Chapter 3

The Formative Grammar of Art --A
- Compositions -

 

For the act of modeling, it is not enough just to have complete elements. Modeling comes into existence when each element is combined with the other, a picture is composed with a pleasant feeling of tension. In other words, it is the way of the KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design) of formative elements that counts. Chapter 3 deals with this issue.

Compared to the world of writing, an element would correspond to a letter or a word. And it depends how you compose those letters and words to create an impressively vivid and beautiful KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design). We call the way of the KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design) of elements in formative art "the formative grammar" as it corresponds to grammar, syntax, and rhetoric in writing.

Today the issue is well studied in various ways and we have a great store of knowledge of its methodology. Here, these methods are divided in two chapters: "The formative grammar --A" (Chapter 3) with regards to the "KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design)" like the division and disposition of forms; "The Formative Grammar--B" (Chapter 4) about the issues of the "illusion" (the perception of the optical illusion, 3-D, motion, and rhythm which physically do not exist but can be perceived through the function of human eyes by the structural device of elements.

This chapter explains the following two formative KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design):
           (i) The centrifugal KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design)
           (ii) The centripetal KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design)

The centrifugal KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design) of form is like this: As more shapes are added, the larger the gross area of a work becomes. In other words, the form of a work gradually grows outward, enlarging its area. On the contrary, in the way of the centripetal KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design) your working place is inside the shape, processing inside the area to the point that you acquire a full picture. The former has such examples as the formation by unit and the scattering arrangement of points like a constellation. The division of a picture belongs to the latter.

This chapter, after examining the two methods above, concludes with a paragraph about the sense of equilibrium like balance, contrast, and harmony in the KOHSEI (Basic Art & Design).
 

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