COMPOSITION
7
AESTHETIC
STYLE
Finding one’s style is a matter
of much discussion among artists.
Aesthetics, loosely defined, refers to
both the stylistic look of a painting as
well as its physical process and visual
intention. Aesthetics impacts portrait
composition – or indeed any
composition – in the way the artist
uses elements such as shapes,
brushwork, line, colour, atmosphere,
movement, content and so on. For
example, a portrait by the early
20th-century Russian artist Chaïm
Soutine will require very different
decisions for the composition than
one by the 16th-century painter Hans
Holbein. Soutine’s compositions
include great varieties of generalised
brush strokes, colours and values
that create an overall visual tapestry
on the picture plane. Much is left to
interpretation. The paint is generally
thick and can be enjoyed for its own
sake. In a Holbein painting, very
specific shapes and forms are
composed to create a sense of levels
of depth and geometry, and a clean,
linear approach unifies the whole.
Aesthetic style evolves over time,
but ultimately becomes a hallmark of
an artist’s compositional identity and
approach. Portrait artists frequently
emulate historic precedents in
compositions until they begin to
develop their own aesthetic sense.
Sketches and copies of master works
can be helpful to learn compositional
and aesthetic strategies.8
COLOUR
AND LIGHT
Composing a portrait with
colour and light descends from the
classical Greeks and Romans and has
been central to portrait compositions
ever since. Both closed form
compositions (line based) and open
form structures (atmosphere and
value based) require planning of their
use of colour and the role of light. If a
composition is based on natural
observation, colour choices can be
rooted in an understanding of the
specific palette that will describe
observed forms and spaces well in
the painting. Should an aesthetic
decision be to build a composition on
an overarching imagined colour idea,
the result will be in another direction.For example, the 20th-century British
portrait painter Stanley Spencer often
focused on the natural colours of his
sitters. Gwen John also designed
portraits that had a highly poetic
colour and value theme. Both painters
are characterised by these choices.
Lighting has several roots in
portrait composition. Lighting in a
portrait composition can be warm or
cool. Available light, as used by
Impressionist painters, is very
common and has great variability indirection and temperature. Strong
directional warm or cool light
characterises painters as varied as
Rembrandt and John Singer Sargent.
Light completely in the service of
colour and paint expression, rather
than strength of three-dimensionality,
is an approach used by such 20th-
century portrait painters as Suzanne
Valadon and Alice Neel. As integral
parts of a portrait, composition, light
and colour should be planned carefully.
http://www.algury.comAl Gury, Rosae, 2017, oil on panel, 76x61cm
Careful decisions were made about cropping. Hands, arm and folds of fabrics
provided useful cropping choices, as well as a nod to the modern cropping
choices established by Edgar Degas. The strong colour in Rosae is made
primarily of high chroma prismatic colours, with the exception of the face.
PRIVATE COLLECTION