Creating Within an Intention: Rabatment

What do the sonnet, the waltz and a rabatment have in common?

Each is a form--a pattern for how parts of a creation will fall into place. Each is like a seed that will be an oak tree, an egg that will become a hawk, or a ball of clay that will be turned into a vase.  The pattern is determined, but what gets created within that pattern has yet to evolve.

Another way to say it is that time-tested forms give an artist an opportunity to create within an intention.  In painting, we select a subject, then we have the option to apply a form to help determine how we place the images. The form we choose is our intention for how we will communicate the subject we have chosen.   The rabatment of the rectangle is a classic form for creating within an intention.

A rabatment is the square found on either end of a rectangle.  For each horizontal rectangle, there is a right rabatment and a left rabatment.  For each vertical, there is an upper rabatment and a lower rabatment

When choosing the rabatment as our intention for composing a painting, we have all sorts of creative options for making it work by assigning the inside and the outside of the rabatment each a distinctive role to play towards how the painting communicates.

One way to do this is to place the most active images within the rabatment itself, then insert an "onlooker" within the remainder of the rectangle, creating a structure that engages the viewer to identify with an  image on the outside looking in.  Here's how I did this in a 2007 watercolor of blue jays.

Dianne Mize    "Committee Meeting"    Watercolor

 As you can see, I placed the two conversationalists within the left rabatment and the onlooker outside of it.

Another scheme is to place the major activity inside the rabatment, then to lead into it from the outside like  Carla O'Connor has done in her painting, "Tatoos."

Carla O'Connor     "Tatoos"    Watercolor    

Probably the most classic use of rabatment is to show a major theme inside the rabatment and minor theme on the outside, as illustrated by Robert Genn's painting, "Brittany Port."

Robert Genn    "Brittany Port"   Acrylic

Wassily Kandinsky, a 20th century abstractionist, made a similar use of this plot in his painting, "Composition X."

Wassily Kandinsky    "Composition X"     Oil

It's always refreshing when an artist takes a traditional form and uses it with an unexpected twist.  Mary Whyte did this in her painting, "Passages," where she puts the major theme outside the rabatment, making the rabatment support the theme of the painting rather than the other way around.

Mary White    "Passages"     Watercolor

Like the sonnet is to poetry and the waltz is to music, the rabatment in pictorial composition has endless possibilities for exploring ways we can enable our paintings to communicate.

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Placing Our Images: Golden Section and Thirds

There's something aesthetically pleasing about a golden section. It is so aesthetically harmonious that for centuries, artists have used it for placing their centers of interest and other important images. It's based on a ratio of 1 to 1.618 which is found in growth patterns in nature as well as designs in plants, sea creatures and an abundance of natural images. Look at how a golden rectangle is formed by adding a golden section to a square:

Make a square. Find the half-way point on its bottom
edge. Place the point of the compass there and the pencil
of the compass in the upper left corner.

Draw an arc that extends in alignment with the
bottom edge. That's the ratio that creates the golden section.

Extend the bottom edge to the end of the arc, then
complete the golden rectangle. This new rectangle now has the ratio of 1 (vertical) to 1.618 (horizontal). The original square is also the rectangle's rabatment.

Here I've divided the horizontal into thirds. Look at how close in size the
thirds are to the golden section.

We don't need to figure the golden rectangle or find the golden section for placing our images though. There are two easy systems which will enable us to get our images in that aesthetically pleasing location without all the figuring just by eyeballing.

One is the called the "eyes of the rectangle," illustrated in the top diagram below; the other, "rule of thirds" illustrated in the bottom diagram. The "eyes" are found by drawing a line from corner to corner, then locating the spot half-way between the center and any corner. The thirds are obviously done by dividing both long and short sides into thirds. At the intersections are where images get placed.

These sweet spots are very close to the golden section and often occur at the rectangle's rabatment. Look at the following three examples by nineteeth century European artist Anders Zorn. Using the methods above, you can find how Zorn placed his important images within the area of the rabatment, the eyes and/or the thirds of the rectangle.

Anders Zorn, Impressions of London
1890,Watercolor

Anders Zorn, Baking the Bread

1889, Oil

Anders Zorn, The Thorn-brake

1886, Watercolor

Placing Our Images: Rabatment

Once we've learn how to stay out of the image trap, it's a good thing to know how to place our images for the strongest impact and the most interesting composition. But first, we need to address the cardinal rule about placement: the yolk of a fried egg floats in the middle. Avoid the fried egg syndrome and keep your center of attention OUT of the MIDDLE of your painting. The masterful composer might ingeniously place important images in the middle and make it work, but nine times out of ten, placement in the middle spells disaster.

Painters can rely on several sound strategies for finding a good placement. One of these is called the rabatment of the rectangle. The rabatment is the square found on either side of a rectangle by taking the short side and making a square out of it. For each horizontal rectangle, there is a right rabatment and a left rabatment. Placing the most important images or activity within either of these squares creates a structure that enables the viewer's eye to sense the structure and perceive it as harmonious .

"Committee Meeting" Watercolor on Paper
Copyright 2007 Dianne Mize
Click on image for larger verson.

Above in my watercolor painting of jaybirds, notice how I've placed the two conversationalists within the left rabatment and the onlooker outside of it.

To experiment with using the rabatment for your placement, begin by doing a drawing free-floating on the page without a format around it. For this exercise, I'll be using the drawing on the lower right of my sketchbook page.

Create a view-finder whose vertical side is the same length as the vertical height of your drawing. Then, make the horizontal a length which will give you a standard proportion. Example: if your drawing is 3 inches high, your viewfiender might be 3" x 5". Within that viewfinder, the 3" x 3" square of space on the right and on the left are your rabatments.

Now, place the viewfinder over the drawing so that the major idea of the drawing fits into that square portion of space. Now you see how a rabatment works. (You can click on each image for a larger version.)
This would be the plan for your painting. Pretty neat stuff, huh?