Gandalf: Visual Elements

Continuing the theme for this month of visual elements, this week I’m going to be discussing this portrait of Gandalf by John Howe. I love so many things about this piece. Also, it’s kind of calming even though Gandalf looks annoyed as hell (but when is he not annoyed as hell?).

Line: The tree cuts a diagonal line right to the middle of the composition, but it also frames Gandalf’s face. It’s kind of like he’s sneaking around in the woods and is just peeking around the corner.

Shape: The leaves and mushrooms have a very organic shape to them.

Value: The differences between light and dark aren’t very drastic, but you can tell where the light hits things and see the shadow underneath.

Color: Like in The Dark Tower the colors are soft and muted almost, but this time they have an autumnal feel, like the aging of the world. There’s also a nice contrast between the orangey-red of the leaves and the cool colors of Gandalf and the background.

Texture: The individual hairs of Gandalf’s beard sticking out, as well as the bark of the tree, or the gills of the mushroom give interesting texture to the piece.

Space: This week I’m actually doing a group presentation on space in art, and one of the ways to create the illusion of space is by using a texture and/or brightness gradient and decreasing the color saturation the farther away something is, because of how our eyes perceive far away objects.

Time and Motion: Everything appears to be still in this piece, and like I mentioned above the color of the leaves alludes to the time of the year.

"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." J.R.R. Tolkien