Arrangement

An order or composition. Or, a setup or composition of components in a still life painting or drawing. Arrangement is at the heart of the principles of design, and its consideration determines a work's coherence (unity and variety), focal point, rhythm, etc. As such, there are many parallels to its importance in music. Arrangement is important to all other disciplines as well. In architecture, it is the subject of the traditional Chinese theory and practice of feng shui.An example: James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903, active England), Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1871, oil on canvas, 4 feet 8 3/4 x 5 feet 3 3/4 inches, Mus?e d'Orsay, Paris, France. With planes and shapes flattened, and color muted, Whistler's portrait demonstrates his devotion to aestheticism and art for art's sake. Accordingly, Whistler prefered to describe this paintings as an arrangement ? much as music is an arrangement of pure forms ? making him a precursor to abstract art. See rectangle.Also see abecedarian, align and alignment, attitude, bias, choose, chronology, concatenation, direction, heraldry, ikebana, juxtaposition, periodicity, regular, sequence, straight, taxis, taxonomy, and weight.