The Principles of Design are concepts that refer to the relationships of the

elements of design to each other and to the total composition. They guide how we arrange

those visible elements to make effective compositions: These include: Balance, Unity,

Variety, Harmony, Movement, Rhythm and Emphasis

• Balance : The state of equal relationship; the sense of stability when weight is

distributed equally on either side of a vertical axis; a pleasing arrangement of

parts in a whole.

There are different kinds of balance:

o Symmetrical balance wherein each side is the mirror-image of the

other

o Asymmetrical balance wherein there is a sense of balance

achieved through careful planning of elements; ex: three small
objects on one side of a page may be arranged to balance one large
object on the other

o Radial balance wherein the design elements swirl out from a central
axis (star, explosion)

With asymmetrical balance, there is an unevenly distribution of the elements within

the format meaning, balancing a large photo with several small graphics. Sometimes you

may create tension by intentionally avoiding balance. Asymmetrical balance can be subtle

or obvious. Uneven elements present us with more possibilities for arranging the page

and creating interesting designs than do perfectly symmetrical objects. Asymmetrical

layouts are generally more dynamic; by intentionally ignoring balance, the designer can

create tension, express movement or convey a mood such as anger, excitement, joy or
casual amusement (Bear, 2017). To create an asymmetric design is always set aside but

when you do it perfectly your design is eye-catching.

• Unity: The sense of “oneness” in a work of art; the sense that the design

components or objects belong together. Unity is achieved by placing

components close together (proximity), by repetition, or by creating a sense of

flow whereby the eye is led from one aspect of the work to another using line,

direction or colour.

• Variety: The use of different colours, sizes, shapes, etc. to create interest and

avoid monotony. Variety may be achieved by varying aspects of the same

theme

• Harmony: The sense of order or agreement-among the parts of a whole;

aesthetically pleasing relationships among parts of a whole. For example, the

harmony of colour in a painting.

• Movement: The sense that static elements on a page or plane can seem to be

in motion, possibly because our brain understands that movement is about to

happen or is actually happening. For example, A dancer is balanced so

delicately that he must move or fall over; or, running figures are so blurry that

our brain attributes speed to them.

• Rhythm: The sense that our eyes are being carried from one part of the design

or painting to another; this may happen abruptly through the use of jagged lines,

abrupt shifts of colour or shape, or in a flowing circular way. Repetition of design

elements also contribute to a sense of rhythm. Repetition of line or other

 elements create rhythm, and also mood (calm, restful versus unsettled or

dangerous.)

• Emphasis: The sense that our attention is being focused to a particular spot

– a centre of attention – achieved by :

§ Scale: a larger object dominates smaller objects

§ Colour: one bright colour against subdued colours

catches the eye

§ Contrast: the juxtaposition of black and white, dark and

light highlights differences

§ Position: an object placed in the foreground or the center

of a work dominates, as does one in isolation from other

objects

The elements and principles of design are the building blocks. The elements of

design are the things that make up a design.

PRINCIPLES OF ART (PTT)

The principles of art (or the principles of design) are essentially a set of criteria
which are used to explain how the visual elements are arranged in a work of art.
It represent how the artist uses the elements of art to create an effect and to help
convey the artist's intent.

Harmony
•It refers to how well all the visual elements work together in a work of art.
•Elements which are in harmony should have some kind of logical progression or
relationship.

Unity
the feeling of harmony between all parts of the work of art, which creates a sense
of completeness

Balance
•Distribution of visual weight
•The concept of visual equilibrium

Types of Balance
a. Symmetrical Balance - is when both sides of a piece are equal; that is, they are identical
or almost identical. Symmetrical balance can be established by drawing an imaginary line
through the center of the work, either horizontally or vertically, and making each half
identically or very visually similar.

b. Asymmetrical - the two sides of a composition are not the same but appear to have an
equal visual weight nonetheless.

c. Radial symmetry - is a variation of symmetrical balance in which the elements are

arranged equally around a central point.
Movement
The result of using the elements of art such that they move the viewer's eye around
and within the image.

Rhythm
It is created by movement implied through the repetition of elements of art in a
non-uniform but organized way. It is created when one or more elements of design are
used repeatedly to create a feeling of organized movement.
Emphasis
It is when the artist creates an area of the composition that is visually dominant
and commands the viewer's attention. This is often achieved by contrast.

Variety
The use of several elements of design to hold the viewer’s attention and to guide
the viewer’s eye through and around the work of art.

FORMALIST THEORY OF ART

The formalistic approach directs that art be analyzed by reviewing form and style.
Elements like color, shapes, textures, and line are emphasized, while the context of the
work is de-emphasized, and made a secondary characteristic—at times taken completely
out of consequence.
The assessment of a piece of artwork is based purely on the artist’s skill and not
on the choice of subject matter, with the value based primarily on the use of elements
with little regard for the viewer’s perception of the context.

Formalism was not confined to evaluating art; it was also used liberally in both music
and literature. In music, the theory was used to explain that music is judged based on the
basic composition of the notes, and only intellectual understanding is of value when
assessing musical pieces. The listener’s emotional reaction provides no additional value
to the music’s worth.

Against all the foregoing accounts of the function of art stands another, which belongs
distinctively to the 20th century—the theory of art as form, or formalism. The import of
formalism can best be seen by noting what it was reacting against: art as representation,
art as expression, art as a vehicle of truth or knowledge or moral betterment or social
improvement.

Formalists do not deny that art is capable of doing these things, but they believe
that the true purpose of art is subverted by its being made to do these things. “Art for art’s
sake, not art for life’s sake” is the watchword of formalism. Art is there to be enjoyed, to
be savoured, for the perception of the intricate arrangements of lines and colours, of
musical tones, of words, and combinations of these. By means of these mediums it is true
that objects in the world can be represented, scenes from life depicted, and emotions
from life expressed, but these are irrelevant to the principal purpose of art. Indeed, art is
much less adapted to the telling of a story or the representation of the world than it is to
the presentation of colours, sounds, and other items in the art medium simply for their
own sake.

Most people who claim to enjoy paintings, for example, enjoy them not as
presentations but as representations of things and situations in life, and thus their
response is not of a kind that is unique to art but one that takes them back to the emotions
of life, from which they came. They could use art to take them into a realm of pure form
unknown to anyone who is unacquainted with art, but instead they use it to direct them
back to the feelings and situations of life. Thus, according to the formalists, these viewers
miss the opportunity of being taken into a fresh world of purely aesthetic experience and
get from a work only what they bring to it: familiar experiences and emotions they employ
the work to recall.

What, then, should be brought from life to art? Knowledge of life’s struggles and
emotions? Knowledge at least of what people are like, and what visual objects look like?
Not even these things, for even they get in the way. Representation is not bad in itself, it
is merely irrelevant. Only if the representation is satisfactory as form and contributes to
the general abstract design can it be said to matter aesthetically.

Most formalists have directed their attention primarily to visual art. The prerequisite
for appreciating this, they believe, is a sense of form and colour and a knowledge of three-
dimensional space (the last required because otherwise a cube, for example, would
appear in a painting as a flat pattern and would be unable to play the architectural role
intended for it). Armed with this bit of knowledge from life, they have all they need (as far
as knowledge of the world outside art is concerned) for appreciating visual art. Armed
with more than this, they would find their attention drawn away from the sublimities of art
to the more approachable concerns of humanity (such as representation). Shorn of this
extraneous knowledge and coming to painting with eyes innocent of extraneous concepts,
viewers could then be in a position to look at what painting presents directly to their
vision—complex arrangements of forms and colours—which, for reasons thus far
unexplained, have the capacity to move recipients deeply with emotions utterly alien to
the emotions of life.

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
Abstract Expressionism is a term applied to a movement in American painting that
flourished in New York City after World War II, sometimes referred to as the New York
School or, more narrowly, as action painting. The varied work produced by the Abstract
Expressionists resists definition as a cohesive style; instead, these artists shared an
interest in using abstraction to convey strong emotional or expressive content.

Abstract Expressionism is best known for large-scale paintings that break away
from traditional processes, often taking the canvas off of the easel and using
unconventional materials such as house paint. While Abstract Expressionism is often
considered for its advancements in painting, its ideas had deep resonance in many
mediums, including drawing and sculpture.

Abstract Expressionist painters explored new ways of creating art, reinvigorating

and reinventing the medium. They changed the nature of painting with their large, abstract
canvases, energetic and gestural lines, and new artistic processes. Many artists
experimented with nontraditional materials, such as commercial paints and
housepainter’s brushes. Artists also developed new techniques to apply paint, such as
moving the canvas from the easel to the floor and working on unstretched and unprimed
canvas. With these unconventional ways of painting, the Abstract Expressionists sought
new forms of self-expression and personal freedom in their work.
 There are two types of Abstract Expressionist painters, Action painters, and Color
Field painters. According to a web source, “In simple terms, the Abstract Expressionism
movement encompassed two broad groupings. These included: (1) the so-called “action
painters” such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning who focused on an active
gestural style; and (2) the more passive “colour-field” painters, notably Mark Rothko,
Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still, who were concerned with reflection and mood. That
said, it is not always easy to draw a precise line between these two types of Abstract
Expressionism, and several artists contributed to both (Visual-Arts-Cork). There are two
styles within the Abstract Expressionism movement which the artists can be categorized.
However, some of the Abstract Expressionists practiced both styles. The distinctions
between the two styles can sometimes be hard to determine in certain artists work due to
the influence that both Action painters and Color Field painters had on each other.

The Color Field painters focused on color and contrast. The Barnett Newman
painting bellow is a good example of the Color Field painting style. This painting is a
horizontal painting with contrasting vertical lines dividing the piece into sections or fields.
Like many of the Color Field painters this painting emphasizes fields of color and aims to
capture the attention and emotion of the viewer with fields of color.

The Action painters used a style that involved streaks and overlapping lines of
paint which implied movement in the artwork. The artist Franz Kline is a well-known
Abstract Expressionist Action painter. The painting below by Franz Kline is a good
example of an Action painting. The use of layers of paint and rigid contrasting edges are
common characteristics of the Action painting style.

EXPRESSIONIST THEORY OF ART

Expressionism, artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality
but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within
a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism,
and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal
elements. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the later
19th and the 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous
self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements.
Expressionism can also be seen as a permanent tendency in Germanic and Nordic art
from at least the European Middle Ages, particularly in times of social change or spiritual
crisis, and in this sense it forms the converse of the rationalist and classicizing tendencies
of Italy and later of France.

More specifically, Expressionism as a distinct style or movement refers to a

number of German artists, as well as Austrian, French, and Russian ones, who became
active in the years before World War I and remained so throughout much of the interwar
period.

Expressionist theory is concerned with the content of the work of art. Some critics
claim that no object can be considered art if it fails to arouse an emotional response in
the viewer. The expressive qualities are the most important to them. Their theory
Emotionalism, requires that a work of art must arouse a response of feelings, moods or
emotions in the viewer.

In expressionist art, colour in particular can be highly intense and non-naturalistic,

brushwork is typically free and paint application tends to be generous and highly textured.
Expressionist art tends to be emotional and sometimes mystical. It can be seen as an
extension of Romanticism.

Although the term expressionist can be applied to artworks from any era, it is
generally applied to art of the twentieth century. It may be said to start with Vincent Van
Gogh and then form a major stream of modern art embracing, among many others,
Edvard Munch, fauvism and Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, the Brücke and Blaue
Reiter groups, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann, most of Pablo
Picasso, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, Alberto Giacometti, Jean
Dubuffet, Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer and the neo-expressionism of the 1980s.
AESTHETIC HEDONISM
According to one kind of theory, the function of art is to produce just one kind of
effect upon its audience: pleasure. It may also inform or instruct, represent or express,
but first and foremost it must please. The more pleasure it gives, the better the art.

If the theory is left in this simple form, it yields the result that glossy and superficial
works and those containing nothing difficult or obscure are the best works of art. Thus,
on the hedonistic account, King Lear might come out far behind Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha, or Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees,” in view of the difficulty of
comprehending Shakespeare by many people and the pleasant, easy lilting quality of
Longfellow’s poem; similarly, a simple ditty might come out ahead of Bach’s Mass in B
Minor. True, Shakespeare and Bach might produce more pleasure in the long run since
their works have endured through more centuries, but, on the other hand, the simple
works can be apprehended and enjoyed by vastly more people.

In any case, the theory has often been amended to read “aesthetic pleasure” rather
than simply “pleasure”—thus placing great importance on exactly how the term “aesthetic”
is to be defined. The definition of this troublesome term is beyond the scope of this article
(see aesthetics); it will simply be said here that no quick and easy way of distinguishing
aesthetic pleasures from other pleasures will suffice for the task at hand. If it is said, for
example, that aesthetic pleasure consists in satisfaction taken in the contemplation of
sensuous particulars (tones, colours, shapes, smells, tastes) for their own sake—that is,
for no further end and without ulterior motive—then one confronts the fact that as much
pleasure may be taken in single smells and tastes for their own sakes, without any
reference beyond them, as may be taken in the most complex works of art. For that matter,
pleasure in playing a game (one not played for money) is pleasure in doing something for
its own sake, as is the pleasure of robbing a house if it is done not for money but for
“kicks.” If something is found pleasurable, ordinarily the pleasure is what one wants from
it, not something else beyond it.
 Moreover, if it is said that a work of art should be a means toward pleasure, that is
treading suspiciously near to the opposed view that art should not be a means to an end
but an end in itself. If someone says, “Why do you go jogging every morning for three
miles? Because you feel the exercise is good for you?” and another person answers, “No,
not that at all, I just enjoy doing it,” this would ordinarily and quite sensibly be taken as
saying that the person did not do exercise as a means toward an end but as an end in
itself. If something is done just because it is enjoyed, in common parlance this would be
taken to be “doing it as an end in itself”; if one objected, “No, I’m not doing it as an end in
itself, I’m doing it as a means toward the enjoyment I’ll get out of it,” the reply would be
considered sophistical, for doing it for enjoyment’s sake is precisely what is ordinarily
meant (or one thing that is ordinarily meant) by the statement that a thing is being done
for its own sake.

In any case, the effect of great works of art upon a reader or viewer or listener can
hardly be described as merely hedonistic. No one would presumably wish to deny that art
can and should give us pleasure, but few would wish to assert that pleasure is all that it
should give us. If one were to ask, “How did viewing Picasso’s Guernica affect you?” and
the reply was, “I found it pleasant,” we would conclude that the reaction to the painting
was, to say the least, inadequate. Great art may please; it may also move, shock,
challenge, or change the lives of those who experience it deeply. Pleasure is only one of
many kinds of effects it produces.