What is a Noton?
Nōtan (濃淡) is a Japanese design concept involving the play and placement of light and dark elements as they are placed next to the other in the composition of art and imagery.
What is Japanese Notan design?
Objective: Experience this Japanese design concept which involves the placement of high contrast elements to create balanced light and dark areas in a composition. In art, dark and light need each other to exist. Basically, you can’t have negative space without positive space, and vice versa.
What is Notan painting?
Notan … refers to the quantity of light reflected or the massing of tones of different values. Notan-beauty means the harmony resulting from the combination of dark and light spaces — whether colored or not — whether in buildings, in pictures or in nature.”
Who made Notan?
Arthur Wesley Dow
The idea of Notan was presented to artists in the United States in the late 1800’s by artist and noted teacher, Arthur Wesley Dow in his book “Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers”, published in 1899*.
How do Japanese create Notan art?
Artists use “notan studies” to explore different arrangements of light and dark elements in a painting, without having the distraction of other elements like color, texture and finer details. In practice, this involves painting the darks with black and the lights with white (known as a 2 value notan).
What artists use Notan?
Notan is an idea that’s been integral to Japanese art for centuries. You can find examples of pleasing compositions using the idea of notan in the works of many famous Japanese artists. This includes painters like Kano Sansetsu, who created an image across several large screens, called Old Plum, completed in 1646.
How do Japanese create notan art?
What is the Japanese concept of balancing light and dark?
Some might create work based on notan, the Japanese concept of balancing light and dark. Notan affirms the interconnectedness of light and dark – you can’t have one without the other. A good basic example is the yin and yang symbol from Eastern philosophy.
What inspired some Japanese artists to create art?
Some artists might be inspired by an idea from Japanese art focused on elements of light and dark. It’s a concept called notan. Notan is a term that refers to the Japanese idea of balanced light and dark areas in a composition.
What is an example of dark and light in art?
Sansetsu placed dark and light elements to create a pleasing, harmonious composition. In another example from the early 1800s, Japanese artist Takaku Aigai painted an image of a tiger in bamboo. The curving, contrasting dark and light elements balance and complement each other.
What is an example of contrast in Japanese art?
In another example from the early 1800s, Japanese artist Takaku Aigai painted an image of a tiger in bamboo. The curving, contrasting dark and light elements balance and complement each other.