ARA Boston Art History Lecture: Composition

Composition - Or the arrangement of the visual space - is often a revealing/instructive characteristic in placing a painting, historically speaking. For the painter though, the composition is what the plot of a story is to an author. Leading a viewer through the pictorial space the same way a good story teller does. However like all good craftspersons, they hide their process. For the magic trick to work the viewer can’t see the trap door. There is a grammar to everything, and composition is no different. The language of composition can be broken down into ‘templates’. In this talk we will be looking at compositional templates; where they appear, and how they are interpreted through different minds and hands.