The word ‘rhythm’ comes from the Greek word ‘rhythmos’ and it implies a measured flow
Principle: p
RHYTHM
Principle:
RHYTHM
Relative to Truth, collage and found objects, Diane Speight.
Rhythm is like radar pings coming off an initial shape – a circle, rectangle, polygon and so on – that may distort but always points back to the thing from which it originated. Or it might compared to generations of photocopies, how they get successively unclear – yet they retain something unmistakable from the original. Texture, on the other hand, is a based on a repetition of a theme. Rhythm might also be compared to a hall of mirrors, wherein every mirror is slightly different, yet it unmistakably can be reduced back to a common source. That cadence of referencing back to the origin is rhythm. The beautiful thing about the principle of rhythm is that it lends a ‘tempo’ to your work, making it seem fast, jerky, slow, cautious, sensual or otherwise – based on a singular point of origin. Think of the first note of the William Tell Overture: everything references back to the first note. Ta!, ta ta ta! Ask yourself what kind of music is your artwork like? Bluesy? A march? rap? A dirge? The type of music doesn’t matter so much as the consistency throughout the work. And a composition can expand into more than one tempo. It may vary but there must be a glue that binds all the various pieces together. Some things will not be easily joined, though one never knows... The important thing is ringing true to the original source point.
62
