Competing Focal Spots
Apr 16, 2018
The aim of every artist is to grab the attention of the viewer and direct it to the one object that attracted the artist to paint the scene. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, the artist usually places this attractive item at the focal spot to act as an eye magnet. The artists then devise various strategies to guide the viewer's eyes to this area and keep them coming back to it after exploring the rest of the painting.
One of these strategies is to ensure that there is only one focal spot in a painting. A budding artist tries to add too many items to a painting in a haphazard fashion and thus the painting loses impact. As we observe in movies and novels, there is only one hero or heroine who towers above the rest of the characters. If there were more than one, the audience is confused as to where their loyalty lies.
Now let us look at a few of these scenarios.
If there are 2 competing focal spots, both equally large and spaced apart, our eyes tend to dart from one to another playing "ping-pong" and not knowing where to focus. The eyes eventually get exhausted and leave the painting. This photograph of the two horses hopefully conveys this point.
Two competing focal spots
If however, the artist were to make one of them less important by reducing the size of one of them, the larger horse becomes the center of attraction and the other one plays a supporting role. This is illustrated in the example below.
