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As artists, we tend to follow a similar path to develop our skills: first we learn to draw (get accurate shapes), second, we start to understand values, then edges, then color temperature relationships. Those four skills give us the ability to render things. Too many artists stop there; the Masters figure out how to paint with emotion.

In the book Creative Illustration Andrew Loomis says “There is a dramatic way to depict any situation; it’s up to us to find it.” Painters like J.W. Waterhouse, Anders Zorn, and Nicolai Fechin made sketches, studies, and color “roughs” to work out the design of their most famous paintings.

It seems like there are six “tools” in the emotive toolkit:

1. Subject matter – probably the most obvious (and the “cheapest”).
2. Key – high key paintings may seem more energetic, airy, and happier.  Low-key paintings may evoke moodiness, mystery, and somberness.
3. Narrative – What story are we telling? Is it explicit or implicit? Are we summarizing the “entire movie” or just one scene?
4. Expression – If there is a model, what emotion is on his or her face?
5. Accessories– Think stage set. How do the props and costuming advance the narrative?
6. Composition (design) – This is the biggy! The way we direct the viewer’s eye controls all of the above.

This painting, Consulting the Oracle, by J. W. Waterhouse is the complete package! The artist was thinking like a modern filmmaker. The “set”, props, and costuming clearly establish the time, place, and narrative. The composition makes it a masterpiece. Note that the women are arranged in a semi-circle; the viewer completes the circle. (Waterhouse had a mystical reverence for the number seven…so there are seven women consulting the priestess). The models’ expressions become more and more dramatic as the viewer moves around the circle toward the priestess (in black, to emphasize her face and hands). Her upraised hand gesturing, “wait!” has the sharpest edge and is silhouetted against the lightest light in the painting. The woman with her head buried in her hands is in the exact center of the painting.

Masterful composition!