Composition: A Painter's Guide to Basic Problems and Solutions

by David Friend

How do you pull together all the elements of a painting into a unified, artistic whole? This book presents a new approach--especially suited to beginners--to the process of creative pictorial composition. Adapting the creative pictorial composition. Adapting the same integrative process by which advanced students are trained, the author shows how to structure all the component parts of a picture into a series of rhythmic and harmonious relationships. Each chapter consists of three 1. A discussion of a particular compositional problem. 2. A series of corresponding projects in creative composition for the reader to do. 3. A variety of case histories analyzing how old and contemporary masters -- such as Braque, Beughel, Cezanne, Copley, Daumier, Delacroix, Dubuffet, El Greco, Gainsborough, Goya, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Rembrandt, Seurat, Velazquez, and Wyeth, among others--handled the problem. By following this three-part format, the reader is encouraged to learn by solving the problems that the masters worked out in their compositions. Under the expert guidance of the author, the reader learns how to see two-dimensional shape relationships, light and dark value relationships, and color relationships. He is then introduced to negative space, "crowded" space, vertical vs. horizontal composition, "empty" space, as well as how to express mood with texture and line. Finally, the author introduces the illusion of three dimensions. David Friend, for many years a practicing painter and art instructor, and author of The Creative Way to Pain, once again shows that even the beginner can develop the critical visual awareness and artistic insight that will enable him to create artwork he can be proud of. 192 pages, 8 1/4 x 11, 160 black-and-white illustrations, 16 full-color plates, Index.

Genres: Art

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

David Friend is an editor, author, and award-winning documentary producer with a career spanning journalism, photography, and film. Since 1998, he has been the editor of creative development at Vanity Fair, following his tenure as Life magazine’s director of photography. His work has shaped major journalistic projects, including the 2005 Vanity Fair story that revealed FBI insider Mark Felt as “Deep Throat,” the confidential Watergate source. He also played a key role in expanding Vanity Fair into books, e-books, television, and digital media, launching VanityFair.com.
As an author, Friend has explored cultural and historical themes in books such as Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 (2006), The Naughty Nineties (2017), and two volumes on human existence, The Meaning of Life and More Reflections on the Meaning of Life. In the realm of documentary film, he is an Emmy- and Peabody-winning producer, with projects including Lakota Nation vs. United States (2023), MLK/FBI (2021), and the widely broadcast CBS prime-time special 9/11.
Beyond journalism and film, Friend has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the Middle East, coedited 13 Vanity Fair books, and curated photography exhibitions on three continents. His poetry has been published in The New Yorker, further highlighting the breadth of his creative work.