Poore's plate of two pictures: above, two young people in one tight embrace, a single group; below, two seated figures side by side, each busy with a bird, the picture split into two halves.

Concept · Putting It Together

Unity and Variety

Unity is the sense that every part belongs to one whole. Variety adds difference to hold attention.

Poore set a single, tight group beside a picture split between two centers. "Of all pictorial principles," he wrote, "none compares in importance with Unity or Balance."

  • Echoing a shape or angle in several places "helps to unify the composition," says Beth Harris of Smarthistory.
  • Poore quotes the painter George Inness on his own struggle for "unity, unity."

See

Image: Project Gutenberg · Public domain

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