6th Lecture — Abstract

The scope and hierarchy of the fundamental visual elements

Milan Butina

I.

When we read discussions and books dealing with practical and theoretical art problems, we come across various names and enumerations of art elements. Thus, Dr Pavle Vasič writes about colour and form, line, dark and light valers, form and other elements. Nikola Despot mentions line, shapes, textures, valers of colour, volume, space, etc. Among foreign authors, Wallace Baldinger, for example, discusses point, line, surface and textures, colour, mass and space. Maitland Graves, who is also well known in this country, talks about line, direction, shape, size, texture, lightness and colour. Oscar Hollweck divides the elements into fillers, which he considers to be brightness, colour, texture and space, and formal elements, which are point, line and space. Lilian Garett distinguishes between the elements of mass and space – which are point, line, surface and volume – and the fundamental variables of the elements of mass and space – size, shape, position, direction, number, intervals and density. I could go on, but it is clear from these references that some of the elements are fundamental, as all the authors speak of them, e.g. point, colour, brightness, space, line, volume. Each of the authors listed here links these elements in a certain way and puts them into relationships with each other, explaining them and drawing conclusions about their artistic function, about how they relate to each other in higher artistic forms and composition. However, it is not possible to tell from comparing the views of different authors which pictorial elements are primary and which are secondary, even though their implementations are artistically logical and, within the framework of their conception of art, accurate. In this essay, I am interested precisely in whether it is possible to identify the internal hierarchy that exists between the various fundamental pictorial elements, and I want to identify, if possible, which are the fundamental elements in pictorial design in the first place.

If we want to find out the answer to the question posed in this way, there are, of course, several paths open to us, and probably each will be able to give logical answers, just as the conclusions of the authors I have mentioned, as well as of others, are logical. We could take the purely artistic-creative path that all creative artists follow. However, on closer reflection, it turns out that these paths are necessarily individually conditioned, since the different elements in them occupy different places within an individually conditioned system, within the artistic speech – the language of the individual artist. A cursory glance at Rembrandt’s paintings shows that for Rembrandt the line was secondary, as it is in his prints, because it served primarily to create the luminous tonal values that are his primary concern. Jackson Pollock, on the other hand, created his varied compositions using line as his primary element. Just as there are artists who have relied predominantly on one element and derived their vision from it, so we also find artists who have drawn now from one element and now from another. Henri Matisse was one such artist, who could base an entire composition on a line or on a flat application of colour. Picasso worked in a similar way. Thus it becomes obvious that the elements of art are merely means that are subordinate to an inner vision and that they are used within a system of means of artistic expression. As clearly as this can be seen from the works of art themselves, it can be seen from the theoretical writings of individual artists, e.g.. We are always confronted with the view that the elements of art are only means and tools which each artist manages in the way that best suits his artistic intentions. And rightly so.

But that is only one side of the problem. Art is not an end in itself, not even when it is proclaimed to be so. Art is always a part of social life and is always intended for those who are not artists, but who need it to balance their own spiritual problems and to reconcile themselves with their social environment. In my view, one of the basic tasks of art is to give suggestions and instructions as to how, in the specific sphere of life in which it is concerned, our contact with the world, with nature and with society should be conducted. It is therefore also necessary to ask what it is that brings artists together with other people, for whom their art is ultimately intended.

The answer seems to me to be in the palm of my hand. They are both human beings, and as such they have enough in common to find a common denominator that will solve the problem. From this point of view, every work of art is an object for the maker and the viewer, a thing outside themselves that they can contact through their senses and their whole nervous system as a whole. Through the mediation of the senses, the creator realises the work of art, and through the mediation of the senses, the work enters the consciousness of the spectator.

The link is therefore the senses. But there are more senses. Charles-Noel Baker lists as many as twenty. In general, psychologists today divide external stimuli into three categories according to their physical nature: mechanical, chemical and electromagnetic. Together, these three categories cover a range of sensory modalities that are broader than the classical domain of the five senses.

For each category of physical stimuli we have one or more senses. For chemical stimuli we have the sense of smell and taste, for mechanical stimuli we have the sense of hearing, the sense of touch and the kinesthetic and proprioceptive senses: the sense of balance with its seat in the inner ear and the sense of one’s own body in the skin, muscles and internal organs. electromagnetic stimuli are answered by the sense of heat and the sense of sight.

The senses have different spatial reach due to the properties of the physical agents: distal for distance and proximal for proximity. Distal are hearing and vision, proximal are touch, taste and smell, which can also be more distal in nature. The prpoprioceptive senses are limited to the domain of one’s own body, and their sensations and perceptions are projected onto the outside world and are the basis for the proper functioning of the other senses. During evolution, first the proximal and then the distal senses developed: first the sense of touch, which is linked to direct, material contact, then taste, smell and hearing, and finally the sense of calling. This developmental order has a profound effect on the psychological value of the senses, because the later developed senses are more capable and richer.

These senses work together and support each other in man: ‘sight, touch and hearing inform him about space; sight and touch convey to him the shape and structure of objects. The balanced structure of the inner ear, which responds to gravity, acceleration and deceleration of bodily movements, provides orientation in space, which is then either confirmed or corrected by vision”.

Fine Senses

If we try to choose among the senses listed those that directly enable artistic design, we will have to eliminate all the chemical senses, hearing among the mechanical senses, and the sense of warmth among the electromagnetic senses. All the others are involved in artistic design: the sense of the body, the sense of balance, the sense of touch and the sense of sight. Since vision can integrate the experiences and perceptions of all the other visual senses – as we may call them – it is the most important of them. The scope of artistic design and the means of artistic expression are determined by the range of these senses and their possibilities, based on the laws of fitting physical media. The visual artist moves within the described field, but this does not mean that he should not reach for the possibilities offered by the other senses if he feels that he has to say more than the visual senses allow him to say. He only has to know that visual messages have to be shaped according to the demands of the visual senses, as sound messages have to be shaped according to the demands of hearing, etc.

All the senses have their possibilities determined by the physical component; what is particularly important here is the extent to which the sense perceptions can be articulated, broken down into organised forms, since this is fundamental to the formation and expression of thought. Physiologists and psychologists divide these possibilities into four main classes:

intensity

weak, strong, quiet, loud, bright, dark, etc;

quality

soft, hard red, green, etc;

space

near, far, high, low, front, back, etc;

time

yesterday, today, tomorrow, before, now then, etc.

These four classes are the main attributes of the sensory experience of all the senses. Here the senses differ in their ability to distinguish degrees in the quantities of these attributes of the world. This defines the notion of threshold: we call threshold the extreme intensity above or below which we stop perceiving a stimulus. The absolute threshold is the smallest amount of arousal necessary to produce a sensation, and the differential threshold is the smallest amount necessary to change the initial stimulus enough to experience a change in the original sensation.

From this point of view, taste and smell do not offer man adequate opportunities for expressing more complex feelings and thoughts, even though they are senses with rich perceptions. Their extension in time and space is too diffuse and imprecise. Hearing, on the other hand, is an excellent sense for articulating, shaping and conveying messages, as music and speech testify. However, hearing conveys only noises about most things in the environment, so that auditory messages relate to the human physical world in a somewhat indirect way, which in turn allows verbal and musical expression to be much freer and more attached to the phenomenal world than visual expression. In reality, hearing gives us only a small part of the information we need to live and function successfully in the world, apart from the cultural message that speech conveys.

Most of the useful information about the outside world comes from the visual senses. Touch is limited to direct, bodily contact: but since every object has to be felt piece by piece, it is difficult to form an idea of the wider living space. Sensations of type can be articulated and arranged into transparent patterns with sufficient precision and constraint in space, which is of great importance for all design disciplines. Therefore, tactile patterns can also be organised into carriers of symbolic meanings, as Braille for the blind shows. Tactile perceptions and experiences are also extremely important for a balanced life in our world so full of objects and things.

From the point of view of information about the world, the sense of sight is the most capable. This is also evident from its evolutionary significance, which is underlined by the fact that in man it has reached the greatest possible perfection and precision that any sense can achieve, the eye being so sensitive that it can respond to a single quantum of light energy. Given that a molecule is the smallest physical unit in smell and hearing (not to mention touch), and one quantum is the smallest unit of light energy, it is clear that no significantly greater advance in the sensitivity of the senses can be achieved. Further improvement of the eye in this direction would be pointless, because otherwise we would be living in light chaos: one quantum irritates about ten photocells at the same time, and even greater sensitivity would be pointless, because it would be impossible to ensure effective control and selection of light stimuli; the minimum condition of simultaneous activation of several cells constitutes a safety regulation.

The great advantage of vision is that it is not only a medium that can be optimally articulated and structured, but its formal world also gives us extraordinarily enriching messages about things and events in the world. this is why the field of vision is also the main field of thought. What vision can give is not only available to the spirit, but is also inevitably necessary and important for it. It is especially important that vision can also convey many experiences of the other senses. For much of the tactile sensations can, after a certain period of learning, be perceived and controlled by sight, and are also inevitably necessary and important. It is particularly important that vision can also mediate many experiences of the other senses. Much of the tactile sensations can be perceived and controlled by sight after a certain period of learning, as can a significant part of the experience of the kinesthetic and proprioceptive senses. These experiences combine with the visual ones and strongly influence the perceptions of the other senses, just as, of course, the experiences of the other senses can influence the perceptions of the visual senses.

Sight is therefore the sense that can tell us the most about the external world, especially about the object world that is so important to our way of life. The particular advantage of vision is that it can combine the perceptions of all the senses of space and convey them to us in three dimensions, which is the maximum number of dimensions that we can perceive.

Fine arts psychologists say that sense sensations are not independent things, but spontaneously and necessarily coalesce into patterns (Gestalt). These patterns do not arise from a chaotic jumble of sensations with slowly acquired experience, but are the result of the organising capacity of the nervous system itself. We can say that the nervous system is form-forming because it organises chaotic data into forms, patterns, wholes. This is best seen in visual patterns, which is why sensory perception is also goal-oriented and selective. Active selection is one of the fundamental traits of vision and is directed primarily at changes in the environment because these changes are most important to the organism. The organism notices and responds only to what is important to it.

Faber Birren points out that beauty, harmony, rhythm, proportion, colour, shape and space are not properties of things, but of human perception. What we really see or what really exists in the external. What we really see or what really exists in the external world is not the real substance of perception, but only the stimulation of it. A surface may reflect light, but colour only arises in the experience of man. Rudolf Arnheim adds that perception cannot be limited to what the eyes receive directly from the external world. The perceptual act is never isolated because it is only the first stage of a complex process of thought.

What all the visual senses have in common is that they deal with space – multidimensional space. Therefore, the articulation and organisation of spatial relations is the main object of the artistic disciplines. Just as – according to Stravinsky – the main task of music is to organise the relations between man and time, so the main task of artistic design is to organise and structure the relations between man and space. This space can be real or imaginary and must be arranged in a way that the essence of man and his position in time demands. It is understandable, therefore, that for so long the fine arts have been bound to resemblance to the appearance of the world, and that they were only able to free themselves from these bonds when general human development had reached a stage which made such liberation possible and permissible in the sphere of artistic expression as well.

In a sense, abstract art heralded the flight to the Moon, new spatial perspectives and the possibility of a new understanding of spatial relations, which were almost simultaneously explained and made possible by other spiritual disciplines, especially scientific ones. Abstract art, with its disinterest in the appearance of the world, opened up new possibilities for spatial design, although this does not mean that everything is now permissible and possible. On the contrary, we will have to become much more aware of the possibilities and limits of our body, which has been formed in earthly conditions and which we will not be able to surpass or change without losing or at least changing our human essence.

Since vision is therefore capable of bringing together most of the messages and the external world that are important for artistic design, we can conceive of it – and we will simplify the task – as the main sense of art. This is not to say, of course, that we have eliminated the other senses, only that they are not necessary for our basic analysis for the time being.

Internal light

Light is a prerequisite for vision to work. Visible light is only part of a wide spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, ranging from cosmic rays on the one hand to alternating currents on the other. From this spectrum, our eye receives and converts into nerve messages only a small fraction of the waves in the region between 0.00004 cm and 0.00007 cm wavelengths. If we direct a beam of sunlight containing all the visible wavelengths through a three-arm glass prism, the beam splits and the light that emerges is decomposed into a fan of monochromatic light, each corresponding to a specific wavelength. If we intercept these lights on a white screen, we see a continuous emission spectrum of visible light, a band of different colours passing into each other. From the short-wavelength end to the long-wavelength end, the following colours follow each other: violet, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Each colour corresponds to electromagnetic radiation of different energy with a corresponding and characteristic wavelength and frequency. Red light, which is the least refractive, corresponds to a longer wavelength and a lower frequency, while violet, which is the most refractive, corresponds to a shorter wavelength and a higher frequency.
The quantum of light that we said the eye can already react to is produced by processes within the atom, by electrons jumping from one electron shell to another. Since quanta (photons) are therefore the size of electrons, it stands to reason that they can be absorbed as well as reflected by different substances. The colour appearance of a substance depends on the light it reflects, or its wavelength. We only see light that is reflected by things and objects in our surroundings. We have not developed a special detection apparatus for direct light from the sun and other light sources, so we do not see it. But light reflected from objects and things in our environment is important to us because it gives us messages about the world we live in.

The sense of sight is therefore affected by all the physical data inherent in light energy: the intensity of light, wavelengths and frequencies of oscillation. The light reflected from things and objects into the eye is ordered according to the design of the thing and the environment. More light is reflected from the side facing the light source and less or no light is reflected from the side facing away from the light source. Therefore, the reflected light conveys to our eyes the structure of the shapes and the structure of their spatial and other relationships to each other. It brings to the eye a message that is ordered according to the state of the surroundings. The visual apparatus has to make sense of it, and it has to make sense of everything that is important to us.

The visual apparatus and thinking

Our visual apparatus consists of our eyes and our brain. The eyes – as well as the other senses – process the stimuli they receive and turn them into nerve impulses that go to higher brain centres. The processing of these stimuli takes place in the corresponding centres of the cerebral cortex. Only there are the sensations of light, colour, shapes and other visual sensations formed from the nerve impulses caused by light stimuli. In the brain, what has entered the nervous system through the senses becomes visible, audible, tasteful, tactile, and only here does it acquire its meaning and significance, M.D. Vernon says that all our perceptions are characterised by a search for meaning, and with Arnheim we can add that perception is only the first stage in a complex course of infinitely many similar actions that have been done in the past and live on in memory, so that they influence future ones too. We tend to forget this because we are not aware of the path that a nerve message takes on its way from the senses to the brain, nor of the processing and refinement of these messages in the subcortical and cortical nuclei. In reality, this means that when we start to make art, we are already using very precisely and subjectively processed material, which is far removed from what we usually call objective reality. There is no conscious thought or idea, in imagination or otherwise, which is not subjective, influenced by individual experiences and demands which are combined with the experiences of the species.

Paul Chauchard says that thought is a kind of mental reconstruction of the external world and of ourselves, from which we abstract the essential elements in order to obtain plans for action, which we construct in the mind before technically carrying them out. The image of the world and of ourselves is, according to him, not only a psychological process, but also a functional brain structuring, a reflection of the world and of ourselves in the brain by the orientation of sensory messages according to innate and acquired schemata. Since we have learned to make a brain synthesis of all the sensory messages that speak of the same object, or of ourselves, brain image structuring is the structuring of a whole that combines several sensory schemata. It is thus distinguished from purely reflective sensuality and given an autonomous individuality: an object is no longer merely external, but dwells within us in the form of a brain schema that represents it. Brain activity processes this schema, which is thought and which can be recalled by memory, which no longer needs the external presence of the thing.

The visual is not visual

This slightly longer excursion into the world of the senses and the nervous system was necessary in order to realise the necessary dependence of artistic design on physical, physiological and psychological laws. But the visual is not identical with the sensual, visual and tactile. The visual is what comes from the world into our nervous system through the sensory pathway of vision. Our thinking is the result of events from the sense organ to events in the cerebral cortex, and is organised in a way that is distinctive and specific to human beings. Bertrand Russell believes that the structure of our sense perceptions is identical to the structure of things outside us, and psychologist Adcock compares our nervous system to the universe because it seems to him to be built on the same hierarchical principle – small things are part of larger things, and these in turn are part of even larger things. This enables the system to perceive complex information, which we can use to create effective cues for action.

The nervous system is a system that can perceive complex information, which we can use to create effective cues for action.
Through the cognitive activity of the nervous system, we reduce the world into a system of relationships that we can understand and which enable us to find the appropriate means to achieve our goals. The problem of perception and thought can be thought of as the problem of turning the world, the immediate environment and the universe, into signs, into a system of representations and symbols which are much easier to operate with than the things themselves. In perception, Adcock says, we try to structure sensory data into meaningful information, so we see houses, trees, squares, ships, etc. The universe is represented in this system of representations and symbols more as a construction of various kinds, that is, not as a broad image, but rather as an assemblable toy whose parts can be combined in many ways. The aim of the nervous system is to obtain the widest and fullest possible knowledge. Cognition, as Arnheim puts it, comprises all those mental activities involved in the reception, retention and processing of facts: sensory perception, memory, thinking and learning.

Sense perception is thus directed towards the cognition of that part of reality which is accessible by a particular sense. The visual senses enable us to contact and learn about a particular part of the world and its phenomena. But because this knowledge is also met and enriched in the brain by the perceptions and cognitions of the other senses, each particular area is enriched and enlarged so that the exploitation of the possibilities of one sense pathway can call up the whole of our knowledge. Mental processes such as thinking and imagination are particularly dependent on the fusion of information stored in different parts of the brain; imagination in particular combines partial cognitions in a new way. Therefore, each art is much broader than just what constitutes its particular area; the fields are intertwined and mutually enriching. But when we want to express these holistic knowledges again, to communicate them by the specific means of a particular art, we have to knead them and subject them to the laws of the way in which they can be perceived and understood by others for whom they are intended. It is understandable that parts of these holistic cognitions will now be expressed differently from the way they were formed in the brain; they will be subject to the possibilities and limitations of the medium. In this sense, Marshall Mac Luhan’s thought that “the medium is the message” is interesting because it draws our attention to the fact that each medium allows and emphasises in particular its own cognitions and therefore in a way directs a new search and further understanding of the world.

The visual is not and cannot therefore be merely visual or tactile. The visual is based on the visual and the tactile, but it is more because it conveys a holistic cognition: the invisible becomes visible, as Paul Klee wrote. The visual conveys our visual and tactile cognition, enriched by the cognitions of the other senses, again through the visual and tactile channel to the outside world in the form of a work of art, a visual message. The problem of the visual designer, then, is how to bring what the nervous system has organised and integrated into cognition in a meaningful way through its functioning and capacities, to the outside and to realise it in matter. This is also what demarcates the visual from the visual. Therefore, the visual is not and cannot be a copy and imitation of the visual, but an interpretation, a search for mental and material analogies to cognitive categories, that is to say, the creation of such visual signs and symbols that, although limited by the possibilities of matter and the senses, will be able to carry a spiritual content. At the same time, this means creating a new world, which is no longer the natural world, but a special human world, created by man and for man.

II.

If we want to answer the question we asked ourselves at the beginning, which visual elements are primary and which are secondary, we must bear in mind that the visual is based on the sensual – the visible and the tactile. But the visual is more than the sensual: it is the spiritually oriented organisation of material carriers which, although they retain their materiality, are no longer a purely natural phenomenon, but have already been artificially processed and arranged by man in order to become carriers of spiritual content. Here, too, man subjugates natural phenomena to himself and shapes them according to his needs and desires. In doing so, he is guided by the laws of light and sight, and uses substances with the properties that suit him best. Such substances are also coloured substances, which in reality only filter certain wavelengths from white sunlight and have a concentrated colouring in them that is – or at least has been – difficult to exploit straight from the light. Every substance absorbs a certain amount of light and reflects it, and its colour appearance depends on this reflected light. So painters, although they work with coloured materials, are really working with light itself. The same could be said of other visual artists. A sculptor, although modelling directly in clay, uses reflected light, which is structured according to the form of the sculpture, and transmits this structure directly in the form of a certain light pattern to the eyes and thence on to the brain. Architect, industrial designer and other artists do the same. We tend to forget this because, as psychologists say, we have not even developed a special perception of ordinary light, but only perceive the light reflected from things in the environment and experience it as a property of them. When I speak of the distinction between light and dark, red and green, and other visual elements of this kind, it will refer primarily to the substances used by visual designers to achieve the necessary visual effects, effects that are grounded in the physical, physiological and psychological properties of the world and of man.

Looking, therefore, allows us to distinguish between light and colour shades. Arnheim writes: colour and brightness produce all visual perceptions. The boundaries that define shapes arise from the eye’s ability to distinguish between the domains of different brightnesses of the world and of man.

Looking therefore enables us to distinguish between light and colour shades. Arnheim writes: colour and brightness produce all visual perceptions. The boundaries that define shapes arise from the eye’s ability to distinguish between areas of different brightness and colour. Brightening and shading, the two important factors in the creation of three-dimensional forms, are of the same origin. Even in linear drawing, shapes become visible only because of the differences in lightness and colour between ink and paper.

We must therefore distinguish between two properties of light: its luminous intensity and its colouring. White light has different degrees of intensity, from full light to full dark. Full white light is represented, among substances, by substances with white colour, while darkness is represented by substances with black bars, that is to say, substances that reflect all the wavelengths of visible light and substances that absorb most of the visible light. By mixing these coloured substances, white and black, we get different shades of light and dark grey. The white, grey and black colours are called acromatic colours and are inherently neutral in colour because they have no colouring.

The coloured lights that we see most purely in the rainbow are represented by substances that reflect only certain wavelengths of visible light. Coloured lights and substances with certain pure colours are called chromatic colours. The distinction between acromatic and chromatic colours, between the luminous intensity of white light and between the colour qualities of light, allows us to define the first two visual elements: the visual element light-dark and the visual element colour.

Light-dark art element

If I use the term light-dark, I am not referring to anything other than the difference between light and dark, i.e. the difference in brightness. Thus, the term does not include any of the meanings it has in the history of art, neither chiaroscuro nor valerio or other possible meanings, although it may partly correspond to one or the other, but only acknowledges the fact that in our environment and in art there are differences between lighter and darker works.

By mixing white and black, we can arrange different shades of light grey into a grey or lightness scale from white through lighter and darker grey to black. Such a sequence can be represented as a ribbon in which shade passes from shade to shade in a continuous manner. The sequence so arranged is primarily about the diminishing or increasing power of light: white means a lot of light, black means little or no light. This sequence can also be arranged as a sequence of differently bright acromatic colours, represented by a different number of gradations between white and black. In a well-constructed scale of acromatic colours, the differences between the individual levels are arranged so that they are experienced as equal degrees of brightness. In this scale, however, the emphasis can shift from the representation of light to the representation of different grey colours, which is why it is also called the grey scale, since all colours other than white and black are grey.

The information we get from the environment by means of lightness differences relates mainly to the shape of things and their surfaces and to the depth of space. A glance at a black-and-white photograph confirms this, and gives us unambiguous information about the world around us. As Arnheim says, one of the ways in which light reveals the depth and relief of the shapes of things is by intensifying the brightness. The greatest brightness usually occurs at the point closest to, or coinciding with, the place of the light source. From there the light spreads out in all directions, forwards, backwards, sideways, creating a diminishing scale of light in all directions from a chosen point in space. However, Arnheim points out, this general principle does not mean that we experience what we are looking at only as three-dimensional and only when we perceive differences in brightness. In order to form a perception of space, luminance values must be combined with one or more spatial depth keys, such as: size in the field of view, overlapping of shapes by shapes, perspectival movement of linear formations, and the like. Among the spatial depth keys, brightness differences are one of the first and most important. Although in nature and in works of art we deal with variously shaped transitions from light to darker, there are in fact two transitions that are the most information-rich: the rapid, abrupt break between the light and dark areas, and the slow, continuous transition from light to dark or vice versa.

With a few exceptions, a sudden transition from light to dark or vice versa means a rapid leap from one spatial plane to another, a rapid change in the spatial orientation of a surface, the meeting of two differently oriented surfaces, the boundary between figure and background. This is why such transitions are most often found where a form ends, thus forming the outer contour of forms, or where two spatially differently oriented surfaces meet, say two walls in the corner of a room. A continuous transition from light to dark or vice versa means that the spatial orientation of a surface changes slowly. The shadows cast by the body are the most frequent deviation from these meanings in a rapid transition, but they are also usually recognised as something that passes over the shapes. Deviations in continuous transition are most often seen on flat surfaces bordered on one side by strongly light areas and on the other by strongly dark areas, so that a sense of continuous transition develops because of the strong light contrasts at the edges; another common form is due to the spherically declining power of the light from the light source, and this gives a spatial impression anyway.

We can conclude without hesitation that one of the main artistic functions of lightness differences is to evoke a sense of space, of depth, of the plastic form of things and their surfaces. Even when we are dealing with a purely abstract change in brightness, which describes nothing, there is a sense of spatial depth, based on the psychological fact that light colours activate us more than dark ones. For the same reason, we feel dark colours harder than light ones, which is the second main visual characteristic of brightness differences.

All the properties of lightness described above apply to both acromatic and chromatic colours. However, as acromatic colours, greys are visually important mainly because they are neutral in terms of colour. They represent what we call colour balance in the acromatic. This is derived from our physiological-psychological way of perceiving colour: white visible light is composed of coloured light, and colour sensations tend to be automatically completed in the acromatic by a mechanism of successive and simultaneous colour transformations.

One confirmation of the above analysis lies in the physiological distinction between the photocells in the retina and their functional tasks: rods, which are specialised in receiving light power, detect primarily movement and shapes, both of which are closely linked to our way of experiencing space. The earbuds, on the other hand, are specialised for seeing colours and for picking out details.

The art element colour

In addition to being more or less strong, more or less bright, coloured light has a special property: colour or chromaticity. From the rainbow we can see that white light is made up of coloured light; violet, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. These coloured lights can be mixed together to produce new shades of colour, which are also affected by the strength, brightness of the light, so they can be lighter and darker. There are thus more colour possibilities than light possibilities, so the colour information is richer than just the luminosity. For example: a black and white photograph or drawing of two apples may tell us everything about their shape, size, etc., but it tells us nothing about whether they are ripe. Colour adds this and other information. It will be easier to choose the right one from a pile of balls, a certain one, if we say; I would like a red ball, than if we just say: I would like a round ball. The same is true of coloured substances, which represent coloured light in the use of art.

So let’s take a red ball and look at it more closely. Where it faces the light, it is indeed red. But where it faces away from the light, its colour is altered by the shadow and it is no longer red. if we were to try to paint this ball and we wanted to convey its physicality, we would have to model it in the shadow parts, that is to say, we would have to add the colour black. In this way, the red colour would be altered, its true colouring, its individual quality and its glow would be taken away. Let’s take red paper and spread it out on a table. it is the same red everywhere because the light is reflected evenly from the whole surface. Let’s roll the paper into a cylinder and again the red colour in the shadows will change, it will lose its pure redness. so if we want to keep the colour pure and sounding we have to use it in a flat way, in a plane where the light is reflected equally over the whole surface and the shadow or modelling with black does not change the colour. The flat surface preserves the colour in all its beauty and brilliance. Therefore, the flat use of colour is the most artistically justifiable, colour and surface, especially the flat surface, match in their requirements.

This is not to say, of course, that colour cannot be used to outline space and physicality. This has been done in many ways by visual designers, especially painters. For example, by exploiting its possibilities of different lightness and darkness: if we draw a head in red or black chalk, its sculpture will be equally visible and distinct. Or we can exploit its qualities that evoke feelings of warmth and coolness. Warm colours are those containing yellow or red, and cool colours are those containing blue. When describing space and physicality, warm colours behave as light and cool colours as dark because they affect our psyche in two fundamentally different ways. Warm – and bright – colours activate our body, stimulate it to action, so bright and warm coloured objects are more important to us than dark and cold coloured ones. Cold and dark colours deactivate our body, keep it active and calm it down. The psychological consequence is that light and warm coloured objects feel bigger and seem to move, while dark and cool coloured objects feel smaller and seem to move away. In this way, colours and brightness reveal themselves to us as psychic energies, and this is how all great artists have understood and used them. This is true not only for these two artistic elements, but also for all other artistic elements.

Expressions such as warm and cool are evidence that colours – and other visual elements such as shape – evoke emotional responses that are not inherent in the colours – or shapes – themselves as physical phenomena, but are brought into them by our psyche. From this point of view, we can speak of the qualities of colours that apply to all people in general, and of those qualities that derive from the individual traits of the individual, and also of those qualities that derive from the cultural use of a particular age and society. It is understandable that these kinds of differences also exist in all other visual elements, but it is perhaps true that it is in colour that they are most noticeable. Colour is a completely subjective experience: no device that measures the properties of physical veto detects colour, only its physical properties: wavelength, frequency of vibration and intensity of radiation. Although colour perception is a subjective experience for the individual, there are enough common traits shared by all people to guide our artistic design. Thus, while warm colours cause the same physiological changes in everyone, the psychological reactions to these influences can vary from person to person: for example, someone likes yellow but dislikes red, while another prefers red and avoids yellow.

Compared to acromatic colours, chromatic colours have a chromaticity that varies with wavelength. pure chromatic colours have absolute properties by which they can be distinguished and relative properties by which they can be compared. They are distinguished by their chromaticity: yellow, red blue, etc., and by the specific brightness inherent in each colour: yellow is the brightest and violet the darkest pure colour. The relative values of colours are the lightness tones of the amount of white, grey and black that are mixed into a given pure colour. In colorimetry, we talk about three dimensions of colour: the colour tone or its colourfulness, which depends on the wavelength; the brightness of a colour, which depends on the intensity of the light waves and is measured in lux; and the saturation, which depends on the purity of the colour waves.

Colours are arranged in colour circles: the colours are arranged around the circumference of the circle in the same order as in a rainbow, and the two ends of the spectral band are connected by mixing a transition colour of red and violet to form a colour circle. The colour wheel is arranged according to a rule which requires that two opposite colours should produce a mixture of an acromatic colour. Thus, in the centre of the circle in which the spectral colours are arranged, at the point where the mixtures of all the opposite coloured lights are marked, there is white light. In the colour circle in which the coloured substances are arranged, the colour black stands at this point, because the mixture of two opposite coloured substances absorbs all the light. The two colour circles also differ for the same reason with regard to the arrangement of the colours in the purple and blue areas: in the case of coloured lights, yellow stands opposite blue, giving no sense of white light mixed together, whereas in the case of coloured substances, purple stands opposite yellow, and their mixture is a dirty dark grey acromatic colour (theoretically black).

In the colour wheel, of the three dimensions of colour, only colourfulness is taken into account. All three dimensions are represented by the colour body, which is organised by placing a grey scale perpendicularly through the centre of the colour circle, with white above and black below the face of the colour circle. Each colour on the colour circle is tied to white, black and grey on the grey scale. The resulting body has colours on the mantle of the upper cone that are mixed with white (highlight colours) with black (dark colours), and inside the body are colours that contain more or less grey (valerian, or lightness tones). The first dimension, colourfulness, varies in the direction of movement of the colour circle, the second dimension, brightness, in parallel with the grey scale, and the third characteristic, saturation or purity, from the circumference of the circle towards the grey scale. The colour circle and the colour body can also be structured as continuous transitions between individual colours and dimensions. However, we usually use sequences of colour surfaces and may use more or less the same gradations. Since either the colour circle or the colour body is organised by taking into account the psychophysiological tendency of perception towards colour balance in the acromatic domain, both arrangements offer us the basic possibilities of organising colour patterns into harmonious compositions.

We can describe all other visual elements in terms of lightness and colour differences. If we do not have the possibility of creating these differences, which are in fact made possible by the two different aspects of light, we have no possibility of artistic design based on vision, e.g. in painting. They are also very limited in sculpture and architecture, because the type is too narrow and the sense is too weak to be able to create a clear visual message with its possibilities alone.

Point art element

The mathematical definition of a point is that a point has no dimensions, that it is infinitesimal. Such a point would not be useful in artistic design because it could not be perceived. A point in the visual sense can have two or three dimensions, it can be flat or a spatial shape that is large enough to be perceived.

The artistic function of a point is to catch and hold the eye. Any shape whose movement is directed inwards can do this. That is why a circle or sphere is the best point, but all regular shapes are equally good – triangles, squares, polygons and their corresponding solids. But points need not be regular shapes, where irregular ones can also act to stop and hold the gaze, though not with such force. We also feel all meetings and crossings as strong point formations, as well as the ends of lines.

What we feel as a point depends, of course, on the shapes and their relationships in the visual or pictorial field. The eyes on the face are strongly attractive points when the face is close, but when the person is far away the head or even the whole figure becomes a point.

Other visual elements act on a point to change its attractiveness: if we have a yellow and a black point on a light background, the black point will act more strongly because of the greater brightness contrast. The organisational structure of the picture or field of view can also affect a point, a point in the middle of a square being stronger than a point somewhere on the side because its position gives it more emphasis. The value of a point therefore depends on the relationships in the visual whole.

Points are powerful tools in design, says Dorothy Riester, because they bring stability and variety to the outline and cause tension when they stop our gaze moving through the composition.

The line art element

Many points in a sequence are perceived as a line because the eye moves from point to point. The moving pencil tip draws its trace as a line. The line is formed as a trace of a movement, either of the eye or of the pen. And movement is also the main artistic characteristic of a line.

A line that arises from its own activity, for example from the movement of the pen, is called – according to Klee – an active line. But we also feel as line all edges where surfaces of different brightness or colour meet, for example edges between red and green or between white and grey, as well as edges between body and space and edges between spatially oriented – and therefore differently bright – surfaces, such as the walls of buildings or rooms. Every draughtsman knows this to be true from his own experience, since he has drawn all such examples in line, as the outer and inner contours of objects and space, or as the outlines of planar patterns. Such encounters are called passive lines because they arise from the activity of other pictorial or visual elements that have their own colour, luminosity or spatial qualities. These passive lines also express movement in a visual sense. The movement of a line can be the movement of the eye – from point to point – or the movement of the hand guiding the pen, the hand tracing the edge between two shapes, or the movement of the whole body following a line in space. This movement can be of a different nature: it can be fast, slow, jerky, broken, undulating or fluid. The fastest movement is a straight line. Any change of direction slows down the motion of the line. This is why changes in the direction of a line are important for its artistic expression, because a wavy line evokes quite different feelings in us than a zigzag line.

An active line can be used to circle a selected area on a surface to outline the surface. The nature of the line movement we have used here gives character to the shape of such a bounded surface. The line can therefore trace out surfaces of a wide variety of shapes. Shapes in which their length dimension is strongly emphasised can act as linear formations. A line can also constrain and shape three-dimensional space. Among the spatial depth keys, there are some where their linear character is important, such as the perspectival convergence of linear edges (passive lines) or the rapid changes in brightness at the meeting of differently lit and differently spatially oriented surfaces and shapes.

The line is also influenced by other visual elements, brightness, colour, thickness, position, and so on, just as the line influences them.

The lively rhythmic quality makes line, together with colour, one of the most expressive artistic elements, precisely Riester’s. In general, it can be said that the horizontal line works calmly, that the vertical lines are very active and that the oblique lines bring restlessness and instability, while the crossed vertical and horizontal lines evoke a sense of stability. So we can also use lines to express feelings and emotions.

Shape element

First of all, differences in lightness and in colour are therefore necessary in order to outline all the other art elements. Point and line are also considered to be fundamental outline elements because of their importance in outlining more complex characters. Among these, shape as a surface and spatial element, as well as an outlined artistic element, occupies a major place.

Every colour fills a shape and every space is bounded by a shape. Colour and space without form can be imagined, but they cannot be realised. A painter can paint an entire canvas with the same colour, but the canvas is limited in surface area and has a shape. In nature and in design, we are dealing with shapes that are limited by their outer boundaries. For our perception, there are neither infinite surfaces nor infinite space, although we can imagine both. But any substance in which thought is realised is subject to the limitations imposed by the laws of physics. There is no substance without form.

Rudolf Arnheim writes that the perception of forms contains the beginnings of the formation of concepts. Perception fits raw material to its relatively simple templates, to perceptual categories. An object, he says, can adapt a perceptual image to an organised form. Perception is not the passive reception of stimuli, but the active activity of the psyche; the perception of forms consists in the application of form categories, which, because of their simplicity, may also be called visual concepts. One of the first stages of form perception consists in the distinction between figure and background; the figure is perceived as a form, but the background and the space between figures is rarely perceived, although it is equally important for the organisation of the visual field. The stimulus received by the eye is a structured light pattern, which is not yet a psychic experience, but only a physical event. As such, it has certain objective properties that can be described without regard to any perceptual search for meaning; they become the figures of those light structures that mean something to us. Shape can be described as one of the essential characteristics of things, natural and artificial. The concept of form in the strict sense tells us about the spatial properties of things and objects, apart from their position and direction in space.

In this sense, the notion of form refers primarily to the boundaries of things and their visual characteristics. Planar, two-dimensional shapes are bounded by one-dimensional edges – lines, whereas spatial, three-dimensional shapes are bounded by two-dimensional faces which may meet in one-dimensional edges – lines. The artistic notion of shape therefore refers to the spatial relations between the constituent parts of a shape: a square is always a square because its constituent parts always remain in the same spatial relations. The perception of shape itself is thus the discovery of a permanent geometric structure that does not change, and thus defines a shape that belongs to a certain class of shapes.

In this sense, we can say that a point and a line also have a shape. To be perceptible, a point must be of a suitable size, occupy a certain space and have a boundary that limits it and defines its shape. A line, which does not limit anything and does not describe anything other than itself, has a form because it has a beginning, a course and an end. The beginning and the end act as points and delimit and terminate the line. The course itself, however, indicates the formal properties of the line, which are evident and legible from the spatial relationships between its segments. The definition of shape can therefore also be applied to the pictorial elements of point and line. Shapes in this sense are also perceived – especially in the early years of development – by the sense of type. Through experience, tactile perceptions of shapes are linked to visual perceptions and can then be perceived and understood simply by looking at them. This is why we most often refer to the content of shapes by the names of the tactile sensations – shapes are hard, sharp, soft, angular, etc. although they can also be referred to by the names of the visual and other sensory sensations. such labelling shows that each shape also has its own internal content, which is expressed in its organisation, in its structure. a circle has a different content from a triangle – we say that a circle is a soft shape and a triangle is a sharp shape. We can say that each shape is defined by three values:

1

every shape has some absolute value: it is a circle, a square, etc., a circle is always a circle, just as a square is always a square.

2

every shape has an artistic content: it has a colour, a brightness, a texture, it occupies a space, etc.

3

every shape has a relative value, which is derived from its relationship to the shapes that surround and influence it. This relative value also includes its emotional content, because we, the observers, are also part of the environment of the form, and while we perceive it, we influence it by our experience and emotion.

As long as the forms are simple and regular, perception is easy and without much difficulty. When dealing with more complex shapes, however, perception and the search for meaning is more difficult and requires more mental effort. We are helped by the very process of mark-making, whose fundamental law, as the art psychologists say, works by trying to arrange each stimulus pattern so that the final structure is as simple as the conditions allow. This simplicity depends on: a – the simplicity of the stimulus which caused the perception, b – the simplicity of the meaning which the perception carries, c – the relationship between meaning and perception, and d – the mental qualities of the observer. it is therefore easier to perceive forms which are simpler in themselves or which are so organised that their organisational structure is quickly understood, and especially forms which seem familiar and meaningful to us. This is particularly important for visual design, whose task is to organise forms in such a way that they are capable of carrying meaning and are easily perceptible. This endeavour can be traced throughout the history of artistic design and is perhaps best known from Cezanne’s aphorism: everything in nature is modelled as a sphere, a cone and a cylinder.

All the more complex shapes, of course, go beyond the definition of form that says that the notion of shape refers to the spatial relations between its constituent parts. Such a form, which has enriched its absolute value, is called a figure.

We can change the content and properties of any shape. In doing so, it becomes something more than a mere form in the strict sense, because the new qualities are combined with it to form an indivisible experiential and artistic whole. The triangular k is a sharp and hard form. If it is yellow, the yellow colour accentuates its formal qualities, while the blue colour, with its qualities of softness and bluntness, softens them and thus changes it. The triangle standing on the base is a stable figure, despite its dynamic nature. If we turn it on its top, it will become unstable. A cone on a cylinder is a very stable group of shapes that come together to form a whole, a figure. The cylinder at the top of the pyramid, on the other hand, evokes a feeling of instability; the two shapes are connected in such a way that they do not give the impression of a whole, a single character, but rather of disintegration. Shapes can therefore be linked with other shapes and visual elements to form new wholes, which we call characters. One of the main art psychologists, Wertheimer, defined a character (Gestalt) as follows: a character is a whole whose characteristics are not determined by the characteristics of its individual parts, but by the intrinsic nature of the whole. Another, Koffka, says: to use the category of character is to find which parts of nature belong as parts in a functional whole. Both descriptions are consistent with the examples given from the field of artistic design.

After form we ask “what” and after character we ask “how”. This brings us to the third stage in the organisation of forms and figures into a whole, form. Form is the highest stage of organising the elements of art into a whole and includes the notion of form, the notion of character and all other artistic notions, which are organised into a final, indivisible whole, the work of art. As the Dictionary of the Slovene Literary Language says, form tells us how something is expressed, it is the system of expressive means used by the artist to convey a certain content, it is the way in which the material is organised into reality. When we speak of natural forms in this sense, e.g. of a plant, we mean its whole, from its internal structure to its external appearance, from its role in nature to our relationship to it. In a similar way, we can speak of the form of a work of art, of its inner mental and visual structure, of its outer appearance, which is the result of the inner structure, of its action on the individual and on society. Herbert Hoffman wrote in 1927 in the journal Innendekoration that form is organic, an embodied reaction of a spiritual tension against the environment. In this sense, the art form is an individual presence that radiates its spiritual content into the human individual and social space; it is a way of being of the artwork, as Andre Heermant would say.

From this point of view, an ordinary form can already be a form because it has its own structure and individuality: every form is a form of a content, says Arnheim. An example of form as form is, for example, Lucio Fontana’s blank canvas: a rectangle of white canvas that perfectly expresses the artist’s thought. An example of character as form is Kazimir Malevich’s painting “White in White”: a white, tilted square on a rectangle of white canvas. In most works of art, however, form is created from the complex relationships between all the elements of art, from shapes, figures, colours, lines, textures, etc.

In ordinary speech, we use these three terms – shape, figure and form – as synonyms and do not clearly distinguish them from each other. Whatever term we use – its meaning is usually clear enough from the context – it is important to remember that form, figure and shape are central artistic concepts because they combine many artistic elements into wholes. From the point of view of design, they can only be sketched when we have the basic sketching elements at our disposal. They can therefore be described as outlined art elements.

Because we can – in visual perception – distinguish between colour and form, we can also compare them, says Arnheim. Both fulfil two characteristic functions of seeing: they carry expression and a message by identifying objects and events. However, according to Arnheim, shape is a more effective means of conveying information than colour, while on the other hand, shape does not have as much expressiveness as colour. Shapes can be used to create a myriad of well-defined patterns, as evidenced by faces, foliage and fingerprints, as well as letters. Probably the tectonic nature of shapes is better suited to the actively organising mind, whereas the expressive qualities of colour spontaneously influence the emotions.

Shapes can be flat (two-dimensional) or spatial (three-dimensional); they always appear in the first or the second way. Although we should not and cannot draw an equivalence between the two types, we can say that the main characteristics of the shapes in both cases are related, if not identical. However, surface and space must be considered as two different – outlined – artistic elements.

Figural element

When the primary two dimensions are length and width, we are dealing with a surface. A plane is any two-dimensional area bounded by a line, either active or passive. Planes can be of different shapes and need not be perfectly flat. Their surface may vary in spatial orientation, but when the spatial flattening reaches such a degree that it begins to evoke a sense of the third dimension, the original plane must break into two or more planes with differently oriented spatial motion, because a true plane can only be two-dimensional. A special case are those surfaces bounding a sphere, a cylinder, and in general rotations, whose surface changes its spatial orientation continuously, yet retains the property of a surface even though it captures space. Movements with different orientations may act in the plane. Truly planar motions – lines, points, shapes – are those which move in the plane of the plane, irrespective of direction. But we also know of movements that are directed out of the plane towards the viewer and away from the viewer, such as movements of perspective lines, or of light and warm colours moving towards the viewer, and of dark and cool colours moving away from the viewer.
A special kind of plot is the picture plot. It can be imagined as a kind of two-dimensional spatial centre from which visual energies move backwards and forwards or in the plane of its surface, a screen on which and in which our imagination moves. The two-dimensional pictorial surface is the spiritual space par excellence because it is filled, organised and realised primarily by the spirit, since it cannot be done with matter, which is three-dimensional. It is true that painters use coloured matter, but their three-dimensionality does not reach the degree of plasticity necessary for true spatiality.The surfaces we use in artistic design can be limited two-dimensional surfaces and areas, the side surfaces of a volumetric form. They can be real, material, or merely mental, imaginary, whose presence is only spiritual, provoked by the appropriate use of the outline pictorial elements. We are dealing with real surfaces in real space, and with imaginary ones, merely realised in pictorial terms, in the pictorial surface. the directed movement of the surfaces is an important way of creating the third dimension, a way that enables us to make the third dimension visible, perceptible. The eye understands the spatial movement of the surfaces from the perspectival convergence of their edges and from changes in their brightness.

The art element space

Every healthy person has a sense of his or her own body, which means that he or she has a general idea of his or her own body, of its spatial orientation, of the position of the whole body and of its individual parts. Therefore, each person projects these sensations into his/her environment and uses them to help him/her perceive and organise space. Man projects his anatomy and its functions into space at the same time

From the sense of one’s own body comes the so-called spatial cross, which consists of three planes lying perpendicular to each other. The first, the frontal plane, is vertical and passes through the middle of our body, passing over the ears and hips and dividing space and the body into front and back. Visual space starts with the front of the body. The second, medial plane is also vertical and stands perpendicular to the first. It passes through the middle of the body over the navel and nose and divides the body and space into left and right sides. The line where the two vertical planes intersect represents the vertical axis of our body. The third, the eye plane, lies horizontally, parallel to the surface of the floor at eye level and divides space into above and below. What is below it is felt as below, and what is above it as above. The mathematician Karl Menninger considers it to be the true angle of a person’s sign. This spatial cross, which is unknown to the animal, is carried by man wherever he goes and wherever he is; he shapes his space according to it. Fred Fischer adds that the angular shapes we encounter in nature arouse our special interest.

Round space is a human invention. While a curved surface fits more closely to a stationary body, a flat surface gives greater freedom of action. A flat floor is safe to walk on, a flat ceiling allows us to walk through the whole space upright, and a flat wall does not impede our movement. The optical fixation of an object and the necessary convergence of the eyes is also less disturbed in a square room. The right angle means economy in viewing, because our eyes move in jumps rather than continuously when observing things and space.

Thus equipped, we enter and feel the space even if we close our eyes. We experience it as we move through it or as we look through it until we encounter an obstacle. The visual psychologist James Gibson says that we perceive visual space by what fills it. The visual world extends into the distance and models depth; it is upright, stable, without boundaries; it is coloured; it is shaded, illuminated, made up of surfaces, edges, shapes and in-between spaces, but most importantly, it is filled with things that make sense Space is therefore, as Laszlo Mohly-Nagy says, the reality of our sensory experience, as much a human experience as anything else Space is, in the words of Laszlo Mohly-Nagy, the reality of our sensory experience, as much a human experience as anything else. One becomes aware of space primarily by sight, and this can be controlled by movement, by changing one’s position and by touch.

We judge our place in space in relation to the objects in it, especially those that are stationary. Riester writes that we cannot conceive of space without the objects that delimit it, delineate it, and Moholy-Nagy adds that space is a relation between the positions of bodies, volumes. Space is perceived through physiological and psychological sensations and perceptions. The main physiological reasons for the perception of space are:

1

convergence of the eye axis, which changes when we look at an object that is moving: muscles regulate the eyes and the brain judges distances from muscle tension;

2

binocular parallax, which is formed from two planar images of each eye separately, from which the brain creates a spatial image of objects;

3

lens accommodation, which varies with the distance of the object as the eye adjusts focal distance; from muscle tension and image clarity, the brain judges distances;

Among psychological spatial keys, however, the most important, according to Gibson, are those gradations which can be described as the increase or decrease of certain perceptual qualities in time or space.

1

subjectivity: of lines, surfaces, shapes;

2

size: nearer is greater, farther is less;

3

texture: distinct when near, indistinct when far;

4

colour: is intense and clear when close, pale and indistinct when far away,

5

air perspective: the more distant things are, the more grey-blue they become;

6

sharpness of outlines and details: the closer objects are, the sharper their outlines and details become; the further away they are, the more blurred their outlines and details become;

7

luminance: the closer objects are to the light source, the brighter they are.

These and other spatial keys can occur alone or in groups and allow us to judge distances and spatial relationships between ourselves and objects, and between objects themselves, whether we are standing still or moving through space. Movement cannot be determined without fixed points in space, so movement and space are inextricably linked in our perception and understanding of space.

Man has created measurements, dimensions, as a method of estimating and measuring space. Space, says Riester. It has only those dimensions that we give it, that we project onto it. And we have to do this in order to find our relationship to space, which we can then understand. The boundaries that we put in space are a frame of reference in which we can orient ourselves. This frame of reference is in turn structured by the spatial cross, which we project onto the space thus bounded. In this way, we become the measure of space and of the equilibrium within it. Our spatial axes must correspond to the spatial axes of the objects that serve as our frame of reference, which we consider to be in equilibrium. In this way we gain a sense of certainty that allows us to move freely in all directions. If we do not find in the environment satisfactory possibilities for projecting our spatial cross, its structure, we feel uncertainty and confusion, which can lead to a feeling – and real – physical discomfort. Man wants a stable world, he wants things in it to be in accordance with the force of gravity. Our body and psyche have been created in the conditions that prevail on Earth. But the basic fact that we have to take into account is the force of gravity. That is why the individual positions our body occupies in space differ in the sensations they evoke: lying down feels quite different from sitting or standing, because the influence of gravity is distributed differently throughout the body, writes the architect Neutra. Good shapes are therefore solid shapes that retain their characteristics even when seen from different angles – that is how we feel a square as a square even in perspectival deformation. The visual apparatus maintains a constancy of forms and a constancy of size.

Our space ranges from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. We ourselves are a space within spaces, which in turn are again part of a larger space. Man stands in the middle and can reach out with his reason and imagination into the spaces of the universe and into the spaces of atoms.

Art Space

Art space is based on the laws of our perception of space. It is realised by means of art, by arranging the intervals between brightnesses, colours, shapes, lines, points, sizes, positions, by the rhythmic movement that arises from the tension between the elements of art. Therefore, the visual space is not a natural space, because, to give an example, a forest is not a cathedral and a cathedral is not a forest. In a cathedral, architectural signs are placed in the positions determined by the architect, who expressed his understanding of the world and of man through a certain arrangement of these signs. In a forest, trees grow wherever the seed has fallen, provided the necessary conditions have been given for its growth. The space of the visual arts – and every space artistically shaped by man – is a spiritual, immaterial space, even though it is realised in matter. Let me add that I distinguish spirit from matter for the sake of analysis, since spirit cannot exist without the matter from which it arises and in which it manifests itself.

The artistic designer can choose between a two-dimensional plane or a three-dimensional space. The constraints and characteristics of the dimensions determine the character of the artistic means. Both types of space require a specific design approach. Whoever works in two dimensions uses the boundaries of the chosen surface as a fixed measure. This outer frame is a frame of reference within which to move. The two-dimensional plane on which he designs is the picture plane. In this case, the plane and the frame of reference are fixed factors within which he uses pictorial signs to delineate a more or less deep space in which the shapes seem to move within the plane itself or to move towards or away from the viewer. The balance is created within a frame of reference. In three-dimensional space, the frame of reference is not given in advance. The human designer becomes the measure of space and balance. To this measure we adapt fixed points, lines and planes with which we build the artistic space. We create the artistic space through imagination, and the use of illusion is one of the ways in which we open the door through which we can enter the spiritual world, in which feelings, thoughts and emotions take shape, in which the invisible becomes visible. The essence of space, as it can be understood in its multiplicity, lies in the infinite possibilities of its inner relations. Giedion mentions three stages in the development of architectural space: the first concept covers the architecture of Egypt, Sumer and Greece, when the relationship to the cosmos had not yet been broken. The expression of such a relationship lies in the arrangement of volumes in an unbounded space, in the creation of space through the play of volumes. Inner spaces were neglected. In the time of the second spatial conception, space was only interior space. This conception came to an end at the beginning of our time, when the optical revolution in fine art abolished the fixed, fixed point of perspective. This third conception again acknowledged the forces that radiate in the space of freely arranged volumes: inner and outer space permeate and interpenetrate in a hitherto unknown way. With the development of the automobile and other modern means of transport, movement has become an inseparable element of architecture; a spatio-temporal conception of our age has taken shape.

The interrelationship of the visual elements

The definition of an element is that it is that basic unit which can no longer be divided into simpler parts. The definition applies to both material and immaterial phenomena and elements are meant to represent the last limits in the decomposition of a phenomenon. In this sense, only the outline elements light-dark and bar can be described as the last, indivisible units of artistic design, all the others being already outlined, derivative elements. However, since it is not possible to realise a colour or lightness shade without limitation, that is to say, without giving it some more or less clear form, shape is an equally important fundamental element of art. Every shape is limited by more or less clear edges, which in the artistic sense can be active or passive lines. It is therefore understandable that the line is also a fundamental element. Every shape can – depending on the artistic context – be a point, and so the point is also one of the fundamental elements.

Every shape occupies a certain space, two- or three-dimensional, so the notions of surface and space can also be classified as fundamental artistic elements. In our way of perceiving, we cannot separate these phenomena without the other losing value by eliminating one. Although the elements light-dark and colour are indeed primary, they cannot be separated from the others, to which they are inextricably linked, even though they are secondary in the process of perception.

If we follow the psychological distinction between sensation (sensory feeling) and perception (perception), this hierarchical sequence becomes clearer. According to J. Muler, sensation is essentially a biological process, a specific reaction of the receiving apparatus to environmental stimuli, which is more dependent on the nervous apparatus than on the stimulus, and is more a biological reaction than cognition. Perception, on the other hand, is the complex psychological perception by which the individual organises his sensations and by which he becomes aware of and cognises reality. Perception is the mental process by which we come to know the nature of an object or phenomenon by relating sensations to each other and to other experiences stored in memory, so that we are simultaneously aware of it.

From this point of view, shades of colour and brightness can only be sensations because they may be completely meaningless. The same can be said of point and line. But as soon as we recognise these sensations as shapes, they become perceptions, because we recognise them as regular or irregular, shaped or shapeless, and so add to them from memory qualities which they may not even have in themselves. spatial dimensions – neither two-dimensional nor three-dimensional – cannot be experienced as pure sensations at all, because we can only speak of space after the complex organisation and structuring of the sensory stimulations. Shapes, surfaces, space are perceptions, they are organised visual stimulations with certain meanings, which we take from past experience, from memory, where they are combined with the experiences of the other senses.

The work of art is based on the visual, and although it is not purely visual, it cannot bypass these organising processes of the visual apparatus. The artist who realises his work controls this process with his visual apparatus, and the viewer receives it in the same way. Light, space, weight, etc. are physical givens that become visual only when they are shaped, when they are given form and a specific human meaning.

The basic elements of art depend on each other for their properties, which we have described. The logical internal link presented in the diagram leads from the primary to the secondary and from the simpler to the more complex elements. Alongside the diagram are drawings explaining the individual properties of the visual elements, which can be described as follows:

The differences in brightness and colour can be used to outline all the visual elements outlined. However, we can also outline some of the properties of the outlined elements. More points look darker, fewer points look brighter when used on a light background. Almost all printing is based on this, especially growth printing. Therefore, we can use dots to outline space. But we can also mark space with points by marking the boundary points of a solid. Since the intersections of lines are points in the artistic sense, all angles and corners are points. The same applies to surfaces: three points can delimit a triangular surface, either as true points or as intersections of lines. A sequence of points can be used to trace a line because it entices the eye to move along the indicated direction in the plane or space.

Lines can also be used to delineate differences in brightness – any line-density modelling will tell you that. Intersections of two or more lines mark points. A line drawn around a two-dimensional region indicates a surface and therefore a shape. Perspective-oriented lines orient space.

All directions in this diagram lead to three-dimensional space. The sense of space can be evoked by the light differences themselves, it can be evoked by the appropriate use of colour qualities, either by exploiting their luminosity possibilities or the possibilities of warm and cool colours. We use colours to delineate surfaces and surfaces to limit space. The scheme incorporates Klee’s principle of creating space by moving the visual elements: a moving point describes a line as the first dimension. When a line moves, it can describe a face, which is a two-dimensional element. When faces move, a three-dimensional space is created.

This schematic overview of the relationships between the basic outline and the outlined pictorial elements suggests that there are many possible paths in pictorial design. We can choose the one we need, but it is important to know where we start and where we want to go. The sculptor can choose a path away from the differences in luminosity (light and shadow) and come straight, taking the shortest route to the body and space. Although he does this mainly by touch, he controls it by sight, thus satisfying both senses. But the ceramist is also likely to incorporate colour, and both will incorporate lines in the form of external and internal contours into their work. The painter may neglect three-dimensional space and consider only colour, linear and surface values, or he may, like the Baroque painters, lean on strong contrasts of light, turning them into flashes of colour, and thus speak of his understanding of corporeality and space. But every designer will have to take into account the inner laws of the individual elements and integrate them into a higher whole, a confession of spiritual knowledge. Here, the individual artistic elements will lose some of their individuality alongside the others, but never their basic qualities. The danger of the greatest misunderstanding in artistic design lies in the simplistic conception of the artistic representation of space. Here all the elements of visual perception meet and all too often the spiritual processing gets stuck in imitating and copying the appearance of nature.

We have described only the fundamental visual elements, those that correspond in visual expression – if we compare it with verbal expression – to sounds, to voices. However, formology also includes the other elements outlined, which Lillian Garrett calls visual variables. If we take shapes to be constants in the sense that the same shape can change its properties, then the visual variables are size, weight, position, direction, number, density and, finally, texture, because it can be made up of many units. From the density of units. Character formation is the organisation of outlined and outlining elements into characters, wholes, and form is achieved through the compositional principles of art syntax, such as the proportional ordering of intervals between character elements, rhythms of movement and tension, dynamic and static balance, harmony and contrast, and the ordering of dominance and emphasis.