Composition

n the visual arts, in particular painting, graphic design, and photography and sculpture composition is the plan, placement or arrangement of elements or ingredients in an art work. The selection and placement of elements within the work contributes to a response from the viewer, the work of art is said to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye if the elements within the work are arranged in a balanced compositional way (Dunstan, 1979). However there are artists who sole aim is to disrupt traditional composition and challenge the viewer to rethink balance and design elements within art works, for instance artists like Salvador Dali.

Basically the term composition means 'putting together', any work of art from music to writing is arranged or put together using conscious thought. The various elements in the overall design usually relate to each other and to the whole art work (Dunstan, p. 7, 1979). There are fundamentally two types of composition: informal, and the less frequently found formal or symmetrical. Composition is also related to artistic canon, for example, the draughting of a pleasing face. In graphic design and desktop publishing, composition is commonly referred to as page layout.