The Bones of a Painting

What is the theme that runs through all great paintings? Whether they are from the abstract expressionists, Caravaggio’s graphic portrayals of biblical scenes, or Van Gogh? Good Notan. Notan is a japanese word defined as a combination of lights and darks; or the design or pattern of a work of art as seen in flat areas of dark and light values only. It’s worth thinking about.

Here are a couple great paintings of different styles to illustrate what I mean. First in Notan, and then in colour.

Caravaggio’s Calling of Saint Mathew

Van Gogh’s Almond Blossoms

I have chosen these two artists as an example as Van Gogh was heavily influenced by Japanese art, and Caravaggio loved the technique of chiaroscuro, which could be argued as being the same thing as Notan, only the Italian version, which became very popular during his time.

You can see that both artists have gone to the other ends of the spectrum on light vs dark. Caravaggio has used predominantly dark value to cover his canvas, where as Van Gogh has used predominantly light. Therefore creating a different mood for the painting. And you can see that colour is the cherry on top and holds all the emotion. But is it the light and dark abstract shapes that attract the eye and give the painting a feeling of balance? There is something about the unevenness of it all, either tipping one way or the other, that pleases us humans. Maybe it reminds us of nature in all its imperfect perfection. If it was completely balanced fifty percent this way and fifty percent that way, we would not find it as attractive. At least not to me. And I don’t think to most of us. But you be the judge.