Helpful Hints for the Artist #8
Composing a Landscape
When you are looking at a landscape, it may be a problem deciding where the “edges” come, where the picture should begin and end. An easy solution to this can be a homemade viewfinder which is nothing more than a piece of card with a rectangular hole cut in the middle. Alternatively the viewfinder of a camera can be used. And it is always worthwhile to bear in mind that pictures can be vertical (known as “portrait” shape) instead of horizontal (“landscape” shape).
This will help you see not only in composition but also in relating the elements to each other, helping you to see in tones rather than shapes. Sometimes tones seem to be overwhelming, and it helps to half-close your eyes, so that although the details is lost the broad masses are more easily differentiated.
Perhaps most important, remember that when drawing landscape—or any other subject, for that matter—put down what you can see and not what you know is there. Rely on your eyes and the messages they’re sending you.
Bernard Berenson had a small book entitled “Seeing and Knowing.” He said that visual art is a compromise between the two. Schopenhauer claimed that the artist merely copies the patches of color that are seen. The viewer’s mind then takes those colored shapes and makes an object out of them. So, an artist shouldn’t think about what is known regarding objects. The artist should simply copy the patches of color that are seen by the eye.
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