The Basic Elements and

Organization of Arts
The 7 Elements of Arts

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 The Basic Elements of Arts

▸ The Elements of Art are the key components of a work of art.

▸ It is the artist’s decision in how they want to put them to use.
Each element is very important to a piece of art, but some are
stressed more than others.
▸ When looking at a work of art, which elements do you notice?
▸ What kind of mood does it create?

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 The Visual Arts

▸ Man has always tried to understand and control his environment.

▸ In separable from these instinctive efforts is his impulse to express his
understanding of his environment and life.
▸ Using nature as his guide, he has formulated a basic idiom with which to
express and communicate this vision of his life and the reality that
surrounds it.
▸ The painter or sculptor sees shape, color, texture, and space in nature.
▸ He uses them, manipulates them, and organizes them into a work of art.
▸ These are called the elements of the visual arts

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Southern France and Spain, colored drawings of animals
were discovered, dating back from 3,000 to 10,000 B.C

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Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings
(20,000 years old) Dordogne region

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Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings
(20,000 years old) Dordogne region

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Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings
(20,000 years old) Dordogne region

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Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings
(20,000 years old) Dordogne region

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 Prehistory timeline

What is bronze?

• Bronze is an alloy (two metals mixed together), made up of 90% copper and 10% tin. Bronze can
easily be melted and poured into moulds to make different things like weapons or tools.

• It is also really hard when set and this makes it useful because it doesn’t break into pieces easily.
The discovery and wider use of bronze improved life in many ways and marked the end of the Stone
Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age.

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Bronze Age Arts

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Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings
(20,000 years old) Dordogne region

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Tombs of rich or powerful Egyptians

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The Aegean Civilization (Stone & Bronze Age)

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Ancient Greek painting is that of painted vases. The vases were
originally decorated with geometric shapes and figures using a
brown glaze. Eventually, they evolved to what was referred to as
‘black figure style’ in which humans were painted using a black color
with the natural red clay as the backdrop.

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 Elements of the Visual Arts

1. Line
▸ Line is man’s own invention. It does not exist in nature.
▸ The lines seen in nature are, on close observation, veins of
leaves, the joining of two different surfaces, or th the edges of
the objects.
▸ The artist uses lines to imitate or to represent objects and
figures on a flat surface.

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 Elements of the Visual Arts

1. Line
▸ Another great image displaying the use of line as a key element
is in The Peacock Skirt, by Aubrey Beardsley.
▸ How are the lines different from that of the shopping carts?
▸ The mood is drastically changed by the soft, flowing lines in
the clothing worn by the wome

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 Elements of the Visual Arts

1. Line
▸ A very important Element of Art is “Line”. Imagine a work of art
with no use of lines.
▸ They help form shapes, and also can communicate an idea or
feeling.
▸ Take a look at the drawing by Ben Shahn, titled The
Supermarket. As you can see, line plays a very large role in his
overall piece.
▸ The use of vertical, diagonal, and horizontal are all used to
create the shopping carts.
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Elements of the Visual Arts

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Types of Lines

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 Direction and Movement of Lines

▸ Horizontal line – creates an impression of serenity and perfect

stability
▸ Vertical line – poised and stable
▸ Diagonal line – implies action
▸ Curved line – shows fluidity: a feeling of serenity and stability
○ Abruptness creates tension and an impression of chaos,
confusion, or conflict
▸ Lines – whatever their direction, control our eye movement
and help us relate the various elements in a work of art with
one another 21
Direction and Movement of Lines

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 Elements of Arts - Shapes

2. Shape: There are a number of different shapes an artist can use to

create subject matter.
○ 1. Natural shapes are those we see in nature, such as shapes
of men, animals, or trees. Natural shapes may be interpreted
as realistically, or they may be distorted.

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 Elements of Arts

▸ Abstract shapes are formed after the artist has drawn out the
essence of the original object and made it the subject of his
work.

Valourine
Sunset over Subarbia Bird in Space 1923 Brancusi
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 Elements of Arts - Shapes

▸ Non-objective shapes – biomorphic shapes

○ shapes are often rounded and irregular

▸ Geometric shapes
○ Are circles, rectangles, squares, triangles and so on -
have the clear edges one achieves when using tools to
create them.

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Elements of Arts: Non-Objective Shapes

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Elements of Arts: gEometric Shapes

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 Elements of Arts - Colors

▸ Color is a series of wave lengths which strike our retina. Every ray
of light coming from the sun is composed of different waves
which vibrate at different speeds. A bem of light to pass through
a prism – the ray of light will break up and be seen on a sheet of
white paper as bands of different colors – color spectrum: red,
orange, blue, indigo and volet
▸ Any object has a color quality called “Pigmentation” which
enables it to absorb some of the colors and reflect only one.

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Color Pigmentation

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 Monochromatic – Color Palette

▸ Monochromatic colors are all the colors of a single hue.

▸ Monochromatic color schemes are derived from a single
base hue and extended using its shades, tones and tints.

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 Polychromatic

▸ Polychromatic color scheme is any five or more colors on the

color wheel

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 Colour relationships: Analogous & Complementary

▸ Colour relationships are great ways of choosing colours that relate to

each other and will look good together. There are many colour
relationships that are well known and will work almost every time.
▸ Analogous – Analogous colours sit next to each other on the colour
wheel. This relationship is harmonious as the colours used are
blended as the colours flow into each other.
▸ Complementary – Two colours that sit opposite on the colour wheel.
They are highly contrasting and clash big time, which lends itself to a
powerful pairing. When you want to show off a colour, using the
opposite colour for emphasis.

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 Colour relationships: Analogous & Complementary

Complementary colours provide strong contrast. They also help to make each other more active.

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 Color Fundamentals

▸ Hue – This is simply your colour’s name. This is how we describe the hue, for
example, red or orange.
▸ Saturation – A representation of how saturated, or rich a colour is. Low
saturation equals less colour overall and the hue will eventually become grey
when fully desaturated.
▸ Value – The lightness or darkness of a colour. The higher the value, the
closer the colour is to white. The closer to black the colour is, the lower the
value. The value scale shows how the blue starts as a light, pastel blue (high
value), and moves through to a darker, navy blue (low value).
▸ Tints, shades and tones – When mixing colours, you can lighten or darken a
hue with white, grey or black. A tint is a colour with white added and a shade
is a colour with black added. A tone is created by adding grey, which reduces
the colours saturation.
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 Color Fundamentals

▸ All colours are not created equal.

▸ Have you ever tried to match a colour from an online shop, or in your local
quilt shop without the original swatch?
▸ It rarely works. Red is a great example. Wander around your local quilt store
and you will discover that there are many, many different reds out there.
▸ Some are rusty while some are almost purple.
▸ Some reds are even pink!
▸ Each colour can be a different tint, shade, saturation and still be called red.
▸ The following are the key components that help us define a colour.

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Color Fundamentals

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Prism

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 Physical Properties of Colors

▸ Hue is the quality which gives a color its name. The colors of the
spectrum.
▸ Value – Adding neutrals, such as black or white, to any hue (e.g. blur
or red) results in changing the quantity of light it reflects
○ A color combined with black will reflect less light than the same
color combined with white.
○ When black is combined with a color, a shade is produced
○ When white is added to it, a tint results
○ Black added to red results in dark red; when white is added, we
get light red.
○ The lightness or darkness of a color is called “value”
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 Physical Properties of Colors

▸ Intensity or Saturation – Intensity is the strength of the color’s

hue. It refers to the quality of light in a color.
▸ Red, for instance may be seen as bright red if only red rays of
light are reflected.
▸ But if any of the complementary green rays were reflected in it,
the effect will be a duller color. If green and red were balanced,
the resultant color will be a neutral gay.

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 Physical Properties of Colors

▸ Hues become less intense (dull) when pigment are mixed with
them. When we add white, the color becomes lighter in value and
therefore loses its intensity.
▸ When black is added, the intensity diminishes as the value
darkens. When gray is added, the result will be a variation in
intensity without ay change in value.
▸ The color becomes less bright but neither lighter nor darker in
tone.

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 Physical Properties of Colors

▸ Many colors may be formed by mixing two r more colors. There

are however, three colors which we cannot form from mixtures
because they are, in a sense pure colors. These are red, blue and
yellow. These are called “Primaries?
▸ Framed in a triangular pattern, they are called the “Color Triad”.
When these colors are mixed in pairs, they can produce all other
colors that we know of. A mixture of all these results in gray.

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 Physical Properties of Colors

▸ The color formed out of the combination of two primaries is

called “a secondary color. Thus, we derive orange from the
mixture of yellow and red; green, from yellow and blue; and
violet, from blue and red.
▸ Continue to form other colors by mixing a primary and a
secondary color. Yellow and green combined produce yellow-
green or chartreuse, blue and green produce blue-green or
aqua, and so on. The colors that result from such combinations
are called “Intermediate Colors”.
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 Color Mixing

The colors opposite each other in the color diagram are called “Complementary Colors”. They afford the greatest
Contrast and the best harmonies of colors for as long as they are mixed with equal value and intensity.

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 Color

▸ Color: Artist value “Color” as another important Element of Art.

▸ It is a wonderful tool to create mood in a piece of art. The effect of
color can have a strong impact on your feelings.
▸ Do you remember the last rainy day, when it was dark and dreary
outside?
▸ How did your mood change when sun came back out and
lightened everything up? In art, dark, dreary colors often depict
sadness, while cheerful yellows and orange are used for
happiness.
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Color

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Color

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 Elements of Art: Texture

▸ Refer to the feel or tactile quality of the surface of an objet –

that is, whether the surface is rough or smooth, grooved or
ridged, furry or silky
▸ For the sculptor and the architect texture results chiefly from
the physical properties of the materials they use.

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 Elements of Art: Texture

Flagellants

Solomon Saprid – Mother and Child

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 Relief Sculpture

▸ Reliefs are one of

the oldest forms of
sculpting that date
back as far as 25,000
years ago in the
caves of eastern
Europe and other
parts of the world.

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 Elements of Arts: Space and Movement

▸ Space exists as an “illusion” in the graphic arts, but sculpture and

architecture it is actually present.
▸ There are two basic types of space in painting: Decorative Space
and Plastic Space
▸ Painters are limited by the two-dimensional quality of their art,
by the height and the width of the picture plane which has no
significant depth. This depthless space is called “Decorative
Space: it exists across the plane rather than in it.
▸ The artist cuts, divides, or rearranges the decorative space into
smaller units as he adds an art element on his space.
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 Elements of Arts: Space and Movement
▸ Space:
○ can be positive or negative, open or closed, shallow or deep,
and two-dimensional or three-dimensional.

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 Elements of Arts: Space and Movement

▸ Plastic space is the term we apply to the third dimension

which is a matter of “illusion” in the case of painting.
▸ Methods of creating an illusion of depth: overlapping planes,
variation in size, position on the picture plane, color, value,
and perspective.

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 Negative and Positive Space
▸ Art historians use the term positive space to refer to the subject of
the piece itself—the flower vase in a painting or the structure of a
sculpture.
▸ Negative space refers to the empty spaces the artist has created
around, between, and within the subjects.
▸ Quite often, we think of positive as being light and negative as being
dark.
▸ This does not necessarily apply to every piece of art. For example,
you might paint a black cup on a white canvas.
▸ We wouldn't necessarily call the cup negative because it is the
subject: The black value is negative, but the space of the cup is
positive.
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Elements of Arts: Space and Movement

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Elements of Arts: Space and Movement

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 Elements of Arts: Space and Movement

Christ Taken Prisoner. It is tempera on wood painted around 1308 by the Italian artist Cimabue. Cimabue is
generally considered to be one of the first artists to break with Byzantine traditions and introduce elements of
naturalism in his images.
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Elements of Arts: Space and Movement

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Elements of Arts: Space and Movement

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