Title: An introduction
Course: EN_Overall composition > Section: 1. What is overall composition?

Get an introduction into the complex item "Overall composition" to understand what is covered by this and how it will be important for you.

The term composition in visual arts originally comes from painting. In the history of painting, it was necessary in earlier times to achieve appropriate effects with the pictures on the viewer and therefore to plan in advance exactly what was to be achieved through what.

Thus, composition is the actual creation of the artwork. Here, the formal elements are combined. It concerns the organisation of the elements of art according to the principles of art. It’s like fixing bricks with cement (the principles) using certain techniques to build the composition.
These techniques are rather guidelines or suggestions than rules that help to make the composition and to tell a story.

You know this from other arts: music and literature, for example. Imagine your favourite song without a strict order / dramaturgy. If the chorus sounds in the middle of the verse or the drums play wrong rhythms and the guitars play incorrect notes, then it sounds terrible. Everything has to be compositionally regulated so that it unfolds its effect in the end.

Composition can be applied to any work of art, from paintings, drawings, graphics, sculptures to photography, music or writing. In architecture, too, one speaks of compositions, which can also be understood spatially.

A well-composed painting is clear, concise, and interesting. All the pieces will appear to work in perfect harmony. It will look like a cohesive painting/work, rather than an arrangement of parts.

If the artist has achieved this, she/he has asked her-/himself at least two crucial questions in advance:

- What do I want to say? (What is the big idea? What is the story I want to tell?)
- How I’m going to say it? (How can I arrange the visual elements in a way that it communicates the message?)

So, always try to start with a certain vision for your work and to follow it.