Visual Quiet: Giving Art Room to Breathe
In an image, what isn't there counts as much as what is. What negative space is, how it creates calm, and how to use it in a print, a mount or a wall.
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Visual culture
Essays on how we look: colour, form, space and the presence of art at home.
How Cropping and Margins Change an Image
The same image, cropped three ways, tells three stories. How cropping and margins decide what we see and imagine, and how a print feels…
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Analogous Colours in Art: How Harmonious Palettes Work
Terracotta, ochre, sand. Blue, teal, green. Neighbouring colours make calm harmonies. What they are, how to spot them in art, and how to use…
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Visual Rhythm in Art: Repetition Without Monotony
A row of windows, waves, columns. Visual rhythm comes from repetition and from variation. The types of rhythm, and how to spot and use…
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Atmospheric Perspective in Printed Images
Distant mountains look bluer, paler and softer. Artists have used that effect for centuries to create depth. What it is and how to spot…
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The Colour Wheel as a Tool for Looking at Art
Complementary, analogous, triadic. The colour wheel isn't just school theory: it explains why a piece vibrates or soothes, and helps you choose prints.
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The Diptych in the History of Images
From Roman ivory tablets to the Wilton Diptych and modern art: two images read as one. What a diptych is, and how to hang…
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Why Repeating Patterns Catch Our Eye
Tiles, textiles, wallpaper, geometric prints: patterns appear in every culture. What we really know about how we see them, and how to use them…
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The Contemporary Still Life in Painting and Photography
Some fruit, a bottle, a table. The still life looks humble, yet keeps reinventing itself in painting and photography. Its Spanish roots and home…
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Faceless Portraits: Identity and Anonymity in Art
A wanderer facing the fog, a woman turned to the window, a featureless figure. Why art sometimes hides the face, and what that leaves…
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Shadows as a Compositional Element in Photography
A blind drawing stripes across a wall, a chair's long shadow at dusk. In photography, shadow isn't missing light but form. How to read…
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