screen composition

Many Hong Kong art circle friends are arguing: Paintings with compositional considerations or designs are illustrations, not art?

In a painting class in an elementary school, I painted a still life. The teacher placed the still life and told me not to draw anything in the center of the paper, but to the left or right of the center. That's it, whether painting or photography, even if the composition is not specially designed, it has formed the habit of composition.

Later, when I learned the golden triangle ratio, I found that not putting things in the center of the picture is based on this rule to some extent. And where do such classical laws come from? It is the pattern of the universe that the ancients observed and analyzed nature. It is known from art history that Western classical paintings are not used to express the painter's emotions, and the main themes are religion, mythology or portraits, and subsequent historical events. The painter then uses these visual rules to compose the picture to express the content of the painting. In addition, many classical paintings are produced in the "school of painting" mode, that is, the painter has many apprentices, and the painter has probably conceived the painting and then handed it over to the apprentice to make it. It can be said to be "cooperative painting". These levels must be made according to certain rules and methods. To modern painting (Modern Painting), that is, Impressionism, Cubism, etc., all have compositional designs.

Until the era of contemporary art and the emergence of abstract paintings, artists used paintings to express matter/color itself, experiment, and express personal emotions with matter/color, etc., and developed their works while creating, until the artist considered "complete". Stop writing, the composition design of the picture is not so important.

However, if the painter/artist himself has been trained in traditional art, the compositional pattern of basic classical painting has been deeply ingrained, and it is unconsciously and naturally used for visual expression. So, is contemporary art painting considered "with" or "without" composition? !