Education - Lessons & Activities - Exploring Lines in Works of Art

A single stylized brushstroke like a compressed W with a long stroke to our right almost fills this horizontal screenprint on paper. The canary-yellow brushstroke is heavily outlined with black, which creates the impression of shadows and texture swirling through the swipe of yellow paint. A few drops of yellow outlined with black suggest that the paint dripped down to our right. The background is a tight, pattern of small cobalt-blue dots against a white ground. The artist signed the work in graphite under the lower right corner: “rf Lichtenstein H.C. G.”

What type of line is this?

Now, look closely at these lines. Which group of words best describes them?

(1) Calm, serious, quiet

OR

(2) Energetic, fun, dynamic

Roy Lichtenstein
American, 1923–1997
Leo Castelli Gallery (publisher)
Chiron Press (printer)
Brushstroke, 1965
color screenprint on heavy, white wove paper, 58.4 x 73.6 cm (23 x 29 in.)
Corlett/Fine 1994, Vol. II, no. 5
National Gallery of Art, Gift of Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein

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This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

What types of lines do you see?

Where do you see the following:

Long

Continuous

Straight

Diagonal

Vertical

Horizontal

Now, look closely at these lines. Which group of words best describes them?

(1) Solid, serious, organized, planned

OR

(2) Silly, energetic, dynamic, in motion, chaotic

Charles Sheeler
American, 1883–1965
Classic Landscape, 1931
oil on canvas, 63.5 x 81.9 cm (25 x 32 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Collection of Barney A. Ebsworth

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Two angular, cream-white buildings flanking a central, stylized tree are surrounded by brown soil, small animals, and farmhouse objects like watering cans and buckets beneath a clear, azure-blue sky in this square landscape painting. We look straight onto the buildings and slightly down onto the earth in front of us. About a third of the way up the composition, the horizon is lined with trees and mountains in the deep distance. The long, spindly branches of the central tree nearly reach the top edge of the painting and abstracted, sickle-shaped leaves are silhouetted against the sky so no leaves overlap. The far edge of the whitewashed structure to our left is cropped. The façade is pierced by two small rectangular windows and an arched hatch at the top under a winch. The back end of a horse is visible through an open door at the bottom center. Horizontal bands in front of the building suggest furrows in plowed earth, and a single stalk of corn grows up into the scene, seeming close to us. A pen protected by netting stretches out in front of the second structure, to our right of center. That wood-frame building has a triangular peaked roof, and the left half is open, like a lean-to. A goat, rooster, birds, and several rabbits occupy the pen. Watering cans, buckets and pails, a hoe, newspaper, lizard, and snail are spaced around the buildings. A tiny stylized person, perhaps a baby, appears in the distance between the buildings near a well where a woman works. A covered wagon, a round mill, trees, and plants fill the rest of the space between the buildings. A disk-like moon hangs in the sky to the right of the tree. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner,

What types of lines do you see?

Where do you see the following:

Straight

Short

Long

Zigzag

Curved

Look closely at these lines. Which group of words best describes them?

(1) Busy, topsy turvy, active

OR

(2) Serious, calm, quiet

Joan Miró
Spanish, 1893–1983
The Farm, 1921–1922
oil on canvas, 123.8 x 141.3 x 3.3 cm (48 3/4 x 55 5/8 x 1 5/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of Mary Hemingway

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On either side of a rectangular, off-white canvas, thirteen wavy, almost parallel lines, each in a different color, drift and drip from either short end of the canvas down toward the bottom center. The lines vary in thickness and many are separated by narrow white spaces, but sometimes the lines bump or drip into their neighbors. Most of the colors to our left are warm, with buttercup yellow, papaya and fire orange, pea green, crimson red, and magenta. To our right, most of the colors are cool with pine and forest green, navy blue, burgundy red, and one lemon-yellow line. The largest portion of the composition, though, is the V-shaped white space left in between each bank of thirteen lines.

What types of lines do you see?

How is this painting different than the previous ones?

Look closely at these lines. Which group of words best describes them?

(1) In motion, festive, fun

OR

(2) Calm, sleepy, still

Morris Louis
American, 1912–1962
Beta Kappa, 1961
acrylic on canvas, 262.3 x 439.4 cm (103 1/4 x 173 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of Marcella Louis Brenner

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A woman wearing a pale blue and gray patterned top and turquoise skirt stretches out in an armchair in this stylized, almost square painting. The scene is loosely painted with areas of mostly flat color, especially in the background, so some details are difficult to make out. The woman is centered in the composition, and her legs stretch to our left. She has upswept dark brown hair, peach-colored skin, and her eyes, nose, and mouth are drawn with dark gray lines. Her blousy top is vertically patterned with lead-gray leaves down the front and elongated dots on the sleeves. Each sleeve also has a carrot-orange band on the upper arm. Her skirt is spearmint green, and she wears bone-white pumps. She sits in a canary-yellow armchair with red down the front of the arms and along the bottom, where the wood frame would be. One foot stretches to rest on a matching footstool, while her other leg is curled under her. The denim-blue floor tilts toward us and is covered with thin white lines in a chevron pattern. In the lower right is a red table with a bright yellow vase covered with swipes of brown and green. The vase is filled with elongated, abstract mauve-pink and mint-green shapes on slender white stems. The back wall of the room has an aqua-green cabinet to our left, which holds a silver urn and dishes of round objects. There is also a cantaloupe-orange footstool and other pieces of small furniture there, below paintings on the white wall. Above the woman is a white door with panels outlined in gray, and a section of black wall to our right has more paintings. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “Henri Matisse 40.”

What types of lines do you see?

Where do you see the following:

Zigzag

Curved

Straight

Short

Broken

Look closely at these lines. Which group of words best describes them?

(1) Motion, festive, fun

OR

(2) Calm, sleepy, still

Henri Matisse
French, 1869–1954
Woman Seated in an Armchair, 1940
oil on canvas, 54 x 65.1 cm (21 1/4 x 25 5/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Given in loving memory of her husband, Taft Schreiber, by Rita Schreiber

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Close to us, a young man and three boys sit or recline in a small sailboat that tips to our left on a choppy dark green sea in this horizontal painting. The billowing sail extends off the top left corner of the canvas and is echoed in the background to our right by the tall sails of another ship in the distance. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the composition, and puffy gray and white clouds sweep across the turquoise sky. The sun lights the scene from our right so the boys’ ruddy faces are in shadow under their hats. The young man and boys all face our left so they lean against and into the boat as it cants up to our right. The boy nearest the sail to our left reclines across the bow. Next to him to our right, a younger boy perches on the edge of the boat and holds on with both hands. The oldest, in a red shirt, sits on the floor of the boat as he maneuvers the sail with a rope. Closer to us and to our right, a younger boy sits with his bare feet pressed together in front of his bent knees on the back edge of the boat, gazing into the distance over his right shoulder as he handles the tiller. The artist signed and dated the painting in dark letters in the lower right corner: “HOMER 1876.”

Can you find the hidden lines in this painting? This painting of a fast-moving sailboat is full of diagonal lines. Why? Artists use diagonals to show energy and movement. Diagonals also lead the viewer into the painting. Try to imagine the boat without the diagonals, sitting flat on the water—horizontally—with the mast going straight up—vertically—into the sky. Would the boat be moving, or sitting still, without the diagonals?

Now, compare this boating scene to the next slide image...

Winslow Homer
American, 1836–1910
Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1873-1876
oil on canvas, 61.5 x 97 cm (24 3/16 x 38 3/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of the W. L. and May T. Mellon Foundation

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Near the center of the painting, a masted wooden ship floats against a vibrant sunset that fades from lilac purple to carnation pink along the horizon line, which comes about a quarter of the way up this horizontal landscape. The boat is angled away from us and to our left with one sail tied up near the top of one of the two tall masts. Four people stand on the lumber-filled deck and tie up other sails. A second boat floats in the distance, its rigging and masts silhouetted against the vivid pink sky. The water is deep blue along the bottom edge of the canvas and lightens where it meets the hills along the horizon. Slivers of wispy slate-gray clouds sweep across the sky.

Is this boat moving fast or slow? It looks like it is standing still. Does the water seem calm or churning? How hard is the wind blowing? (No sails up = very little wind!) Are there any diagonal lines in this painting? (Very few—mostly straight lines here, vertical and horizontal. Without diagonal lines, the artist created a quiet, calm scene with a slow moving boat.)

Fitz Henry Lane
American, 1804–1865
Lumber Schooners at Evening on Penobscot Bay, 1863
oil on canvas, 62.5 x 96.8 cm (24 5/8 x 38 1/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Francis W. Hatch, Sr.

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Exploring Lines in Works of Art: Lessons & Activities