Compositional sightlines

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

I am very interested in the focus of the three subjects in the beautiful portrait you posted. Could you comment on how you arrived at having the boy looking into the viewer and the other two subjects looking to the side. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Joan,

I don't want to take away from the critique of Mary's grandfathers portrait, so I have moved this thread to the Paints, Medium, Technique and Composition page.

There are two reasons for the decision of where to place the sight-lines for these three figures.

This is a large painting, 44 x 54 inches. I've posted the entire portrait at the bottom of this page. When you view it, you "enter" the painting from the left. (Most people read a painting the way they read a book, left to right.) There is the lighter section of the father's legs to use as an entry into the portrait. You enter the painting at the fathers legs, move up the girls body to her face and across to the dads face. If the boy was also looking to the left, the viewer would continue viewing to the right, off the edge of the painting, and move on to the next painting. The boy holding eye contact with the viewer, will "stop" this movement, hold the viewers attention, and the progression will be to drop down to the boys hands, where he is directing your gaze to his sister's hand, and she is actully pointing down her fathers arm to her other hand, You follow her arm up to her face, then back to the father's face, etc. I have given you a place to enter the painting, and caught you in a circular compositional loop where there is no way to exit the painting.

Secondly....you enter the painting from the left and move from the girl to her father. Because they are both looking into the distance, you are free to linger on their faces. Finally, your attention moves further to the right, and...."got ya'". The boy has caught you staring at his father and sister. The painting was on display at the Portrait Society Conference two years ago, and I am happy to report that most of those viewing it were "caught" by the son. I like to have fun with my paintings, I like to control how the viewer will relate to the painting, where they will look, and I like to hide interesting tidbits for them to discover. I like for the viewer to not only be impressed (I hope) by the facility of the painting technically, or relate to the (I hope) beauty of the painting, but also have some fun and be entertained.

Peggy

[Chris Saper]

Dear Peggy,

I cannot agree with you more about the importance of these sightlines in a painting. They are every bit as powerful a tool as line shape, value, etc. yet I so rarely see the sightline being discussed, much less taught.

The sightline can connect and make whole a composition which would otherwise feel 'broken' or incomplete. It is also just as effective in a single-subject painting as a multiple-subject painting, although more essential in the latter, to avoid the feeling of "Let's all line up and smile for the camera!" Moreover, the use of the sightline adds a story-telling dimension that the other compositional tools simply cannot, at least in as effective a fashion. Theere is an amazing shift in the dynamics of a painting once one of the figures directly engages the viewer.

I am attaching a piece which is nearly complete, and whose composition I began building from several Bouguereau pieces. The hours spent working out the composition were, I thought, well worth the energy.

[Chris Saper]

This should work...

[Virginia Branch]

I just found this thread with your recent painting, Chris and it is beautiful as is Peggy's. When I see these two paintings and compare it with my recent portrait of three siblings...well, I realize I have a long way to go.

The composition and sightline are so important and if not done well can ruin an otherwise good portait. I had to move an arm with my recent portrait because it was going straight off the canvas making the viewer feel like they were falling off. I brought her arm up which helped but then I started making-up an arm in my head which is a no, no.

Thanks for posting!