The word “composition” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as, “The nature of something’s ingredients or constituents; the way in which a whole or mixture is made up.” For the purposes of visual composition, we can think of the elements of art and design as the ingredients or constituents of an image. I often imagine the elements as the ingredients in a powerful potion that can alter a viewer’s perception when added to the brew in specific ways.
The elements serve as building blocks, both for the composition as a whole and often for one another. For example, a point on its own is only a point, but when placed near another point it creates an imaginary or implied line between the two. Picture a “connect the dots” puzzle from your childhood where each dot establishes the vertex of a line, coming together to eventually form a shape.
When we add intersecting lines or value to that shape, we can create the powerful illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface, also known as form and space. Just like a child’s basic building blocks which can be arranged in an infinite number of combinations, the elements are the most fundamental components used in the construction of an infinite number of images.
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