The Form Principle Part II
August 29, 2009
John Singer Sargent Self Portrait - from Art Renewal Center
Last week, with the help of the late 19th century still life painters William Mason Brown, William Merritt Chase and John Singer Sargent, I began to explain the Form Principle. You may recall that I quoted Andrew Loomis’ definition of the Form Principle from his book Creative Illustration. Here it is again:
The Form Principle is the rendering of form as to its aspect at any given moment with regard to its lighting, its structure and texture, together with it’s true relationship to it’s environment.
I also introduced a set of abstractions called the Five Types of Light to help with the discussion. Here those are again:
- Light
- Shadow
- Midtone
- Accents
- Reflected Light
Last week I also promised a rare figure drawing. It’s rare only because I don’t do a lot of them. Even though it was never finished I think it will help me explain the Five Types of Light.
Thinking Figure
You will notice a strip of dark value which meanders down the right side of the model’s torso. Everything to the left of this line is in the light. Everything to the right of this line, including the line, is in the shadow. Some call this line the “terminator” (not in reference to AHHrnold) because it marks the point on the form where the light “terminates” and the shadow begins. Another way to think of it is as the point where the form finally turns away from the light. The terminator is always, the darkest part of the shadow for two reasons. One, it receives no illumination from the main source of light (in this case, upper left). And two, it also receives the least amount of reflected light (more on that in a moment). The division of the form into light and shadow seems a little obvious but it is often overlooked, especially by student artists. I emphasize light and shadow, as well as the other three types of light, because it is important that we develop the conscious habit of working in terms of these abstractions. The Five Types of Light are a kind of visual language that can be used to describe all subjects. As soon as the student learns to paint lights, shadows, midtones, accents and reflected lights instead of peaches, heads, trees, etc. their confidence in handling all types of subject matter will increase.
Notice that within the “light” side of our model’s torso, as the eye moves left to right, there is a gradual darkening of value such that; the darkest part of the light is next to the terminator line. This darkest part of the light is called the midtone. Midtone is considered part of the “light” because it is illuminated by our main light source. It is the part of the form that is starting to turn away from the light. It is the darkest part of the “light” because it no longer receives the light directly. It receives the light obliquely. I always think of midtone as part of the light especially with regard to still life, portrait or figurative work. There are times in landscape painting outdoors when I think it makes sense to think of midtone in shadow, too. But that is a subject for another post.
Thinking Figure
(I am posting the drawing again so you won’t have to page up and down to refer to it.)
That brings me to accents, which are fourth on the list of The Five Types of Light. Accents are divided into two subcategories. There are light accents and dark accents. The light accents are easily recognizable and always exist in the light. They are the highlights on the form. Because they are the lightest lights they would have no place in the shadow. Indeed nothing on the shadow side of your form should be as light as anything on the light side. In this drawing you will find the highlights mainly on the model’s pectoral muscles, near the areola. Dark accents are a little more widely dispersed in our subject. They are often completely surrounded by shadow the way light accents are surrounded by light, but not always. The dark accents are the little darkest darks that we can easily find by squinting at our subject. In the drawing above I would think of the navel as a dark accent. There is also one in between the shadow of his right arm and the light of his torso. There is another in the arm pit area of his left arm. I think the hair, for the most part, could be considered a dark accent. When the discussion comes around to landscape painting we will see how significant dark accents can be.
Last, but not least, we have reflected light. For the sake of discussion I feel it necessary to make the distinction between reflected light and reflections of objects. Reflections of objects are a type of reflected light and they can occur in the light or the shadow. Reflections are not integral to the transmission of form but are helpful in the painting of certain textures. For instance, painting of reflections is usually essential to the painting of metallic objects. Reflected light, on the other hand, is essential to the transmission of form. It is a secondary light source that is evident in the shadow. It is caused by light from the main source reflecting off of something and back into the shadow. Whatever reflects the light back into the shadow can be outside of the picture frame or not. It is the reason that a shadow gets lighter in value away from the “terminator” line. Reflected light is always lower in value than light, midtone or light accents. Student artists, not yet accustomed to judging values with “squinted eyes”, always tend to overstate the value of reflected light. Overstating the value of reflected light will cause the form to flatten out. In my unfinished figure drawing the sense of volume in the form could be helped by reducing the value of the reflected light. If I were to work on the drawing again I would start there.
That concludes the explanation of the Five Types of Light, but only in regard to value. That is to say, how light and dark they are relative to each other. In the next post I will begin to discuss how color behaves in the context of the Five Types of Light. All this is leading up to their application in landscape painting. Here again is Sargent’s self – portrait, so you can look at the Five Types of Light especially in the form across his forehead. I offer intensive study of the Five Types of Light in my class at Suntan Art Center on St. Pete Beach.
John Singer Sargent Self Portrait - from Art Renewal Center
Understanding the Form Principle!
August 22, 2009
Peaches by William Mason Brown
Here is another in my series of museum favorites. This little still life (about 8″x10″) is in the High Museum in Atlanta, Ga. It was painted by William Mason Brown ca. 1870. One thing I clearly remember about it is being able to smell the peaches. I also imagined that the peaches were in perfect shape when he started the painting and had begun to turn by the time he finished. They do look a little like they are on the verge!
Brown (1828-1898) was born in the city of Troy in upstate New York. He studied with Abel Buel Moore and began his career as a portrait painter. Later he moved to Newark, New Jersey where his focus shifted to painting Hudson River style landscapes. After moving to Brooklyn, NY in 1858 his subject matter changed again. He began to paint highly realistic still lifes with an emphasis on the rendering of texture. These paintings lent themselves well to lithographic reproduction and Brown enjoyed quite a bit of popularity in that market.
I can’t help but wonder whether Brown was acquainted with his famous contemporary, William Merritt Chase, who was also living in Brooklyn at the time. When Chase wasn’t busy immortalizing James McNeil Whistler, he also painted a still life or two. Here is one of my favorites, also in the permanent collection at the High Museum.
Still Life with Fish by William Merritt Chase
Both of these paintings bring to mind Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable. To be a purple cow means to be indispensible. The big indispensible purple cow which both of these paintings illustrate is form. Neither is at all vague about what is in the light or what is in shadow. The forms are clearly stated.
No matter what subject we choose or what medium we work in there is only one solid basis of approach to the realistic representation of life and the natural appearance of its forms. The truths underlying this approach have been passed down from artist to artist and generation to generation. In his book, Creative Illustration, Andrew Loomis gave the organization of these truths the name Form Principle. He defines The Form Principle as: the rendering of form as to its aspect at any given moment with regard to its lighting, its structure and texture, together with its true relationship to its environment.
The key phrase here is “…with regard to its lighting“. Without an in-depth understanding of light and how it plays over our subject we will not be able to do an adequate job of transmitting form.
One way of illustrating the Form Principle is by making use of a set of abstractions called the Five Types of Light:
- Light
- Shadow
- Midtone
- Accents
- Reflected Light
(I don’t know who first articulated form in these terms but it is often credited to John Singer Sargent. I first heard it from Scott L. Christensen.)
I refer to them as a set of abstractions because they are not intrinsic to the subject. They are intrinsic to the concept of light. Simply put, we are not supposed to paint the peach we are supposed to paint the abstract shapes, from the five types of light, which represent the peach. I often tell my students you are not painting “peaches or lemons or whatever the subject” you are painting shadows, midtones, lights, accents and reflected lights. Furthermore each of the Five Types of Light has its own shape, value, color and edge. Our ability to convincingly convey each type of light with regard to its shape, value, color and edges is directly responsible for the effectiveness of our forms.
Next week I will discuss the Form Principle, it’s significance and the five types of light in further detail. I may even include a rare figure drawing of mine…
Meanwhile I’d like to plug some workshops I will be teaching over the next year. I will be in the following locations:
- Indian Rocks Beach, Florida – Nov. 10-12, 2009 (plein air)
- Boca Grande, Florida – March 29-31, 2010 (the Impressionist Landscape)
- Cortona, Italy – April 10-17th, 2010 (plein air)
- Dingle, Ireland – August 7-14th, 2010 (plein air)
For more info click here.
Effective Positioning of Values
August 13, 2009
by Thomas Worthington Whittredge
Here is another painting from the Museum of Fine Art in St. Petersburg, Fl. This piece by Thomas Worthington Whittredge is either a new aquistion or fresh out of storage because I had not seen it before. Whittredge (1820-1910), a Hudson River School Artist, was friends with Sanford Robinson Gifford and John Frederick Kensett. (Their names tempt me to insist that everyone call me Robert James Simone all the time!) During the ten years (1849-1859) he spent in Europe, Whittredge studied at the Dusseldorf Academy and met Albert Bierstadt and Emanuel Leutze. He posed as both George Washington and as a steersman in Leutze’s famous painting Washington Crossing the Delaware.
Washington Crossing the Delaware from artrenewal.org
Like other Hudson River School Artists, Whittredge often produced large scale paintings. However, this one in the St. Pete collection is small, about 18″ x 14″. Despite its small size I think it contains a key learning point. To put it in the words of Stapleton Kearns, Whittredge “stacked his values”. That is, he positioned different values one in front of another. Notice the dark value cypress tree in front of the medium value house which is front of the light value clouds. Simple, I know, but very effective. It helps create depth and interest. The painting “reads” clearly because of it. We can employ this strategy whether we paint landscapes, still life, portraits or figures. We can use it working in the studio or en plein air. Today’s plein air artists often forget to take advantage of design techniques like this. Many believe plein air painting is about capturing “a moment” and so they work to record the scene in front of them without changes. Others, myself included, believe the artist’s job is to create a work of art using nature as reference material. Those who hold this viewpoint are more likely to rearrange and design the scene before them.
Whittredge (source - Don Kurtz via artrenewal.org)
These different viewpoints remind of that story about the monkey…The one where they tied a bottle to a tree and put a peanut in it. When the monkey reached in to grasp the peanut he couldn’t get his closed fist out of the bottle. Then they put a pile of peanuts just out of reach of his other hand. All the monkey had to do was let go of the one peanut so he could get his hand out of the bottle and reach the whole pile. But he wouldn’t do it.
The mention of this story is not to deride or ridicule those of you who like to maintain complete fidelity to your scene. It’s only to encourage you to let go once in awhile. Those times when you do take liberties will strengthen your ability to select dynamic scenes when you want to “capture the moment”
I hope this helps. Until next week….
Obtain Brilliant Color in Your Paintings!
August 6, 2009
Louis Remy Mignot
Here is another one of my all time favorite paintings. This one is by Louis Remy Mignot. Mignot was an American Creole and member of the Hudson River School. He enjoyed a brief but well traveled career as an artist until his death in 1870 at the ripe old age of 39. This stunning piece is in the permanent collection at the High Museum in Atlanta, Ga. If you have not visited the High you should check it out next time you do Hotlanta.
There are a lot of wonderful things I could say about this painting and numerous learning points to be had from it for sure. But for now I want to focus on its overall sense of saturation and bright color.
Viewed in person it is easy to tell that Mignot held his value range in reserve. He had room to go darker and lighter. Nothing in the painting approaches black or white. Extreme values are not making it look bright.
Mignot held his colors in pretty good reserve, too. The colors of both the upright and ground planes are pretty gray; as are the cloud shadows. The band of yellow across the sky is washed out and somewhat neutral, too. The key to this paintings bright color lies in how Mignot placed those bands of orange, his most intense colors, in the light but right next to shadow. (How many of you think it happened this way while Louis was out plein air painting and he “captured the moment”? I digress, that’s another post altogether.)
In his book, Creative Illustration, the famous illustrator Andrew Loomis put it this way:
It is not necessarily true that the color in the brightest light is always the strongest color. Light, being white, can dilute color, just as can the white on your palette. In order to reach the high value we may be forced to to lighten the color. Yet on the next planes, which are the halftone planes, color may be more intense, being still in the light. So then, the halftones may contain the most brilliant color….Here is one of the best ways in the world to obtain brilliancy of color: Keep your color most intense on the edges of the lighted areas, where it merges into shadow. (p. 152-53, C.I.)
This is a universal truth. It works for everybody. All top artists employ this strategy to some extent or another. (Check your favorites and see if they aren’t using it.)
Stone crab claws are Florida's answer to Maine lobster!
Those of you whodo a lot a still life or portrait painting are probably keenly aware of the fact. You probably realize that the halftones are where you see, not only the most intense color, but most of your local color, too. It came to me in the form of an epiphany while painting a still life. Since that day great paintings and great books on painting continually validate the insight. It was probably something I had read numerous times and failed to comprehend and until that day it finally pierced my consciousness.
Here is a recent, 8×10 field study done at a favorite location. Beaches are a great place to paint but the glare off of brightly lit sand can obliterate color. Here I placed some warm pinks at the edge of the light, next to the shadow. This was done back in the studio. Prior to these minor touches the painting looked colorless. I think it works a lot better now.
North Beach Study - Ft. Desoto
