Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Richard Budig
...With those diamond shapes, he can visually judge where his figures are on the canvas . . . not that this isn't possible, anyway. But, with the grid(s), which will eventually disappear, he can get a quick sense of place, balance, structure, and perhaps, snoop out some ideas for additions or adornments or whatever...
|
You certainly took the words right out of my mouth Richard! In fact now that you mentioned it, i remembered i just saw the mural done by Sargent for the Boston Public Library, and if you can imagine these construction lines on this mural, you can see that this works out right too.
And at the same time, Sargent challenges this balance by "offsetting" the characters a little bit (compare the pharoah's distance from the centre line, vs the barbarian's distance from the same line)
This again shows his unique quality, bending the rules and challenging compositional conventions of his time.
