Good morning Stella! Thank you so much for taking the time to expand on your initial concerns. Let’s address these one by one and see if we can add some clarity for all.
"I think my main confusion is because of heuristics I’ve been taught such as the rule of thirds, “leading the eye”, creating flow by having larger objects with smaller ones, objects that don’t align in the same line in the composition and so on…Once I leave those heuristics (since they are not entirely aligned with studies about vision), I’m not sure how to create a solid composition without actually setting up and re-set things up and do this over and over, draw cartoons or alla primas and change it until it doesn’t bother me to look at it."
Let’s start with heuristics (I know that you are already familiar with these issue but i would like to take a minute to address them again for readers that may not be…).
A heuristic, (or rule-of-thumb cognitive shortcut), is any approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical method not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but that can appear sufficient for the immediate goals. The rule-of-thirds (ROT) is one such heuristic that has hung around the pictorial composition materials for many, many years. The earliest documentation of the rule of thirds was from 18th-Century painter, engraver, and writer John Thomas Smith with his 1797 book, Remarks on Rural Scenery. In a chapter titled Of Light and Shade, Smith discusses a work by Rembrandt in which “two-thirds of the picture are in shadow.” He writes, “Two distinct, equal lights, should never appear in the same picture: One should be principal, and the rest subordinate, both in dimension and degree: Unequal parts and gradations lead the attention easily from part to part, while parts of equal appearance hold it awkwardly suspended, as if unable to determine which of those parts is to be considered as the subordinate.” Smith goes on to state, “Analogous to this “Rule of thirds”, (if I may be allowed so to call it) I have presumed to think that, in connecting or in breaking the various lines of a picture, it would likewise be a good rule to do it, in general, by a similar scheme of proportion; for example, in a design of landscape, to determine the sky at about two-thirds ; or else at about one-third, so that the material objects might occupy the other two : Again, two-thirds of one element, (as of water) to one third of another element (as of land); and then both together to make but one third of the picture, of which the two other thirds should go for the sky and aerial perspectives. This rule would likewise apply in breaking a length of wall, or any other too great continuation of line that it may be found necessary to break by crossing or hiding it with some other object : In short, in applying this invention, generally speaking, or to any other case, whether of light, shade, form, or color, I have found the ratio of about two thirds to one third, or of one to two, a much better and more harmonizing proportion, than the precise formal half, the too-far-extending four-fifths—and, in short, than any other proportion whatever.”
Initially, as you can see, the first versions of this to-be rule had nothing to do with the intersections of the ROT grid lines. That was something that was “chucked in” later. However, if we look to modern empirical studies into the ROT like “How the “Rule of Thirds” is Wrong: Let us Count the Ways” by Stephen E. Palmer, Yurika S. Hara, & William S. Griscom, we can see that experimental results conflict with the claims surrounding the ROT. Here, we can see Palmer and Guidi (2008) using a “goodness of fit” rating task show that the structural skeleton of a rectangular frame are the preferred location with the center being the most potent location (the point of intersection of its vertical and horizontal axis of symmetry). The rule-of-thirds armature is shown in white.
However, what there is empirical support for is a series of spatial biases that appeal to fluency and prediction.
Massive amounts of neuronal resources in the human brain are devoted to predicting what will happen from moment to moment. This fact has led many to regard the brain as a dynamic prediction machine. Jeff Hawkins writes in his book On Intelligence: “Your brain receives patterns from the outside world, stores them as memories, and makes predictions by combining what it has seen before and what is happening now… Prediction is not just one of the things your brain does. It is the primary function of the neo-cortex [sic], and the foundation of intelligence.”
David Rock, author of Your Brain at Work, writes: You don’t just hear; you hear and predict what should come next. You don’t just see; you predict what you should be seeing moment to moment.” With this in mind, you can see how an individual may prefer those compositions that provide enough information so as to facilitate predictions about what will happen in the moments following the one captured in the frozen percept surrogate. Some studies of the brain go further to explore spatial preferences in this regard (Battaglia et al, 2011). Such research explores how observers of a still image of an action may extract dynamic information by extrapolating future position from the motion implied by the image “A still photograph of an object in motion may convey dynamic information about the position of the object immediately before and after the photograph was taken (implied motion)” -(Kourtzi and Kanwisher, 2000).
In the above graphic we can see evidence of one such bias—the horizontal inward bias. Studies have demonstrated that when an object with a salient “front” is placed nearer the border of a frame than a center, observers tend to find the image more aesthetically pleasing if the object faces inward (toward the center) than if it faces outward (away from the center) (Chen et al., 2014) . I believe that this may have much to do with the idea of understanding our brain as a “prediction machine”. Again, “A still photograph of an object in motion may convey dynamic information about the position of the object immediately before and after the photograph was taken (implied motion)” -(Kourtzi and Kanwisher, 2000). If we can see more of where an object may be “headed”, we can make a better prediction about a future state of the objects being observed.
For more about this and other heuristics (like “leading the eye” mentioned above) you can access my primer on pictorial composition for free here: http://anthonywaichulis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/A-Primer-on-Pictorial-Composition-_Anthony-Waichulis-1.pdf
By better understanding how we engage/interact with a picture—you might develop strategies for arriving at an optimal arrangement without so much trial and error.
"One heuristic that I’ve been taught and I’m trying to challenge is that “you never put something in the dead center of the canvas”. I think that heuristic is used to create (like you said)- tension. which draws the viewer to the painting. So perhaps the main takeaway is that tension is not necessary to create a solid picture?"
Correct, as you can see above in the graphic from Palmer and Guidi, we do indeed have a “preference” for center (especially when we deem an object “front facing.”) I believe that there is good evidence that this emerges from a fluency and ecological bias. The reason that people prefer the object’s salient front region to be as close to the center as possible may result from a number of factors. The greatest influence MAY come from the way in which we usually engage with what we see as a front-facing subject. This center bias may reflect an advantageous viewing position for extracting information from such scenarios. I would like to note here that center bias is not the same that as central fixation bias. They may be related in some way, but not in a way that I can show support for at this time. Central fixation bias is a tendency for observers to begin an exploration of a visual scene at the center. Numerous visual perception experiments have borne this out (e.g., Buswell, 1935, Mannan et al., 1995, Mannan et al., 1996, Mannan et al., 1997, Parkhurst et al., 2002 and Parkhurst and Niebur, 2003). The prevalence of central fixation bias suggests that it is a key feature of scene viewing, but the basis of this effect remains poorly understood. Studies have demonstrated that when an object with a salient “front” is placed nearer the border of a frame than a center, observers tend to find the image more aesthetically pleasing if the object faces inward (toward the center) than if it faces outward (away from the center) (Chen et al., 2014).
Now this does not mean that a central placement for a front-facing object is “better” independent of context and intent—but that it is highly likely that tension will increase as a bias is increasingly violated.
"Here’s my main question- If we eliminate personal preference because of memories and sweet experiences with the painted object/ subject- let’s say we talk completely abstract shapes and colors, what creates a solid composition vs one that makes you want to run for the hills?"
The short answer is arrangement with respect to the biases that govern our interaction with a picture. The prediction mindset is a wonderful, effective place to start. What has happened in the second before the frozen image and what will take place after? Start there and I think you’ll begin to arrive where you want more efficiently and effectively.
