Formal Elements of Art

A particular art is designed keeping into account certain visual cues. These visual cues are known as formal elements of art. The same is applied to a good piece of sculpture, photography, painting and designs. The placements of these elements also depend upon the principles of art, meant for creating an impact on the piece of artwork. Right composition of the visual elements is essential for generating a perfect creation. The elements are necessary for defining the characteristics of the artwork.

The 7 Elements of Art

The formal elements of art develop an impression on the viewer's mind. They are essential for analyzing the artwork through the eye of the beholder. These formal elements of art form can be compared to the vocabularies used for producing a good literary work. The 7 elements are line, shape, color, texture, form, value and space. However, application of these features depends on a particular set of rules and principles. The elements will be explained individually in the next segment.

Line
Lines are formed in the imagination of an artist and is not actually depicted prominently in the artwork. They are used for a dramatic appeal of the composition of the image. For examples, rigging on boats. The second example of line is the outline or the border of the image. A line plays an influential role on the gaze of the viewer's eye. Usually curved lines or straight lines are incorporated to create this effect.

Shape
Defining the exact shape of an image is quite difficult. However, geometric shapes like cubes, squares, hexagons, polygons, pentagons, etc. are used in abstractionism. Shapes are obtained with well defined borders in case of 2-d images. Organic shapes are more often embedded in nature paintings. Shapes can be of colloquial or non-rigid in nature. Read more on 5 elements of African art.

Color
Technically color is defined as the visual perceptual property of an image. Colors are derived from the spectrum of light, that appeals to the sense of perception of the viewer. The artist uses the principle of chromatics and coordinating colors to generate a beautiful harmony in his artwork. Generally speaking, well combined colors makes the artistic piece more appealing. However, one has to understand the color wheel and color mixing technique to bring out perfection.

Texture
The quality of the artwork will be judged by the texture used in the art work. The contours of the image could be well visualized by the nature of texture applied. A three dimensional picture is distinguished from a 2 dimensional through the physical and visual properties of the texture. Thus, textures are categorized as visual texture and physical texture. Visual texture is a mere illusion while physical texture refers to the tactile features. Read about texture painting techniques to make your concept clear.

Form
As a whole, form refers to the configuration, visual appearance and the shape of the objects included in the art and craft. This aspect usually pertains to a three dimensional work, like potteries and sculptures. However, a few critics argue that, form also refers to the shapes of object used in two dimensional artworks. Thus, shape and forms are connected to each other in terms of visual aspect.

Value
Commonly value is also known as tone, used for emphasizing the form. Technically, it is the reflective nature of the artwork, subjective to the perception power of human beings. An artist has to study the nature and properties of light to bring out a particular tone. To understand value in depth, one can study the popular color models like HSL color model and Munsell color model, etc. It's an important aspect of all the visual elements of art.

Space
Space is defined as the distance between two objects or the area occupied by the object. It is actually a 3 dimensional extent that is taken up by the object. It is measured in terms of its relative position with respect to the surroundings. However, physical space can be measured by linear dimensions. As defined by artists, shape is itself an entity having a conceptual framework.

I hope the formal elements of art are now clear to you. Keep these visual elements in your mind for creating a perfect artwork.