Dow's line tracings of a Venetian palace façade, part of the Tower of Seville, a 15th-century sideboard and the side of a Japanese room, with three Japanese shelf layouts below, each dividing a rectangle unequally.

Concept · Putting It Together

Proportion and Scale

Proportion is how sizes and amounts relate inside a picture. Scale is how big something is next to something else, or next to us.

Dow made proportion, or "good spacing," the principle behind all his others. His tracings divide rectangles unequally.

  • A large painting pushes viewers back; a small one draws them in (Smarthistory).
  • In Bellini's Madonna of the Meadow, Smarthistory notes, the Virgin takes up a third of the picture and stands higher than the horizon, which marks her as the subject.

See

Image: Project Gutenberg · Public domain

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