Take a look at this painting (24.0), especially if you’re new to art and want to understand it better: artists know how to lead your eye around the canvas—and they don’t want you to look away. Artists are trained to make works that hold a viewer’s attention as long as possible. When I saw this painting, I realized that it was a bald example of compositional technique.
Look at color first. See how red occupies the left, center, and right? The human eye naturally bounces back and forth between the same colors. You’ll see this done in thousands of paintings. If there’s a color on the left, you’ll usually find the same or similar color on the right. The artist knows that you’ll look back and forth between those two colors and that this tightens the composition.
As if to make doubly sure, the artist throws in horizontal stripes to help conduct your eyes from side to side. Then he uses secondary color pairings—the blue of the cloaks, the flesh tones, the brown beards, and the pattern of skin colors. Blue and red are near opposites on the color wheel (called complementary*). The eye likes that. When we see one color, we “want” to see its complement. If the artist gives us both colors, we find that satisfying.
When we look at pictures of people, we’ll naturally look at faces. See how each man looks at someone else? If you wonder what any one of them is looking at (remember the childhood game, “made you look”?), you end up looking at another person—and not leaving the picture. Three of the men are looking provocatively at you the viewer, as if to ask, “Do you see?” (Scholars speculate that the second figure from the right is a self-portrait of the artist.) Even that makes you examine the painting again.
The angles of the arms and fingers all lead to other parts of the painting. Moreover, some of them are arranged at right angles and in parallel groupings. Follow any one of them and you’re led to another detail or other lines that conduct your eye further.
Look at the curves—the faces, the ball on the lower left, the snake with the loop—that contrast with the angularity of the limbs and details such as the scepter and chair. They provide relief and hold your eye in a circular motion before you decide to go on. Even then, the artist provides a route for you when you’re ready: the sphere on the lower left takes you up the man’s leg. The snake’s head points right at the feet of two different men (take your pick as to which line you follow). The white headdress in the upper right enfolds and emphasizes the face of the most flamboyantly dressed figure.
All in all, this painting has been composed to hold your attention as long as possible. For anyone who thinks that art is instinctive and uses no technique, this painting, as well as most others, shows that is seldom the case. Most art takes an enormous amount of training, work, and thought before it is ever displayed e. Once you stand before the painting, the artist wants to keep you as long as possible.
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Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh: An Allegory of the Dinteville Family. Master of the Dinteville Allegory (Netherlandish or French, active mid-16th century). 1537. Oil on wood. 69 1/2 x 75 7/8 in. (176.5 x 192.7 cm). TheMet.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437217
* https://ghent.com/blog/2020/09/08/the-science-behind-complementary-colors/#:~:text=Seeking%20Balance,different%20parts%20of%20the%20eye.”