HOW TO MAKE FORMAL DIVISION OF YOUR CANVAS WORK INFORMALLY IN A RECTANGLE - An Introduction.

    Oddly enough, the first example I am going to use to explain symmetry in equally split fields being presented as one canvas, is to re-show you something from a prior posting on the subject "LIne for itself".

    The beauty of what follows is significant in subtlety. The way line, controlling the eye with planning - leaving nothing to happenstance -  might go totally unrecognized, This gracefully controlling line will become totally apparent in this reviewed illustration on line for the sake of line.

     This is the epitome of design presented formally while your eye is controlled by informal design.  Do you see it? Look for it...
   

     The entire 8 equally sized divisions make up a formal balance "canvas" of formal division while being controlled by informal line. Even if the informal line skips between boxes, the informal line purposely "hooks up" to take you box to box. Overall it is beautiful, in concept and design. This is truly 'line for itself " This elegant line is graceful and intrinsically beautiful and planned. Did you miss it the first time in the earlier pages about line. Never again will you look at line in the same way, as foriegn, as unnecessary to plan, to control. Give birth to line purposefully in your paintings, it's there anyway and can devour the success of your artwork unless you tame it with masterful planning.

     Here is another example of a formal balance presentation, which divides equally into two sides. Each side is informal line or asymmetrical. The asymmetrical line controls the eye's movement from one side to the other and back again. This painting is masterful at being 3 paintings in one presentation. The audience sees the painting on the left, the painting on the right, aand the entire painting all at once. this painting below is "Rideau Chrichon et Compotier" by post impressionist painter, Paul Cezanne (1893). It is the most expensive still life ever to be sold at auction, I believe, currently to today's date. It sold  for $60,502,500.00 on May 10,1999.

 Feast you eyes on the composition:  

Also look at this complex design of Pablo Picasso's Madre y Hijo,(Mother and Child) 1921 

There is a lot more to complex composition! But, this is a start! Remember, Start with asking, What is my line. Do your thumbnails,. I assure you, planning is what produced superior artists and their art.