapi Museum, Istanbul. CC BY -SA

After nearly five hundred years using linear perspective, western ideas about how space is depicted
accurately in two dimensions went through a revolution at the beginning of the 20th century. A young
Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, moved to Paris, then western culture’s capital of art, and largely reinvented
pictorial space with the invention of Cubism, ushered in dramatically by his painting Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon in 1907. He was influenced in part by the chiseled forms, angular surfaces and disproportion of
African sculpture (refer back to the Male Figure from Cameroon) and mask-like faces of early Iberian
artworks. For more information about this important painting, listen to the following question and answer.
In the early 20th century, Picasso, his friend Georges Braque and a handful of other artists struggled
to develop a new space that relied on, ironically, the flatness of the picture plane to carry and animate
traditional subject matter including figures, still life and landscape. Cubist pictures, and eventually
sculptures, became amalgams of different points of view, light sources and planar constructs. It was as if
they were presenting their subject matter in many ways at once, all the while shifting foreground, middle
ground and background so the viewer is not sure where one starts and the other ends. In an interview, the
artist explained cubism this way: “The problem is now to pass, to go around the object, and give a plastic
expression to the result. All of this is my struggle to break with the two-dimensional aspect*”(from
Alexander Liberman, An Artist in His Studio, 1960, page 113). Public and critical reaction to cubism was
understandably negative, but the artists’ experiments with spatial relationships reverberated with others
and became – along with new ways of using color – a driving force in the development of a modern art
movement that based itself on the flatness of the picture plane. Instead of a window to look into, the flat
surface becomes a ground on which to construct formal arrangements of shapes, colors and compositions.
For another perspective on this idea, refer back to module one’s discussion of ‘abstraction’.

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 You can see the radical changes cubism made in George Braque’s landscape La Roche Guyon from
1909. The trees, houses, castle and surrounding rocks comprise almost a single complex form, stair-
stepping up the canvas to mimic the distant hill at the top, all of it struggling upwards and leaning to the
right within a shallow pictorial space.

George Braque, Castle at La Roche Guyon, 1909. Oil on canvas. Stedelijk van Abbe
Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands. Licensed through GNU and Creative Commons

As the cubist style developed, its forms became even flatter. Juan Gris’s The Sunblind from 1914
splays the still life it represents across the canvas. Collage elements like newspaper reinforce pictorial
flatness.

Juan Gris, The Sunblind, 1914. Gouache, collage, chalk, and charcoal on canvas. Tate
Gallery, London. Image licensed under GNU Free Documentation License

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 It’s not so difficult to understand the importance of this new idea of space when placed in the
context of comparable advances in science surrounding the turn of the nineteenth century. The Wright
Brothers took to the air with powered flight in 1903, the same year Marie Curie won the first of two Nobel
prizes for her pioneering work in radiation. Sigmund Freud’s new ideas on the inner spaces of the mind and
its effect on behavior were published in 1902, and Albert Einstein’s calculations on relativity, the idea that
space and time are intertwined, first appeared in 1905. Each of these discoveries added to human
understanding and realligned the way we look at ourselves and our world. Indeed, Picasso, speaking of his
struggle to define cubism, said “Even Einstein did not know it either! The condition of discovery is outside
ourselves; but the terrifying thing is that despite all this, we can only find what we know” (from Picasso on
Art, A Selection of Views by Dore Ashton, (Souchere, 1960, page 15).
Three-dimensional space doesn’t undergo this fundamental transformation. It remains a visual and
actual relationship between positive and negative spaces.

5. Value and Contrast

Value (or tone) is the relative lightness or darkness of a shape in relation to another. The value
scale, bounded on one end by pure white and on the other by black, and in between a series of
progressively darker shades of grey, gives an artist the tools to make these transformations. The value
scale below shows the standard variations in tones. Values near the lighter end of the spectrum are termed
high-keyed, those on the darker end are low-keyed.

Value Scale, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC BY

In two dimensions, the use of value gives a shape the illusion of form or mass and lends an entire
composition a sense of light and shadow. The two examples below show the effect value has on changing
a shape to a form.

2D Form, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC BY 3D Form, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison, CC BY

This same technique brings to life what begins as a simple line drawing of a young man’s head in
Michelangelo’s Head of a Youth and a Right Hand from 1508. Shading is created with line (refer to our
discussion of line earlier in this module) or tones created with a pencil. Artists vary the tones by the
amount of resistance they use between the pencil and the paper they’re drawing on. A drawing pencil’s
leads vary in hardness, each one giving a different tone than another. Washes of ink or color create values
determined by the amount of water the medium is dissolved into.

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 The use of high contrast, placing lighter areas of value against much darker ones, creates a
dramatic effect, while low contrast gives more subtle results. These differences in effect are evident in
‘Guiditta and Oloferne’ by the Italian painter Caravaggio, and Robert Adams’ photograph Untitled,
Denver from 1970-74. Caravaggio uses a high contrast palette to an already dramatic scene to increase the
visual tension for the viewer, while Adams deliberately makes use of low contrast to underscore the
drabness of the landscape surrounding the figure on the bicycle.

Caravaggio, Guiditta Decapitates Oloferne, 1598, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Italian Art, Rome.
This work is in the public domain

6. Color
Color is the most complex artistic element because of the combinations and variations inherent in its
use. Humans respond to color combinations differently, and artists study and use color in part to give
desired direction to their work.
Color is fundamental to many forms of art. Its relevance, use and function in a given work depend
on the medium of that work. While some concepts dealing with color are broadly applicable across media,
others are not.
The full spectrum of colors is contained in white light. Humans perceive colors from the light
reflected off objects. A red object, for example, looks red because it reflects the red part of the spectrum.
It would be a different color under a different light. Color theory first appeared in the 17th century when
English mathematician and scientist Sir Isaac Newton discovered that white light could be divided into a
spectrum by passing it through a prism.
The study of color in art and design often starts with color theory. Color theory splits up colors into
three categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
The basic tool used is a color wheel, developed by Isaac Newton in 1666. A more complex model known as
the color tree, created by Albert Munsell, shows the spectrum made up of sets of tints and shades on
connected planes.
There are a number of approaches to organizing colors into meaningful relationships. Most systems
differ in structure only.

Traditional Model
Traditional color theory is a qualitative attempt to organize colors and their relationships. It is based
on Newton’s color wheel, and continues to be the most common system used by artists.

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 Blue Yellow Red Color Wheel. Released under the GNU Free Documentation License

Traditional color theory uses the same principles as subtractive color mixing (see below) but prefers
different primary colors.
• The primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. You find them equidistant from each other on the
color wheel. These are the “elemental” colors; not produced by mixing any other colors, and all
other colors are derived from some combination of these three.
• The secondary colors are orange (mix of red and yellow), green (mix of blue and yellow), and
violet (mix of blue and red).
• The tertiary colors are obtained by mixing one primary color and one secondary color. Depending
on amount of color used, different hues can be obtained such as red-orange or yellow-green.
Neutral colors (browns and grays) can be mixed using the three primary colors together.
• White and black lie outside of these categories. They are used to lighten or darken a color. A
lighter color (made by adding white to it) is called a tint, while a darker color (made by adding
black) is called a shade.

Color Mixing
Think about color as the result of light reflecting off a surface. Understood in this way, color can be
represented as a ratio of amounts of primary color mixed together. Color is produced when parts of the
external light source’s spectrum are absorbed by the material and not reflected back to the viewer’s eye.
For example, a painter brushes blue paint onto a canvas. The chemical composition of the paint allows all
of the colors in the spectrum to be absorbed except blue, which is reflected from the paint’s
surface. Common applications of subtractive color theory are used in the visual arts, color printing and
processing photographic positives and negatives.
• The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.
• The secondary colors are orange, green and violet.
• The tertiary colors are created by mixing a primary with a secondary color.
• Black is mixed using the three primary colors, while white represents the absence of all colors.
Note: because of impurities in subtractive color, a true black is impossible to create through the
mixture of primaries. Because of this the result is closer to brown. Similar to additive color
theory, lightness and darkness of a color is determined by its intensity and density.

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 Subtractive Color Mixing. Released under the GNU Free Documentation License

Color Attributes
There are many attributes to color. Each one has an effect on how we perceive it.
• Hue refers to color itself, but also to the variations of a color.
• Value (as discussed previously)refers to the relative lightness or darkness of one color next to
another. The value of a color can make a difference in how it is perceived. A color on a dark
background will appear lighter, while that same color on a light background will appear darker.
• Saturation refers to the purity and intensity of a color. The primaries are the most intense and
pure, but diminish as they are mixed to form other colors. The creation of tints and shades also
diminish a color’s saturation. Two colors work strongest together when they share the same
intensity.

Color Interactions
Beyond creating a mixing hierarchy, color theory also provides tools for understanding how colors
work together.

Monochrome
The simplest color interaction is monochrome. This is the use of variations of a single hue. The
advantage of using a monochromatic color scheme is that you get a high level of unity throughout the
artwork because all the tones relate to one another. See this in Mark Tansey’s Derrida Queries de
Man from 1990.

Analogous Color
Analogous colors are similar to one another. As their name implies, analogous colors can be
found next to one another on any 12-part color wheel:

Analogous Color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

You can see the effect of analogous colors in Paul Cezanne’s oil painting Auvers Panoromic View
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Color Temperature
Colors are perceived to have temperatures associated with them. The color wheel is divided
into warm and cool colors. Warm colors range from yellow to red, while cool colors range from yellow-
green to violet. You can achieve complex results using just a few colors when you pair them in warm and
cool sets.

Warm cool color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Complementary Colors
Complementary colors are found directly opposite one another on a color wheel. Here are some
examples:
• purple and yellow
• green and red
• orange and blue

Complementary Color, 11 July 2012, Creator: Oliver Harrison. CC BY

Blue and orange are complements. When placed near each other, complements create a visual
tension. This color scheme is desirable when a dramatic effect is needed using only two colors.

7. Texture
At the most basic level, Three-dimensional works of art (sculpture, pottery, textiles, metalwork, etc.)
and architecture have actual texture which is often determined by the material that was used to create it:
wood, stone, bronze, clay, etc. Two-dimensional works of art like paintings, drawings, and prints may try
to show implied texture through the use of lines, colors, or other ways. When a painting has a lot of actual
texture from the application of thick paint, we call that impasto.
The first image below is a sculpture, and like all three-dimensional objects it has actual texture.

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 The next two images are details from the painting The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck. Here, the
artist has created implied texture. If you were to touch this painting you would not feel the fabric of the
clothing and carpet, the wooden floor or the smooth metal of the chandelier, but our eyes “see” the
texture.

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