How to Use Shape in Art: 6 Ways Artists Use Shape in Art

Shape is one of the principles of art that serves as a building block for representing every variety of subject matter through painting, sculpture, and architecture. In its most basic form, a shape is a two-dimensional area that is surrounded by an outline. Within the context of art, shape is the external form, the contours, or the outline of a subject. Though shapes are two-dimensional in painting and drawing, artists use other elements including line, color, value, and shadow to give a shape the appearance of a three-dimensional shape.

Shapes can often be split into two distinct categories: geometric and organic. Geometric shapes are precise, regular, angular, geometric constructions that are mathematically consistent. Basic shapes that are geometric include circles, squares, and triangles. Organic shapes—sometimes called biomorphic shapes—are free-form, irregular, or asymmetrical structures that occur in the natural world, such as flower petals, dragonfly wings, clouds, and the human figure.

Here are some works of art that showcase the various ways that artists have played with shape in their work.

1. 1. Woman with Book by Pablo Picasso (1937): Pablo Picasso’s cubist portraits were famous for breaking down human figures—most often female figures—into geometric and organic shapes. In this famous portrait of his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso shows her reclining in a chair, broken down into a series of circles and petals with thick, prominent lines.
2. 2. Metamorphosis I by M.C. Escher (1937): The first woodcut print in M.C. Escher’s “Metamorphosis” series shows how a landscape—in this case, a shot of Atrani, a town on Italy’s Amalfi Coast—can be broken down into its elemental shapes. Across the panorama of this woodcut print, the town becomes a series of cubes, which morphs into star shapes, which eventually becomes a doll.
3. 3. Bird in Flight by Constantin Brâncuși (1923): Bird in Flight is a great example of a modernist sculpture that utilizes geometric shapes to create an organic form meant to evoke the energy and momentum of a flying bird.
4. 4. Broadway Boogie-Woogie by Piet Mondrian (1940): Broadway Boogie-Woogie is one of his most famous works of modernist painter Piet Mondrian who relied on geometric shapes—often squares and rectangles—to create his compositions. The picture plane is covered with a series of bright, primary-colored squares and rectangles over a white background that creates the illusion of marquee lighting.
5. 5. Colonial Cubism by Stuart Davis (1952): Pop art painter Stuart Davis used shape in his work to represent where things are in space. This painting shows a series of overlapping geometric shapes in colors of blue, red, black, and white, that have the illusion of popping off of the canvas.
6. 6. The Sheaf (La Gerbe) by Henri Mattise (1952): In his later years, painter Henri Matisse worked frequently with brightly-colored paper cut-outs, which he would arrange into designs. One great example of Matisse’s cut-outs is The Sheaf, which shows a series of multi-colored leaf-shaped cut-outs forming a sort of bouquet on the canvas.

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