What is balance in art? Why is it important?

Balance in art refers to the use of our design elements, such as line, texture, color, shapes, and 3d forms in such a way that it creates visual stability. Visual stability, or balance, is often different for everyone.

It’s important because, while making your art is distinctly an individual endeavor, viewing and experiencing art is a community practice.

We share our results for various reasons:

• Gain insight into what is or is not stable or well-balanced.
• Receive validation with or without a gallery
• Get connected: to create is to connect; the truly creative person makes connections, before, during, and after the art is made.
• Get and give feedback: through good critiques, we grow together as a community.
• Collaboration: how we grow individually and as a community of artists is vitally important.

These are just a few ways we work to make our art known and to be seen. The purpose of these posts is to encourage artists to make better, well-balanced art that connects deeper, and has a wider and longer impact.

Another way to see this is that as artists we are storytellers. We want our stories to matter, to connect, to make an impact, to move someone emotionally and even to give them the courage to live their life with a bit more courage. So, for our stories to connect they must be attractive, engaging, and compelling. If they are made without consideration for balance, our designs will be distracting, disengaging, and repelling – the exact opposite of what we want.

When your scene’s shapes and forms are visually balanced, you’ll gain a more quiet, restful composition. It is through a reconciliation of opposing forces that equilibrium or balance of elements is achieved in art. Be careful not to get too symmetrical and restful, otherwise you’ll end up with a boring and monotonous design. When there is balance and counterbalance that’s achieved by asymmetrical shapes, this is when your designs offer engaging spaces, forms, and shapes for your viewers to explore.

What does a shape’s visual weight depend on? Placement on the canvas for sure. A shape has more weight when it’s occupying the one third sweet spot of your composition. Edge treatment also adds weight, as big shapes weigh more than little shapes. Color, intensity, and the contrast with their surrounding shapes also adds weight. Another factor that adds weight is what the shape represents, meaning the intrinsic value we ascribe to those shapes. For instance, people weigh more than animals, living beings weigh more than inanimate objects. Architecture may weigh more than nature. However, if the painting is mostly architecture, a little bit of nature may balance or even outweigh the structures. So, if there are shapes representing people, architecture, or animal shapes in general, these all have varying intrinsic value that add weight to the composition (see Contrast write-up).

When designing these shapes, think sliding scales and leverage. Imagine each shape has visual weight depending on the size, shape, placement, and the contrast it creates. The visual leverage is applied by the contrast that shape has with its neighboring shapes. I often tell my students that their center of interest has incredible leverage to command the eye’s attention, so they are safe to increase the contrast, i.e., leverage of their other shapes that support the center of interest. The more contrast a shape has with its neighbor, the more leverage and weight it has to the overall painting.

We generally want to avoid symmetrical compositions. Balanced and asymmetrical compositions are more exciting and captivating to look at. They offer a dynamic tension that is balanced and yet engaging to explore.

Here’s a great example of balance in action from Marc Anderson’s recent painting, “The Beaver Pond.” There is so much good about this painting. There’s no doubt about who’s the hero. Be mindful of where your eye wants to live. It is the area of the higher contrasted tree clusters. Also, study this piece for Marc’s use of balance in his design. He pushed the trees as far as he could to the left. The contrast between those tree shapes and the surrounding distant tree and sky reflections within the water has incredible leverage to captivate and hold the eye. To counterbalance this attention, Marc used big shapes with less contrast on the right. His painting is captivating because of the excellent design, and one reason it’s a great design is because it’s so well-balanced. This piece won Marc the Gold Medal in the OPA Eastern Regional Exhibition.

Marc Anderson – The Beaver Pond, Oil 24” x 34”