5 Things to Know About the Elements and Principles

Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso completed The Old Guitarist (right) in 1903 during his “Blue Period.” During this time the artist painted monochromatic (single-color) works using the color blue. The blue color and subjects including the poor and outcast, give the paintings from this time a melancholy mood.

The Old Guitarist shows an old man whose tired body creates a cascade of diagonals. His skin is tinted blue, with white highlights glowing against the shadowy background. In another color, would this painting have a different mood?

Dutch painter Piet Mondrian believed that the purest form of art was based on a grid. He painted black lines on a white background and used primary colors for the shapes within. The artist felt that his paintings had perfect order, balance, and unity.

In his 1930 work on the right, Mondrian uses vertical and horizontal lines to form rectangles of different sizes. The red square is much larger than the others. Why do you think Mondrian has chosen to emphasize the red shape and minimize the yellow?

Alma Woodsey Thomas is an African-American painter who used color and simple shapes to depict nature. Thomas’s The Eclipse (right), painted in 1970, features vibrant colors radiating from a dark blue circle. The circular shape sets the pattern that repeats throughout the painting. Cool blues and greens form rings around the circle. As the rings reach toward the edges of the canvas, they become warmer with reds, oranges, and yellows. Thomas uses small, repeating rectangles to create the rings of color, rather than blending the colors seamlessly. This sets up a feeling of movement pulsating from the dark center.