and the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Mean were well discussed in art history courses
and demonstrated as being used in renaissance paintings, often with the assignment to
take a painting not under discussion and see if the artist balanced his composition
around one of the points defined by dividing the canvas in thirds horizontally and
vertically. But you don't have to look at Renaissance paintings to see the rule of
thirds just look at this months pug and do that exercise. By the way just to see if
the Rule of Thirds or Golden Mean might be mentioned in a random book on photography
I grabbed one off the book shelf and sure enough there in the discussion of composition
was the Rule of Thirds, no Golden Mean however. To get back to some Pentax content
the book I'm referring to is the National Geographic Photography Field Guide, which
in the discussion of Camera types has under 35mm the photographs of a Pentax PZ-1p and
ZX-5n as illustrations of current types.
At 03:19 PM 12/29/2002 -0600, you wrote:
> Just my .02 cents. As an art major in college in my younger years, I took
> quite a few art classes from an early age on. Never heard of the "rule of
> thirds" in any of my art classes. So that that is a famous art rule that
> artists have been learning and using for centuries is a myth (sure some may
> have used it back when, but it is not commonly taught). OTOH, budding artists
> are encouraged not to be symmetrical, because symmetry indicates a novice
> (dead centering is what novices tend to do if unchecked) and can be boring.
> While non-symmetry can add dynamic tension. But again that is not a rule, just
> an encouragement.
>
> And all rules are made to be broken.
Marnie,
I also hold a BFA from an accredited four-year art college. Not only was I
never taught the rule of thirds or any other compositional "rules," whenever
they DID come up they were dismissed quite contemptuously as simplistic
nonsense.
You know, it would be interesting if we could give everyone on this list who
wishes to participate a short assignment I used to give my photo students:
find a photograph (yours or someone else's) you think is wholly admirable or
successful or "good" or however you wish to phrase it, and write a short
defense of it.
It would be enlightening to see how we differ in what we like.
--Mike
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. --Groucho Marx
