Gilhooley
VA30
ORDER
“Everything is beautiful that is in due order.” St. Augustine, De Vera Religione
Order is the fundamental quality anything must possess to be recognized or understood, and this is not less true for art than any other object or event. Order depends on the appreciation of meaningful relationships between the parts of an experience. Art often tries to create a deeper, more expansive order than that normally found in life. Art attempts to produce more elaborate and complete interrelations between the components of a work in the hopes of stimulating esthetic response. To produce an esthetic result – that is, to make something beautiful or fascinating – the artist must learn how to create an ordered experience.
From the outset we should distinguish between two very different concepts expressed by the word order: “redundancy” and “structure.” A two-dimensional square grid in which every part possesses the same color is ordered, in fact it is completely homogeneous, totally redundant. In this instance, order means simply the absence of differences. Structure, on the other hand, implies a higher level of order. It suggests a synthesis of differing, sometimes opposing, forces into a state of equilibrium: a whole unified by the interaction of its diverse parts . This more complex form of order
(as opposed to simple redundancy) is what characterizes most of life and art. An interesting example of such a multi-level order was described by Sir Joseph Thomson in his Corpuscular Theory of Matter (1907). In an experiment a group of magnetized needles were pushed through cork disks that float in a bowl of water. The needles, all having their positive poles pointing up in the same direction, naturally repelled each other. Then a large magnet was placed over the bowl with its negative (attracting) pole facing downwards. Under this new condition, although the needles continued to repel one another, they were now brought close together into groups by their mutual attraction to the larger magnet. Significantly, in each case the needles arranged themselves around the magnet in the simplest form: three needles grouped together to create a triangular shape, four joined in the form of a square, five made a pentagon, and a very large number produced a circle.
This simple experiment from physical science reveals several very important characteristics of order in visual art: Equilibrium : In each instance the final configuration of needles was the result of an equilibrium achieved between forces of similarity (the needles’ mutual attraction to the magnet) and difference (their mutual repulsion). The needles didn’t continuously shift locations, but instead came rapidly to a stable position. It should be quickly emphasized that this stability is not deadly or stultifying; it has not removed or subdued the forces interacting between the parts.
Obviously, just the opposite is true: the stability, itself, is the result of these ongoing forces. If, for example, we increased the force of the magnet we would simultaneously be intensifying the stability of the structure, thereby making it more difficult to move a

needle from its position. So we see that stability arises from, and depends on, the interplay of active, vital forces. The very same situation exists in visual art. In a painting certain shapes and colors are mutually attractive due to similarity or a feature they share in common, while at the same time, some colors and forms contrast sharply – they are radically different from each other, and so they resist being grouped visually. The problem of pictorial composition is to create a structure identical to that of the magnet and needles: one in which disparate, contrasting elements are unified by a more significant similarity, producing a situation Mondrian described as “dynamic equilibrium,” a state in which visual tensions coexist with a broader unity. (See Piet
Mondrian, Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art .)
Unity : This experiment showed that structure requires the dominance of overall unity, coupled with a subordination of internal differences. Obviously, the forces of attraction must be greater than those of repulsion, or the organization would never come to exist in the first place. In visual art we have learned that to improve the unity of a design requires an increase the similarity between the parts.
Hierarchy:
Furthermore, we’ve come to realize that a multi-level structure demands a hierarchical organization. The simple equivalence of components in the redundant grid pattern described above is replaced by both greater differentiation and integration: “equivalence of parts must be replaced by absolute differences, and at the same time the distinct parts must fuse together into a whole” (Wolfflin, p. 282, Classic
Art ). In a painting, for example, a dark patch of foliage may be composed of several pairs of complementary hues all contrasting at equal value. The internal tensions between these areas of color naturally make them repel one another causing them to remain individual and distinct, just as the needles repelled each other in the experiment.
However, in the overall design of the painting these close-valued hue contrasts become subordinate to a much greater amount of value contrast which distinguishes the dark foliage from the light blue sky. As a result, these individual patches of hue are unified and become simply leaves in a dark, shaded section of a tree silhouetted against a light sky.
Unified Variety : The experiment with the magnet and needles has clearly demonstrated that diverse, even antagonistic, elements could be unified by a strong mutual characteristic, in this case magnetic attraction. Such a structure reflects an ancient concept in art theory, that of unified variety. Although the idea goes back to the Greeks
(the first people to write critically about art), our modern version might date from
Leibniz’s definition of perfection (1714): “to obtain as much variety as possible but with the greatest order that one can.” This form of experience often seems extremely appealing apparently because it balances our mind’s desire for ordered, unified structure necessary for understanding, with our concurrent demand for sufficient variety to satisfy our innate curiosity. D. O. Hebb, in his influential book The Organization of Behavior , states that sustained interest “follows most readily from a stimulus field characterized by difference-in-sameness; that is, containing much that is familiar along with certain features that are novel.” Several other psychologists agree, describing unified variety as a form of “optimal stimulation.” This suggests that the pleasure often associated with art

appreciation may be the result of an “optimizing” of our perceptual systems. From this point of view, art can be thought of as an artificial experience that allows us to begin to maximize our perceptual-conceptual abilities.
On a 5 x 8 inch log card, please answer the following questions as thoroughly as you can. a.
Describe how unity and order are linked. b.
Discuss the forces at work in the experiment and explain how hierarchy contributed to the final structures of needles. Why did the groupings of needles produce such regular shapes (triangles, squares, etc.)? c.
Why did Mondrian describe equilibrium in a work of art as “dynamic?”