What is balance?
- "In its simplest form, balance is achieved by two forces of equal strength that pull in opposite directions."
How is balance formed?
- "Factors such as size, colour or direction contribute to visual balance in ways not necessarily paralleled physically"
- "The composition rests on point and counterpoint - that is, on many counterbalancing elements. But these antagonistic forces are not contradictory or conflicting. They do not create ambiguity. Ambiguity confuses the artistic statement because it leaves the observer hovering between two or more assertions that do not add up to to whole. As a rule, pictorial counterpoint is hierarchic - that is, it sets a dominant forces against a subservient one. Each relation is unbalanced in itself, together they all balance one another in the structure of the whole work."
Why is balance important?
- "In a balanced composition all factors such as shape, direction, and location are mutually determined in such a way that no change seems possible, and the whole assumes the character of 'necessity' in all its parts." (pg.20)
- "An unbalanced composition looks accidental, transitory and therefore invalid" (pg.20)
- "Under conditions of imbalance, the artistic statement becomes incomprehensible", "We have the sense that the process of creation has been accidentally frozen somewhere along the way" (pg.20)
- "Why should artists strive for balance?" - "By stabilising the interrelations between the various forces in a visual system the artists makes his statement unambiguous" (pg.36)
- "Man strives for equilibrium in all phases of his physical and mental existence"
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