Art Principles and Guidelines

This is an attempt to distill all of my personal ideas and notes about painting (my own paintings) in one document. This is mostly for purpose of personal reference and a list of reminders.

Create without an audience. If you can make in secret something no one will ever see, and still feel at peace, you have uncoupled your worth from the world's reaction, and in that detachment you will find your actual voice and purest form.

Overall Art Principles

Pivotal Concerns

Overall Compositional Principles

Putti. The Baroque & Rococo (17th–18th Century) was the peak of baby-mania in art. Artists like Raphael, Rubens, and Boucher used putti everywhere as decorative space fillers. At this point, a single painting might feature a group of babies; some meant to be angels (Cherubs with musical instruments representing divine love or innocence, often with a virgin mary) and some were meant to be companions of love (Cupids with bows and arrows representing human passion and desire, often with the goddess of love). Both were normally naked, but sometimes with a simple drapery.

On Fashion style. For many years I have considered different clothing/fabric strategies for painting my angel figures. These include: 1950s aesthetic, Victorian, coquette, lolita, classic greek, modern luxury fashion, academic aesthetic. I could not settle on one that worked, but I learned Thomas Wilmer Dewing did not actually paint real historic costumes from his time. He was focused on aestheticism, so he drew from both contemporary and classical ideas to dress his figures. So that is what I would like to do, invent my own angel fashions.

Distance effects. These are achieved by value (lighter in distance), color (desat/greyer in distance), temperature (cooler/bluer in distance, warmer in foreground), detail (less detail in distance), and size (smaller in distance).

Focal Points. Due to multiple figures, I often lose track of focal points. The FP's tend to be just the faces. I need a real strategy for FP's for multi-figure painting.

Purposes of Drapery. Serves composition to lead eye through scene and to establish level of drama/emotion. Accentuates the body. Lets an artist show off, can create a sense of theatre, and fashion as politics and power. Class in clothing is the same as in paintings. Colors just distract from the class and beauty of the cloth, the design, the lines.

Tier list of what's working for me:

• Monochrome coloring and sfumato.
• Quiet moments, figs best not eyes open facing viewer, and not too small.
• Either obscure the face, or make it contemplative, emotionally complex, and arresting. See Dewing.
• Well-rendered outfits and soft skies with lead white.

General Mood Prompts

Subject Prompts

Fashion And Visual Element Prompts

Thomas Wilmer Dewing Influence (AI Generated)

Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851–1938), known for his tonalist style, frequently painted elegant, ethereal women in refined, often dreamlike settings. The women in his paintings typically wear dresses that reflect the aesthetic ideals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially the Aesthetic Movement and Gilded Age fashion. Here's a breakdown of the types of dresses they are wearing.

• Many of Dewing's figures wear gowns with broad, scooped, or off-the-shoulder necklines, reminiscent of evening dresses or artistic costumes rather than typical daywear.
• These necklines often expose a considerable amount of décolletage, which in Victorian and Gilded Age society was generally reserved for formal evening wear, especially among the upper class.
• The low necklines, combined with loose, flowing drapery, often suggest Grecian chitons or Roman stolas, which were designed to hang from the shoulders and were sometimes pinned or gathered under the bust (similar to the Empire waist).
• This classical reference emphasizes idealized beauty, serenity, and timelessness—central themes in Dewing's aesthetic.

Dewing was not painting contemporary fashion per se, but rather constructing an idealized world of beauty and introspection. The women are not meant to be portraits of real people in real clothes, but allegorical or symbolic figures.

The exposed skin is not sensual in a literal or provocative way; rather, it adds to the ethereal and detached mood of his works.

This aesthetic was aligned with Symbolism and Tonalism, both of which prioritized mood, emotion, and atmosphere over realism.

Dewing costumes resemble Greek-style drapery in their construction and in their exposure of the shoulders and chest, emphasizing grace, femininity, and timeless beauty, all while reinforcing the contemplative, dreamlike atmosphere that defines Dewing's art.

1. Aesthetic Dress
• Loose-fitting and flowing: These dresses often abandon the restrictive corsetry typical of Victorian fashion in favor of more relaxed silhouettes.
• High waistlines: Many of Dewing’s female figures wear gowns with Empire-style or raised waistlines, giving them a classical, Grecian feel.
• Soft, unstructured fabrics: The dresses appear to be made from lightweight materials like silk, chiffon, or fine muslin, which drape naturally and enhance the dreamlike atmosphere.
• Muted, harmonious colors: Dewing favored a tonal palette—his women often wear gowns in subdued colors like sage green, lavender, gray-blue, or ivory that blend into the surrounding environment.
• Minimal ornamentation: The dresses typically lack heavy decoration, consistent with the Aesthetic Movement’s emphasis on simplicity and beauty for its own sake.
2. Classicizing and Symbolist Influences
• Some of the dresses resemble classical robes, evoking ancient Greece and Rome. This ties into the Symbolist and Tonalist goals of suggesting timelessness and introspection.
• These garments often appear timeless rather than fashionable, with long, trailing skirts, high necklines, and gentle pleating.
3. Artistic Tea Gowns
• Tea gowns were informal, fashionable dresses worn at home by upper-class women during the late 19th century.
• They were less structured, often made of luxurious fabrics, and associated with the artistic elite.
• Dewing’s women frequently appear in this kind of dress, appropriate for the introspective, quiet mood of his compositions.

Dewing's women wear dresses that are best described as aesthetic, flowing, and timeless—often derived from classical antiquity and artistic reform fashion, not typical daywear. They emphasize grace, introspection, and idealized beauty, aligning with the Symbolist and Tonalist tendencies of Dewing's work.

Ukiyo-e Influence (AI Generated)

Everyday Women as Worthy Subjects

In Europe, women were often depicted as allegories, saints, mythological nudes, or aristocratic portrait sitters. The “ordinary” female rarely made it into fine art. Ukiyo-e, in contrast, elevated working women — courtesans, geisha, teahouse attendants, street performers, even housewives — into major artistic subjects. These images, often called bijin-ga (“pictures of beautiful women”), presented women as central figures of the floating world, not peripheral or symbolic.

2. Stylization over Idealization

Western painting tended to strive toward naturalism, anatomical accuracy, and perspective. Women's bodies were idealized according to classical norms. Ukiyo-e artists like Utamaro, Harunobu, and later Hiroshige stylized the female figure with elongated proportions, delicate features, and flowing robes. The emphasis was not on realism but on evoking mood, elegance, and grace — almost like a poetic distillation of femininity.

3. Fashion and Gesture as Identity

Instead of nude goddesses or royal gowns, ukiyo-e focuses on the kimono, hair ornaments, seasonal motifs, and subtle body language. Clothing patterns (florals, waves, geometric forms) were an art form in themselves, and told as much about a woman's identity and allure as her face. Gestures — how a woman holds her sleeve, tilts her head, or gazes away — carry emotional nuance.

4. Women as Part of an Ephemeral World

5. A More Ambivalent Portrayal

Ukiyo-e doesn't always “celebrate” women — it can also objectify. Courtesans were marketed in prints like celebrities, and female bodies were commercialized. At the same time, artists like Utamaro made unusually sensitive studies of women's psychology — showing tiredness, melancholy, tenderness, or quiet absorption. This emotional range was rarely given to women in European art until much later.

Influence on the West

When ukiyo-e reached Europe in the 19th century (Japonisme), Impressionists and Post-Impressionists were stunned by this alternative vision of women. Artists like Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh borrowed its compositional daring (cropped figures, flat planes, everyday intimacy) to re-imagine how women could be depicted outside myth and monument.

Summary:

Thomas Wilmer Dewing And Ukiyo-e Influence (AI Generated)

Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851–1938), the American painter best known for his tonal, dreamy depictions of elegant women in sparse interiors and gardens, was definitely influenced (directly and indirectly) by Japanese art, especially ukiyo-e and Japanese design aesthetics.

Dewing moved in aesthetic circles (including the Gilded Age elite and collectors like Charles Lang Freer) where Japanese art was avidly studied, collected, and displayed. Freer, in particular, was a great patron of Dewing and also one of the most important collectors of Asian art in America — so Dewing would have been constantly exposed to Japanese works.

Like ukiyo-e, Dewing often used flat picture planes, asymmetry, and empty negative space in his interiors. His figures are elongated and stylized, echoing the way ukiyo-e artists like Utamaro and Harunobu treated the female form. He minimized furniture, detail, and perspective depth, letting gestures and silhouettes carry the emotion — very close to Japanese design principles.

Dewing’s women are not allegories or portraits of specific individuals but idealized, poetic presences absorbed in reading, music, or reverie. This echoes the ukiyo-e bijin-ga tradition — images of beautiful women in everyday, often contemplative moments. His palette is muted and tonal, but the emphasis on fashion, gesture, and grace rather than narrative or psychology parallels Japanese bijin prints.

Dewing’s “The Music Lesson” (1891) → resembles Utamaro’s and Kiyonaga’s prints of women with musical instruments, where the focus is on grace and mood rather than drama. Dewing’s “The Lute” (1904) → echoes the same “woman absorbed in her art” theme so common in Japanese woodblock prints.