This document provides an overview of visual elements including dot, line, shape, direction, and texture. It discusses how the brain processes visual information and cues like color, form, depth and movement. The basic visual elements are explained as the building blocks for visual literacy and communication. Examples are given to illustrate concepts like implied texture and how direction can influence the emotional response to an image. The document aims to enhance understanding of visual grammar and how viewers interpret visual messages.

1. LESSON 6
Brain Sees
TOPICS COVERED
Dots,lines, shapes,Direction.Direction of shape as vertical, diagonal or curved.Visual
manipulation.Understanding Texture.
OBJECTIVES
Let’s learn the most basic of visual elements….from the dot to lines, circles shapes and
values..From here we draw the raw material for all levels of visual intelligence. You will
understand the grammar of visuals to explore the meaning and components of images.
A mind that works primarily with meanings
must have organs that supply it primarily
with forms.
Suzanne Langer.

2. Why we see.
It is the brain- not the eyes- that understands visual messages. Therefore, to consider how the
mind processes the visual information receives from the eyes is vital.
The brain process images as four basic visual perception cues ( colour, form, depth, and
movement) . Knowing how the brain divides and sorts visual messages will help you to create
images that take advantage of that fact. Theories further refine our understanding of why some
picture are remembered but most are forgotten. Knowing how we see helps explain why we see.
Visual cues & literacy
From the beginnings of human culture, visual awareness has been a key element to
communication. Just as information conveyed by the written word holds a significance for
humanity in the 20th century, the symbols of early cave paintings held a deep significance for the
artists and cultures that produced them. Over time these symbols and meanings changed into the
alphabets of the world of today; which are the basis for verbal literacy.
To be verbally literate, one must possess and be able to manipulate the basic components of
written language: the letters, words, spelling, grammar, syntax. With a mastery of these elements
of written communication, the possibilities of verbal expression are endless. Visual literacy must
operate within the same boundaries. Just as there are components and common meaning for the
elements of verbal literacy, elements and common meaning exist for the elements of visual
literacy.
The fundamentals of all visual communication are its basic elements; the compositional source
for all kinds of visual materials, messages, objects and experiences. The most basic of visual
elements, the dot, a pointer, marker of space; the line, the restless articulator of form, in the
probing looseness of the sketch and the tighter technical plan; shape, the basic outlines, circle,
triangle, and square; direction, the surge of movement that promotes character of the basic
shapes; value, the most basic of all elements, the presence or absence of light; hue and saturation,
the make up of color—coordination of value with added component of chroma; texture, optical
or tactile, the surface characteristic of visual materials; scale,the relative size and measurement
of an image; dimension and motion, both implied through sfumato and other techniques. These
are the visual elements; from them we draw the raw materials for all levels of visual intelligence.
It is with the understanding of these elements that a viewer can come to understand visual
syntax. Visual literacy is the ability, through knowledge of the basic visual elements, to
understand the meaning and components of the image.

3. Dot
In mathematics, we use the term “point” to define an exact coordinate on a plane. Like most
mathematical terms, however, “point” is merely an idea. In order to visualize any concept, a
physical representation, in this case, the dot, can be created. Though termed as the simplest unit
of visual communication, the dot carries a great deal of significance in the world of visual
literacy. The words you are now reading, for instance, are merely patterns of dots; the graphic
images you see surrounding these words are also dots; pretty much the entire computer screen
you see before you contains no more than just a bunch of well-organized, attractively colored,
dubiously detailed dots. Computer screens like this one, along with other media through which
we communicate visual information, use dots as the building blocks for image making.
Paintings, sculptures and other art forms may not necessarily be comprised of dots themselves,
but contemporary visual media such as television, video, and computer animation replicate their
images through dots. In a process called visual fusion, our minds combine dots by blending and
organizing the patterns into coherent images. When placed in carefully designed patterns known
as “halftones,” dots suggest continuous and solid values and hues , as the following image from
Paramount’s 1984 Spielberg blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom demonstrates.
Notice how the image of the famed archeologist, when magnified, becomes an indiscernible
pattern of dots.
Line
The line is a simple yet powerful visual tool. It can be seen as a visual record of a dot’s path
through a visual plane. Therefore, the line provides the essential element for motion across a
visual space. It has a definite purpose in its direction. Just as the horizon of an open outdoor
space provides balance and orientation, a horizontal line creates a strong sense of equilibrium in
a compostition. In contrast, diagonal lines create visual stress and attract the eye. This stress
creates a point of heightened interest in a composition and often can be used to imply movement.

4. Artists use this implied motion when they wish to convey energy or action in their works. On the
other hand, a technical illustrator would probably prefer to use only horizontal or verticle lines to
emphasize stability and strength. Also, the line, depending on its boldness, sharpness, and
looseness, can express a wide variety of emotions.
Art Images Technical Images
Shape
We are born into the world of shapes. Growing up we learn how to read them, and how to
translate visual images into the information we need. We share the world of shapes with other
creatures, think in its terms, and communicate. We become visually literate as well as verbally
literate. We learn how to recognize the pictorial code, how to understand it’s culturally
determined language. We can read signs on the post, maps, and pictures, navigating with their
help in the surrounding environment.
In visual media shapes can be made in a number of ways. They may be defined as the outlines of
objects, or they may be composed from parts of different adjacent objects; they can exist as gaps,
or negative shapes between the objects.
Reading shapes, we tend to dissect them into simpler forms based on geometrical units. Most
people can immediately perceive the total area of a circle, a square, a triangle, an oval, or a
rhombus, without difficulty. If we were shown an image for a couple of seconds, we probably
would not be able to remember it in all the details, but we would have a general grasp of it’s
basic form. If we look at a typical children’s drawing we would see the circle of the sun, and the
squares of the houses, or the ovals of peoples faces.

5. We can say that the geometric basis of shapes provides us with an elementary vocabulary, an
alphabet of the shape language. It helps us to dissect, analyze, and structure the world.
Besides that intellectual perception, restricting our view of the outside world to things of
practical interest and immediate necessity, we have a spontaneous vision of shape, the capacity
to be surprised, enchanted, or impressed by it’s visual phenomena. We respond to them
emotionally. They hold for us their own expressive meaning and character. If to return to the
children’s drawing, it won’t be far fetched to say that we all read the circle of the sun as warmth
and protection, as the best signifier of repose. It is continuity comforting to our eyes. The same
feelings are associated with all kinds of curvy forms. They seem calm, pacific, assured,
sensuously relaxed, and optimistic.

6. Leves House New York. By Skudneck, Auriges, and Merill
the square can be read as dull, straight forward, honest, lacking imagination (though not always),
stable, less natural than the circle.
Salisbury Cathedral England
The triangle is interpreted as action, agitation, conflict, tension, and aspiration. The most famous
triangles, are probably the Pyramids of Egypt. The pointed, sharp, and jagged edges suggest
anguish, danger, and antagonism; by association with fire, splinters, thorns, arrowheads, twisted
metal, or cracked ice.
Different shapes tell us different stories. The endless variations and interplays are stimulating our
curiosity constantly. The sensory perception of shape is probably connected with the deepest
levels of our perception of the world. It is universal, and can be understood beyond the limits of
the cultural identity. If cultivated, it can become our window to another culture. One of the ways
of it’s training is through the arts. Artists play with the perception of shape. Different styles
emphasizes different capacities.

7. For example Matisse, reducing all the details to the minimum, was trying to unfold the purest
forms, and give us immediate sensations of visual excitement. He wished that the viewer would
see shapes, as shapes in their entirety, and enjoy them that way.
The Lived-in Silence of Houses Matisse
In the same way the connection between shapes and our emotions is utilized in the advertising
industry. The use of basic shapes, and their appeal, is most obvious in perfume ads. Perfume is
trying to bottle essential emotions such as attraction and sensuality. Women’s ads tend to use all
three shapes, thereby portraying how, according to society, women are more emotional and
subject to a greater variety of feelings. The bottles that hold women’s perfume are generally
more oriented to curvy, circular, and triangular shapes. The curves may be reflecting the actual
body, but it also implies a feeling of warmth, continuity, and security. The triangular bottle
implies risk, challenge, and excitement. The bottles that tend to hold cologne are generally
square in shape. They are bigger and appear more solid. This shape implies strength, honesty and
reliability. They are not as alluring and enticing as women’s bottles. The shapes perfectly portray
the stereotypes that women and men hold in our society, true or not.

8. Direction
When we look at an image our eye travels around the frame exploring the contents. Direction
will play key role in our understanding the meaning of this image. The amount and type of
motion created by various shapes and lines can convey different emotional states and the
direction of that motion will contribute the intensity of the emotional response. For example in
Edward Munch’s painting, The Scream, the viewer not only responds to the grotesque and strong
shapes and lines, but also the numerous directions in which those lines move.
Edward Munch, The Scream(172kb)

9. There is not a strong sense of movement in one direction so that the end result is chaos.
Direction, perhaps more than any other point, demands an understanding of the other nine points
in order to be fully understood. It may also be said that direction is simultaneously inherent in
and an extension of at least line , shape , scale , dimension , and motion , in that
points exhibits and makes possible the phenomenon of direction. Direction is primarily inherent
in shapes, as a fundamental component of a shapes existence. The direction of a shape can be
vertical, diagonal, or curved.
A viewer’s primary scan of an image is along the vertical then horizontal axis. This is how the
eye picks up the most basic information from an image. Now, if diagonal direction is substituted
for horizontal and vertical direction the image will feel less stable. This is because the diagonal
direction is one that conveys a feeling of movement, excitement, and change.
Diagonals are the most dynamic directions, for they can suggest a strong feeling of imbalance
and motion. A left to right incline is associated with an ordinary graph, lower left indicating
inferiority, upper right indicating superiority or dominance. This diagonal is commonly used in
visual communication because it is so accessible to a viewer. On the other hand, a left to right
decline will feel less stable to the viewer because it is perceived as “downhill”. This is also a
very suggestive visual manipulation.

10. Curved direction also has an element of instability in it, but unlike diagonals, it also has the
ability to be reassuring and safe. The amount of reassurance we derive from the curved direction
is dependent on how curved the direction is; a curve that makes a full circle is much more
encompassing than a curve that is shallow. A circle is a virtual visual trap. Once the eye has
picked up the curve of a circle, it will inevitably become trapped within the path of the circle and
importance will be placed on anything inside.
Whereas a curve has a definite beginning and end, thus leading the eye optionally in either
direction. On the whole though, the curved direction adds an element of softness because of its
lack of angles.
Triangles serve a similar function to circles in that they trap the eye within a specific sub- frame.
Unlike the circle, the triangle is created by three different points in the image. In this photograph
by Naomi Savage, the three points of the triangle are defined by the tulip, the hand, and the
crook of the elbow. Savage is using this shape not only to make our eye travel around the frame
but also to give it dynamic motion through the use of diagonal eye movement. A hierarchy is
created by the highest point of the triangle and relationships between the separate items which
may be defined by their respective angles.
Beyond these two dimensional manifestations of direction, there is also depth, which may be
seen as an extension through the third dimension of any curve, diagonal, vertical, or horizontal.
Most objects, after all, exist in three dimensions, not two, and move through three dimensions,
not two. Certainly, the opening shot of Star Wars, in which a massive space craft zooms
overhead and recedes into a distant field of stars, does not follow a strictly horizontal, vertical,

11. curved, or diagonal direction. Similarly, the ship is not strictly made up of flat verticals,
horizontals, diagonals, and cures, but verticals, horizontals, diagonals, and curves enhanced by
the third dimension. Of course, in reality the ship does not penetrate the flat surface of the screen,
but we perceive it to move away from us, in a direction that is more than simply two
dimensional.
Understanding Texture
If someone were asked to define texture, they might reply, “. . .the feel of an object’s surface.”
This is an example of the way in which we often assume texture is something which must be
physically felt in order to understand it. Texture is something which we feel when we interact
with our surroundings. But, our understanding of texture is not limited to touch. Texture can be
“felt” with our eyes also.
The visual element of texture must be looked at first from a tactile standpoint. If one picks up a
peach, one may say that it feels, “soft.” Likewise, if one looks at a picture of peach, one might
say that it looks, “soft.” This is because our sense of touch cooperates with our eyes to give us a
better understanding of our surroundings. Just as the fingers can sense that a rock may have a
rough and coarse surface, the eyes can also pick up the small variations in texture before even
being touched. This has great significance in the world of visual arts and literacy. If the element
of texture is more understood, then a more “hands-on” approach can be given when observing
the intense visual world which we live in today.
Some of the other elements of visual literacy are also related to texture. For instance, dot and line
are the basic elements by which all visual images are composed. Thus they can add to or take
away from the element of texture. Also, the eye interprets visual texture as the implied minute
variations in dimension which have no actual tactile value.
The following examples show the different textural aspects of images.
Lisa, 1976.

12. In the image above, the baby’s skin appears smooth and soft. There are few dots or lines
interrupting the surface of the baby’s cheeks, as one finds in the wrinkles of an older person’s
skin. The value is also very even, enhancing the illusion of the skin’s smoothness.
In the above close-up of the baby’s face, one can see even better how the lack of detail
communicates a smooth texture while the gentle nuances of color and value make the viewer
believe the baby’s skin would be soft.
Old Woman with Head scarf Paula Modersohn-Becker, Private Collection.
The above painting shows an old woman’s face which is delineated and roughened by age. This
is in sharp textural contrast to the smooth image of the baby. The surface of her skin is
interrupted with lines, changes in value, and variations of hue.

13. The above image is a close-up of the woman in the painting. When one gets a closer look, it is
easy to see how the artist used delicate alterations in dimension to give the wrinkles depth, an
illusion which “roughens” the skin. In this close up, the brush strokes resemble the curves on an
etching or a topographic map. This image provides a clear depiction of how a two-dimensional
image can give the impression of three-dimensional texture.
Both of the sets of images give us a clear understanding of texture’s influence on visual images.
Hopefully, these examples have made the difference between tactile and optical texture more
clear and applicable to daily life. Tactile texture is what we can feel with our sense of touch,
while optical texture is what we make of visual texture in the images we see. In addition, the
sense of sight and touch are obviously related when observing two-dimensional images. This is
shown by our ability to tell what the texture of a photograph or painting would represent in
reality. Our knowledge of the visual element of texture is also made possible with the help of the
dot and the line . These two elements compose everything we see in an image, including texture.
For example we see how the artist made use of both of these elements when marking the old
woman’s face. Also, dimension is one of the more important aids to the appearance of texture.
For example, if one looks at the surface of the old lady’s face blown up, the rough edges of her
wrinkles almost appear to be cut into the painting. By manipulating the brush the artist enhances
the texture of the old lady’s face by imitating subtle changes in dimension.