'Those lucky enough to have enjoyed the advantages of the traditional art school course were well grounded in the rudiments of drawing as well as painting.
'It was widely recognised that sound draughtsmanship, sound composition and correct scale and proportion were the essential foundations of any successful work of art. However brilliant the painting technique, if these fundamentals were at fault, the result was bound to be failure.
'In the life class we were not permitted to start drawing until we had made a careful note of the linear ratios between the various parts of the body, and heaven help the student who got those proportions wrong.
'It was the same in the portraiture class. The depth of the forehead, the length of the nose and chin relative to the rest of the head, the space between the eyes and their distance from the other features all had to be noted carefully and, when the portraitist got all these measurements right, a good likeness emerged. Although correct scale and proportion of landscape painting are not so vital to success, they still have their place and we ignore their significance at our peril.
'We have all seen paintings in which it is difficult to judge the size of the various elements in the composition. The eye searches in vain for some indication of scale. The form of a tree, for example, can often suggest its age and hence, to some extent, its size, while the architectural style of the building can also give us an approximate idea of its size. However, there are many subjects – for instance, a mountain scene with a rocky foreground – where there may be no indication of size. This is where we have to make a conscious effort to provide the missing information. The time-honoured solution is to include a human figure or, perhaps in a pastoral scene, some domestic animals'.
Hope Cove, Devon. 11” x 15”. The group of small figures serves not only as a useful focal point but also provides scale for the rest of the painting.
'Of course, there are landscape painters who are perfectly happy with hills, trees, fields and even water, who fight shy of tackling the human figure and experience difficulty in making it look convincing. Badly drawn or wooden-looking figures in the landscape, although providing scale, do more harm than good on balance, but even those who have little confidence in their ability to portray the human form can learn to produce reasonable impressions with practice and perseverance. This is particularly true when the figures are on the small side, as they usually are in landscape paintings. Here, detail can be ignored and, provided posture is carefully observed, the results should be adequate'.
Creating a pleasing design
One of the problems that confronts the artist faced with a complex subject is that of comparative scale – how large should the main elements of the subject be relative to the size of the paper? This is far from being simply a matter of how much of that subject can reasonably be fitted on to the available space. It is, rather, a matter of design. The elements of the painting, the margins of the support and even the frame should be considered as a whole. The resulting combination should be both balanced and aesthetically satisfying.
It is equally true that the painting itself should present a pleasing design, independent of the subject matter, and this requirement should be borne in mind during the planning process. This will influence the scale and arrangement of the various elements of the composition and may well mean that considerable liberties have to be taken with the subject matter of the landscape – a process usually referred to as artistic licence. Among other things, it involves varying the relative size and scale of the constituents of the subject, not only to improve the composition but also to achieve a more appealing overall design. It has been said that a successful landscape painting not only records the feeling and the atmosphere of a particular place, but also presents a pleasing pattern of tone, form and colour.
Fortified Village, Tuscany. 10½ x 15½. The diagonal construction, the interplay of light and shade on the buildings and the vertical accents of the cypress trees combine to produce a strong underlying design.
Most painters are familiar with the simple viewfinder, a useful device which helps us to select and isolate an attractive composition from a complex landscape. In its simplest form it consists of a rectangle of card, perhaps an offcut of mounting board, with an aperture cut in it roughly the size and shape of a postcard. You hold this up to the scene and move it around until it frames a composition that appeals to you. The more closely it is held to the eye, the more extensive the area it frames and, of course, vice versa. It is especially helpful when we are considering the scale of the main elements in our composition relative to the margins of the support, a matter we can evaluate as we move the viewfinder towards and away from the eye.
Stretching the rules
As artists, we do not have to stick rigidly to the form of the scene in front of us unless, of course, we are carrying out a commission to paint a particular building or scene. We may move things about to improve the balance of the composition or to create more telling tonal contrasts. We may move a big tree to the left, for example, to balance a group of houses on the right, or move a building so that its sunlit masonry registers more effectively against a dark backdrop of foliage.
We may vary the colours to create attractive harmonies or we may exaggerate scale for the sake of dramatic effect. If we wish to increase the impact of an imposing church tower or a magnificent tree, for example, we may increase their scale relative to the surrounding features of the scene. Even the rules of perspective may be stretched to achieve the same objective. Sometimes the tall feature we wish to emphasise may be painted so that it appears to extend beyond the top margin of the support, and this increases the impact of its height.
However carefully we plan the lay-out of our painting, sometimes the interplay of the colours and tones we employ will upset the delicate compositional balance we thought we had achieved. This balance can sometimes be restored and the composition improved by marginally altering the positions of the mount edges. I have two L-shaped pieces of mounting board which, when placed together form a complete rectangular mount. The pieces can be moved about independently to vary the amount of the painting which will be hidden by the mount. t is surprising how often a slight variation can improve the overall composition of the painting. In effect what we are doing is to alter slightly the proportions of the objects in the painting relative to the margin of the visible area of the support.
A question of size
Painters differ widely in the size of the paper or canvas they use for their work and their choice depends to a large extent upon their style of painting. Those who work to a small scale, producing precise images with small brushes, opt for correspondingly small supports, while those with a bolder approach need much more space.
I believe it is a mistake to work always to the same size, however economical this may be in terms of paper and mass produced mounts and frames. The varying scope and complexity of differing subjects call for supports of differing sizes and, as we have seen, minor modifications to the margins of the finished work can often improve the composition to a surprising degree. It is liberating from time to time to vary your scale of working and have a go at something twice your normal painting size. Your brushwork may respond to the challenge with greater boldness and panache.
Thundercloud 9½ x 12½. Here the sky holds most of the interest and so occupies the lion’s share of the paper.
One of the ratios that landscape painters have to consider carefully is that of the sky to the land. In the interests of sound composition, we know that we should avoid placing the horizon exactly half way up our paper so that both elements occupy an equal amount of space, but should we place it above or below the half-way line? To answer that question we have to pose another – are we more interested in the sky or in the land? If the sky is a lively one with arresting cloud formations and the land holds no particular interest, the answer is obvious. In extreme cases the land may occupy only a narrow strip, perhaps about one eighth of the total depth of the paper. If the sky is handled with boldness and insight, the result can be impressive and full of interest.
On the other hand, if there is plenty of interest in the landscape vista we have selected, the sky is relegated to a much smaller share of the space, or sometimes to no share at all. It is worth remembering that when the sky occupies a proportionally small area, its treatment should be correspondingly simple and understated.
Considerations of ratio and proportion have relevance to most aspects of creative art and, in particular, to the successful planning of pleasing and satisfying compositions. While the lucky few may rely safely on aesthetic instinct alone, most of us have to bear in mind the dictates of traditional theory.
First published in the May 1999 issue of Leisure Painter
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