Recently, I got reacquainted with an old friend.  While an art student in the sixties, I was introduced to  Rudolf Arnheim's Art and Visual Perception.  That one text made a stronger impact on me than any before or since.  And in the western art world particularly, it has become the Bible for understanding how visual composing works and why it is important.

It's the blue book in the middle, quite worn...

Arnheim's background in the study of philosophy, psychology and art history gave him a perfect mix to set off his lifelong exploration into what he called "a psychology of the eye."  (He lived to age 102!)  Whereas over the years, many art texts are tired and antiquated, Arnheim's remains as fresh today as when it was published more than sixty years ago.  Unlike many art theorists, critics and historians who latch onto and postulate one trend or convention after another, his work is so universally rooted that it applies to all arts of all eras.

Aside from that, reading Arnheim again reminded me of why I think so many painters--especially emerging artists--resist learning composition:  it's those long, confusing lists you see everywhere.  Painters want to paint, they don't want to deal with rules.  So whenever somebody flashes a rule, or worse a list of rules, the natural reaction is resistance.  

Honestly, I've never seen a list of composition principles--including my own--that made any practical sense.  Usually, they are presented en masse with brief, eclectic explanations.  What does make sense is to explore how the principles can become the artist's workhorse--how we artists can direct THEM, like actors on a stage, to cultivate our work beyond what we ever dreamed possible.

What Arnheim does is what any good music teacher does:  he begins with a simple exercise that uses the principle and builds on it.   Why don't painting teachers do that?