Universal Principles of Art: 100 Key Concepts for Understanding, Analyzing, and Practicing Art

📙 Universal Principles of Art presents one hundred principles, fundamental ideas, and approaches to art making that will guide, challenge, and inspire any artist to make better, more focused art. You'll find a wealth of prompts, hints, insights, and road maps that will open a world of possibilities to both understanding art works and generating new ones. It covers techniques and concepts, incorporating both historical and contemporary theories of art and art making.


Fundamental ideas include:

Tone as Structure: Tonal relationships in representational roles.

Color as Light: How color is used to recreate the sensation of light.

Perspective: A sophisticated convention for describing 3-D space.

Composition: The artwork as an arrangement of elements.

Harmony: How elements work together for the good of the whole.


Practical strategies include:

Quoting: How referring to another work of art allows for refinement of meaning.

Simplification: Reducing a statement to its fundamentals.

Successive Approximation: The artwork as a journey.

Restraint: The power of holding back.


Concepts include:

Romanticism: Spontaneity, feelings, imagination, and genius.

Classicism and Renaissance: The tenets of the Greco-Roman world recur throughout the centuries.

Minimalism: Art stripped bare.

Deconstruction: A critical technique exposes the manipulation of meaning.


Techniques include:

Form Rendered: Describing 3-D forms on 2-D surfaces.

Drawing Language: The syntax of description.

Printmaking: Description of basic methods and procedures.


This detailed, yet concise, reference book will be invaluable for artists, historians, educators, art lovers, and students who seek to broaden and improve their art expertise, enhance their enjoyment, or improve their practice.