The Elements of Art: Line

Students will be introduced to one of the basic elements of art—line—by analyzing types of lines used in various works of art to help students understand how artists use line to convey movement and mood. They will then create an abstract line art piece based on an activity they enjoy to do or watch.

stella

Frank Stella
American, born 1936
Jarama II, 1982
mixed media on etched magnesium, 319.9 x 253.9 x 62.8 cm (125 15/16 x 99 15/16 x 24 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of Lila Acheson Wallace

If this painting could move, would it move quickly or slowly? Is there something about the lines that make you think so?

Line is a mark made using a drawing tool or brush. There are many types of lines: thick, thin, horizontal, vertical, zigzag, diagonal, curly, curved, spiral, etc. and are often very expressive. Lines are basic tools for artists—though some artists show their lines more than others. Some lines in paintings are invisible—you don't actually see the dark mark of the line. But they are there, shown in the way the artist arranges the objects in the painting.

Artist Frank Stella is a racing fan. This metal relief painting, Jarama II, is named after an automobile racetrack outside Madrid, Spain. Here, Stella used winding, curving strips of metal painted in bright, dynamic colors to forcefully carry the motion and excitement of professional racing.

Lines in art express different things. View the slideshow below and have students answer the questions beneath each image:

Slideshow: Exploring Lines in Works of Art

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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.”

Exploring Lines in Works of Art Lessons & Activities

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

What type of line is this?

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

(1) Calm, serious, quiet

(2) Energetic, fun, dynamic

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.”

Exploring Lines in Works of Art Lessons & Activities

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

What types of lines do you see?

Where do you see the following:

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

(1) Solid, serious, organized, planned

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

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,

Exploring Lines in Works of Art Lessons & Activities

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

What types of lines do you see?

Where do you see the following:

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

(1) Busy, topsy turvy, active

(2) Serious, calm, quiet

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 <a href=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." />

Exploring Lines in Works of Art Lessons & Activities

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

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

(2) Calm, sleepy, still

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.”

Exploring Lines in Works of Art Lessons & Activities

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

What types of lines do you see?

Where do you see the following:

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

(1) Motion, festive, fun

(2) Calm, sleepy, still

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 <a href=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.”" />

Exploring Lines in Works of Art Lessons & Activities

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

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.

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 <a href=of the canvas and lightens where it meets the hills along the horizon. Slivers of wispy slate-gray clouds sweep across the sky." />

Exploring Lines in Works of Art Lessons & Activities

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.

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.)

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Students will select an activity they enjoy watching or participating in that involves movement such as playing a sport, dancing, climbing a tree, biking, jumping rope, etc. They will list adjectives that describe both the activity and feelings they have while doing or viewing this activity. Then, students will write next to each adjective what type of line and color would reflect this activity best. For example, watching a ballet may be soft, thin, wavy lines in pastel colors, while jumping rope may be thick, zigzag lines in bold hues. Using Stella’s Jarama II as their inspiration, students will create an abstract line art piece in a medium of their choice that evokes the feeling of their activity. Remind students that selection of media is very important; markers create a much bolder impression than watercolors so they should think about the whole picture they wish to depict.

To accommodate visual impairments, students can use yarn and glue to create their abstract line drawings. Students can draw with glue onto a piece of paper, and then lay different types and lengths of yarn to create a raised surface drawing.

An alternative to accommodate motor control differences would be to create an abstract line drawing using a box, balls, and tempera paint. Students would place a piece of paper inside a long box, and squeeze 3-4 quarter-size amounts of tempera paint in different colors onto the paper. Students would then use balls of varying sizes and roll the balls through the paint, trying different speeds, to create lines.

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Line Drawing with Balls

Place a piece of paper inside a box, and put 3-4 quarter-size amounts of tempera paint in different colors on the paper.

Students will then post their finished works of art for class discussion. First, their fellow classmates should guess what activity is being depicted and give their reasons for their answer: What is it about the shape of the line? the thickness? the number of lines included? the color? choice of media? Then the student artist will justify their decisions to the class.

The Elements of Art is supported by the Robert Lehman Foundation

National Core Arts Standards

VA:Cr1.1.2 Brainstorm collaboratively multiple approaches to an art or design problem.

VA:Cr1.2.2 Make art or design with various materials and tools to explore personal interests, questions, and curiosity.

VA:Cr2.1.2 Experiment with various materials and tools to explore personal interests in a work of art or design.

VA:Cr2.2.1 Demonstrate safe and proper procedures for using materials, tools, and equipment while making art.

VA:Cr3.1.2 Discuss and reflect with peers about choices made in creating artwork.

VA:Re7.2.2 Perceive and describe aesthetic characteristics of one’s natural world and constructed environments.

VA:Re8.1.2 Interpret art by identifying the mood suggested by a work of art and describing relevant subject matter and characteristics of form.