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Article Excerpt
The central theme behind the study described in this paper is an examination of the extent to which balance is a function of composition across paintings of high and low artistic quality. Arnheim (1982) has defined composition as an 'arrangement of visual elements creating a self-contained, balanced whole, which is structured in such a way that the configuration of forces reflects the meaning of the artistic statement' (pp. 215-216). In painting in particular, composition of shapes concerns the arrangement of these visual elements in two-dimensional space. Each visual element in this two-dimensional space is considered to have a perceptual weight. The arrangement of these visual elements within the painting determines how balanced a painting is. In accordance with this view, Arnheim has defined balance as 'the dynamic state in which the forces constituting a visual configuration compensate for each other' (1982, p. 215; see also Nodine, Locher, & Krupinski, 1993).
The idea that composition may have an effect on balance is not new. For example, one can easily imagine that the reorganization of elements within a painting may make the painting more or less balanced (e.g. Locher, Grey, & Nodine, 1996; Locher, Stappers, & Overbeeke, 1999). In fact, the results of numerous experiments have demonstrated that balance is a function of composition (Locher, 2003a). In addition, there is reason to believe that composition underlies balance because it mediates the way in which the elements within a painting are viewed in relation to one another (Nodine et al., 1993).
If one accepts a definition of balance as one that is dependent on composition, a logical next step is to wonder whether better works of art, by virtue of having superior compositional structure, are distinguished by better balance compared with works of lower artistic quality. The notion that paintings of higher artistic quality may seem more balanced is not only apparent in the treatment of the topic by aestheticians and psychologists alike, but also in the types of tests that are used to assess aesthetic sensitivity or so-called 'good taste'. For example, the Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity Test (VAST; Gotz, 1985) is a commonly used instrument for such aesthetic assessment. The VAST is composed of 50 pairs of non-representational greyscale drawings made by an artist. One drawing in each pair is considered to embody better design by virtue of unanimous agreement among eight expert judges (artists and critics). Good design is in turn defined in terms of such universal principles as harmony, symmetry, unity, and balance. During testing, the participant is presented with 50 pairs of drawings and asked to indicate which drawing within each pair embodies better design. To the extent that his or her judgments agree with those of the experts, the participant is said to have good aesthetic sensitivity. Two sets of findings have consistently characterized the VAST literature: first, there are no consistent cross-cultural differences in scores on the test (e.g. Iwawaki, Eysenck, & Gotz, 1979). Second, there are no consistent differences in scores between experts and novices. These findings prompted Frois and Eysenck (1995) to claim that good design may be characterized by some universal sense of aesthetic appreciation that is possessed in different degree by everybody. Along with harmony, symmetry, and unity, balance is frequently considered to be one of those universal aesthetic principles.
The idea that balance is linked to composition is rooted in the deeper idea that, at least in theory, there is a 'visually right' state associated with every composition, and that deviations from that state are observable (Locher et al., 1999). For example, Kulka (1989) has argued that works of art find themselves at various stages compared with an ideal state, itself defined as a state that '"forbids" any departures or deviations from its actual forms' (p. 199). He has suggested that one way to test whether a work of art is in that ideal state is to determine whether it can be supplanted in favour of an alternative work. In other words, if the structural alternative to a work of art is judged to be a better work of art than the original from which it was derived, one can argue that the alternative was closer to an ideal state than the original. Vartanian, Overbay, Podsiadlo, and Martindale (2000) tested this theory by pitting 15 works of art by Van Gogh, Matisse, Malevich, and Pissarro against compositionally-altered counterparts. These alternatives were created by displacing an element within each painting to a new location in the canvas. In each case, the originals were preferred over the alternatives. However, it is also possible to create compositional...
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