The 7 Elements of Art

A similar activity happens when the elements of art are combined. Instead of elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,
in art you have these building blocks:

1. Line
2. Shape
3. Form
4. Space
5. Texture
6. Value
7. Color

Shape

A shape is one of what art theorists have called the seven elements of art, the building blocks that artists use to create
images on canvas and in our minds.

In the study of art, a shape is an enclosed space, a bounded two-dimensional form that has both length and width. Its
boundaries are defined by other elements of art such as lines, values, colors, and textures; and by adding value you can turn
a shape into an illusion of its three-dimensional cousin, form. As an artist or someone who appreciates art, it's important to
fully understand how shapes are used.

What Makes It a Shape?

Shapes are everywhere and all objects have shape. When painting or drawing, you create a shape of that drawing in two
dimensions. You can add value to give it highlights and shadows, making it look more three-dimensional.

However, it is not until form and shape meet, such as in sculpture, that a shape becomes truly three-dimensional. That is
because form is defined by including a third dimension: height is added to length and width. Abstract art is the most obvious
example of the use of shape: but the element of shape, organic and geometric alike, is central to much if not most artwork.

What Creates a Shape?

At its most basic, a shape is created when a line is enclosed: the line forms the boundary, and the shape is the form
circumscribed by that boundary. Line and shape are two elements in art that are nearly always used together. For example,
three lines are used to create a triangle while four lines can make a square.

Shapes can also be defined by the artist using value, color, or texture to differentiate them. Shapes might include a line in
order to achieve this, or it might not: for example, shapes created with collages are defined by the edges of the added
material.

Shapes are always limited to two dimensions: length and width. There are also two types of shapes used in art: geometric
and organic.

FORM

The term form can mean several different things in art. Form is one of the seven elements of art and connotes a
three-dimensional object in space. A formal analysis of a work of art describes how the elements and principles of
artwork together independent of their meaning and the feelings or thoughts they may evoke in the viewer.
Finally, form is also used to describe the physical nature of the artwork, as in a metal sculpture, an oil painting,
etc.

When used in tandem with the word art as in art form, it can also mean a medium of artistic expression recognized
as fine art or an unconventional medium done so well, adroitly, or creatively as to elevate it to the level of a fine
art.

An Element of Art

Form is one of the seven elements of art which are the visual tools that an artist uses to compose a work of art. In
addition, to form, they include line, shape, value, color, texture, and space. As an Element of Art, form connotes
something that is three-dimensional and encloses volume, having length, width, and height, versus shape, which
is two-dimensional, or flat. A form is a shape in three dimensions, and, like shapes, can be geometric or organic.

Geometric forms are forms that are mathematical, precise, and can be named, as in the basic geometric forms:
sphere, cube, pyramid, cone, and cylinder. A circle becomes a sphere in three dimensions, a square becomes a
cube, a triangle becomes a pyramid or cone.

Geometric forms are most often found in architecture and the built environment, although you can also find them
in the spheres of planets and bubbles, and in the crystalline pattern of snowflakes, for example.

Organic forms are those that are free-flowing, curvy, sinewy, and are not symmetrical or easily measurable or
named. They most often occur in nature, as in the shapes of flowers, branches, leaves, puddles, clouds, animals,
the human figure, etc., but can also be found in the bold and fanciful buildings of the Spanish architect Antoni
Gaudi (1852-1926) as well as in many sculptures.

Form in Sculpture

Form is most closely tied to sculpture, since it is a three-dimensional art and has traditionally consisted almost
primarily of form, with color and texture being subordinate. Three-dimensional forms can be seen from more than
one side. Traditionally forms could be viewed from all sides, called sculpture in-the-round, or in relief, those in
which the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background—including bas-relief, haut-relief, and sunken-
relief. Historically sculptures were made in the likeness of someone, to honor a hero or god.

The twentieth century broadened the meaning of sculpture, though, heralding the concept of open and closed
forms, and the meaning continues to expand today. Sculptures are no longer only representational, static,
stationary, forms with a solid opaque mass that has been carved out of stone or modeled out of bronze. Sculpture
today may be abstract, assembled from different objects, kinetic, change with time, or made out of unconventional
materials like light or holograms, as in the work of renowned artist James Turrell.

Sculptures may be characterized in relative terms as closed or open forms. A closed form has a similar feeling to
the traditional form of a solid opaque mass. Even if spaces exist within the form, they are contained and confined.
A closed form has an inward-directed focus on the form, itself, isolated from ambient space. An open form is
transparent, revealing its structure, and therefore has a more fluid and dynamic relationship with the ambient
space. Negative space is a major component and activating force of an open form sculpture. Pablo Picasso (1881-
1973), Alexander Calder (1898-1976), and Julio Gonzalez (1876-1942) are some artists who created open form
sculptures, made from wire and other materials.

Henry Moore (1898-1986), the great English artist who, along with his contemporary, Barbara Hepworth (1903-
1975), were the two most important British sculptors in modern art, both revolutionized sculpture by being the
first to pierce the form of their biomorphic (bio=life, morphic=form) sculptures. She did so in 1931, and he did in
1932, noting that “even space can have form” and that “a hole can have as much shape meaning as a solid mass.”

Form in Drawing and Painting

In drawing and painting, the illusion of three-dimensional form is conveyed through the use of lighting and
shadows, and the rendering of value and tone. Shape is defined by the outer contour of an object, which is how we
first perceive it and begin to make sense of it, but light, value, and shadow help to give an object form and context
in space so that we can fully identify it.

For example, assuming a single light source on a sphere, the highlight is where the light source hits directly;
the mid-tone is the middle value on the sphere where the light does not hit directly; the core shadow is the area on
the sphere that the light does not hit at all and is the darkest part of the sphere; the cast shadow is the area on
surrounding surfaces that is blocked from the light by the object; reflected highlight is light that is reflected back
up onto the object from the surrounding objects and surfaces. With these guidelines as to light and shading in
mind, any simple shape can be drawn or painted to create the illusion of a three-dimensional form.

The greater the contrast in value, the more pronounced the three-dimensional form becomes. Forms that are
rendered with little variation in value appear flatter than those that are rendered with greater variation and
contrast.

Historically, painting has progressed from a flat representation of form and space to a three-dimensional
representation of form and space, to abstraction. Egyptian painting was flat, with the human form presented
frontally but with the head and feet in profile. The realistic illusion of form did not occur until the Renaissance
along with the discovery of perspective. Baroque artists such as Caravaggio (1571-1610), explored the nature of
space, light, and the three-dimensional experience of space further through the use of chiaroscuro, the strong
contrast between light and dark. The portrayal of the human form became much more dynamic, with chiaroscuro
and foreshortening giving the forms a sense of solidity and weight and creating a powerful sense of drama.
Modernism freed artists to play with form more abstractly. Artists such as Picasso, with the invention of Cubism,
broke up form to imply movement through space and time.