At 12:40 PM 12/30/2002 -0500, you wrote:
You may have heard of it in art history classes. I did not hear of it in any art "doing" classes. (I also attended a famous West Coast art school for one summer session when in college). Which was exactly my point. Good art and/or good composition is not based on mathematics.
Doe aka Marnie ;-) If that is not clear, working artists do not learn such rules. The first I heard of the "artistic" rule of thirds was in the photography books I read, including National Geographic's. Which I found ironic. Have a nice day!
In a message dated 12/30/2002 1:57:25 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> I don't hold a degree in Fine Arts, I have among other's a BA in the
> Liberal Arts
> 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
