Complete the vocabulary of composition.
The Gestalt principle by which the eye completes an interrupted contour is ______. The empty area that carries compositional weight is called ______ space. The ratio of about 1.618 is the ______ section. The geometry Jay Hambidge built from the diagonal of the frame is called ______ symmetry.
Word bank: closure · negative · golden · dynamic · continuity · static
Hints
- The second blank names something that is empty and not inert.
- The last blank is a two-word term from the 1920s.
Show the answer
The Gestalt principle by which the eye completes an interrupted contour is closure. The empty area that carries compositional weight is called negative space. The ratio of about 1.618 is the golden section. The geometry Jay Hambidge built from the diagonal of the frame is called dynamic symmetry.
The second blank is the one worth arguing with. Negative space is not the part of the picture where nothing happens; it sets the scale of the subject and does all the work in the unstable arrangements, which is why cropping it away so often kills a photograph that seemed to have too much of it.
Practise Form and Composition
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