Yr2 Week2: Elements of Art and Composition

Fig. 1. - Dusk River by Darek Zabrocki

For Critical Studies this week, we were told to bring in an image in to our seminar which evoked some kind of emotions or response to us to discuss with our peers during the session. I chose this image by Darek Zabrocki, it is named Dusk River and is a self-explanatory landscape digital study of a canal focusing mainly on lighting and brushstrokes, similar to those of Zbukvic.

The main reason I chose this piece is because I really enjoyed the style of the painting and find it quite inspirational, as this is a style I have been meaning to practice and try out, as it is quite rough and painterly but still portrays the scene very nicely. I don't have any favourable bias towards the artist and simply just enjoyed the style and atmosphere.

The seminar had us analysing the elements of our chosen paintings in more depth and then presenting information to our peers in a speed-dating type style, talking to them for a fixed time about our choices (a minute and a half), and then switching partners and discussing our pieces again, each time choosing a new element of the piece to discuss.

The elements are split into two separate categories, "Elements of Composition" and "Elements of Art". Elements of composition includes things such as balance, focus, movement, space, contract, pattern and proportion, etc. Elements of art includes things such as line, colour and texture. Obviously all of these things aren't included in every piece of artwork, for example my chosen piece doesn't contain any pattern, as it is a study which is simply observing a landscape and hasn't had thought to repetitive symbols being placed into it, as it is being used to show the scene as it is, and is not portraying a certain story apart from the atmosphere at that present time. (Unless you would include the consistency of the brush strokes and marks made).

The things I that Zabrocki has focused on mainly in this study are line, colour, contrast and movement. As discussed earlier, the piece is deliberately made to use painterly brush strokes which is a key element to the feel of the painting. While being a digital painting it still has the characteristics of the brush strokes and the choices he has made while creating this, which adds quite a personal and authentic character to the painting. I also find it intriguing how there aren't any straight lines or edges, yet the piece features buildings which would normally use these things, but Zabrocki has made good use of the lines and defined edges with strong, bold colours and lighting to show the details and depth of the buildings.

The colours are very strong, a very contrasting palette has been used of dark browns and blues against bright blues, reds and yellows. It is quite interesting how all three of the primary colours have been used to compliment each other, and Zabrocki has done well to combine these colours so nicely. The harsh dark backgrounds give a gloomy atmosphere, but the bright red and yellows add warmth and almost a festive feel, whilst the blue contrasts giving a more cool and relaxed feeling and balancing out the colours to not be too overwhelming.

The canal guides the viewer’s gaze along it and into the horizon, where a bright sky provides contrast and a nice ending point to the painting while allowing the scenery at the sides to be viewed along the way. The bright red building in the right of the painting balances out the bright lights in the bottom left and helps to keep the main focal point in the centre of the piece. The structures in the distance are a lot less strong and use more muted tones as they get further away to avoid drawing attention away from the main details in the foreground.

All of this in combination evokes many emotions and I can almost picture being in this landscape due to the sheer amount of colour and light information provided, enabling me to create a vivid representation of what this may look like viewed first hand in my head. This is definitely an inspirational painting to me and I aim to be able to portray atmosphere like this in my own work in the future.

Fig. 1. Dusk River (2015) At: http://daroz.deviantart.com/art/Dusk-river-519343438