Sequence viewing > Aesthetics Index - Resource - © Lloyd Godman

Gestalt Theories - Closure - The visual strategy behind CLOSURE is SHAPE

Remember that the largest areas of greatest contrast have the most impact in an image.

Closure is related to large shapes in an image -

This is a natural tendency to complete a figure. Closed Visual elements in an image are seen as figures.

 

 

With closure shape is impartant and often tends to fill the frame.

 

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Zig Zag Bridge Chicago Botanical Gardens

The simplest form of closure is a light object on a dark background. Here is a lighter closed form or shape is inside a darker background. The shape is large, bold and because of the strong contrast, the image has great visual impact.

there is little difference in colour tone or texture on the bridge.

 

 

 

 

Note how the bridge sits in the center and is surrounded -

In this image we have three bold closed shapes created by the play of light and shadow on a curved ceiling.

 

Where as in the image the shape is connected to the edge of the frame. So against the surrounding sky and the edge of the frame a bold shape of the building is created through closure.

 

This image is more complex, but still suggest a single closed red shape.

 

There is the reference of texture in the material and the reflections adds interference to the shape.

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Here the shape are more complex negative positive spaces come into play - or a dark object on a white background - notice how the edge of the frame completes the closed shape, and how the edges of the umbrellas create a closed triangular shape in the sky through implication. Also note how our eye completes the shape of the red umbrella out side the edge of the frame.

 

 

While we could also read this as similarity, the trees tend to create a closed shapes against background of the building

 

Here the suggestion of a closed shape is more subtle - the two areas of water lilies create closed shapes against the water -

 

In this image, see how the clouds in the sky, the shape of the cliffs and the pond combine to make the abstract shape of a bird. The line around the edge of the cliff flows into the line around the clouds and creates a closed shape, as does the and the shape of the pond. Together they make the shape of a bird. This is closure.

 

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Here the closed shape of the planter bags forms one figure - while the the tank forms another -

together they play off each other through the principle of proximity to make a larger figure against the sky. Because the bags run to the edge of the frame on both sides the eye imagines these continuing on for an indefinite period - This is an aspect of the principle of continuation.

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When we view a familiar element like a round table that is incomplete we complete the shape in our brain -

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Again in this image we complete the closed shape of the skull

 

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