Lecture Summary

So, the whole gist of all our readings were surrounding were the make up of form and how it effects the mind; depending on how it is represented to us. Basically it was a composition of composition. Teaching us how to critique things by the way they are given to us as to how we perceive them. Such as the Gestalt theory, which is the understanding of perception and form by organizing it's components to make a meaningful whole. It helps us understand what the artist is trying to get us to see. So the four aspects of Gestalt are: closure, continuance, proximity, and similarity. Closure is where the elements of a design are placed so that you perceive the design as a whole rather than separate pieces. When the eye can follow a dominant form without interruption, that is continuance. Proximity is the distance between parts in a form and similarity is where the parts in a form are similar and can also be an effective way to create meaning. All these aspects help us understand from as a meaningful whole and not as isolated parts. Along with these aspects, you must have visual interactions of form involving position, direction, and space. Negative space is also important when working with a form, being an active area of composition. Therefore, form is composition or a variety of different elements working together to create a whole. Elements that make this happen are: dot or point, line, shape/form, color/hue, texture, space (and negative space), and value. By knowing all of these concepts you start to understand how to view different images and figures in ways that you may not have thought to look at them before you knew all of this. It creates a more concentrated visual so you can see the picture or sculpture as a whole, break it apart in your mind as separate pieces, and then reconnect them again to make a whole again. This way you know everything that makes the image or figure tick. Creating a full overview that allows you to see it for what it really its. You are able to back up your figure or explain in further detail why it works in what you are doing. So at the end of the day you can look at a chair but not instantly think "chair" when you see one. Instead you can see lines, a base, the contours if it has it, the color of the pieces used to make the chair, and bolts and screws. You realize all of it's parts to make the picture come true. So in conclusion, form is the sum of the total of physical characteristics that make a meaning whole; which may or may not give a narrative characteristic on the form.