Image Essay #6

Franklin Christenson Ware, known as Chris Ware, is an artist most known for his comic books and cartooning. He was born in 1967 in Omaha, Nebraska, and currently resides in Oak Park, Illinois. Ware’s colorful cartoon illustrations often appear to be computer generated, but he creates them almost exclusively by hand in old-fashioned “paper-and-pencil” techniques. His most well-known works are the “Acme Novelty Library” (a series of comics) and “Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth” (a graphic novel).

The principles of gestalt are an important part of many of Ware’s works. Gestalt is a process in which visual information is understood as a whole before it is examined separately. His piece “Building Stories” (shown above), created in 2002 with pencil, ink, and brush on bristol board, is an above average example of the six principles of gestalt: grouping, containment, repetition, proximity, continuity, and closure.

Grouping is utilized in Ware’s use of rectangular shapes, their edges parallel to one another and going in the same direction, and many of which are similar in size. The piece’s outer edge is an example of containment, holding all elements inside the composition, with nothing breaking the border of the page. Repetition is used in both the shapes and the images inside them; many of the tiny pictures are almost identical to each other. Many of the boxes share common edges, which is an example of proximity, and the lines connecting the boxes create visual pathways linking the parts together, which is an example of continuity. Lastly, the principle of closure is implicated by the mind’s inclination to connect the “pieces of the puzzle” to produce a completed idea, just as the separate components that make up Ware’s piece are combined to create one central idea.