NOTAN & elements of good design.

Notan is a Japanese term that best describes the balancing of light and dark structure or patterning as a way of expressing beauty and harmony.

This and subsequent posts will hopefully help you to understand the nature of visual representation beginning with one of the most vital elements that every artist should understand and use.

A strong Notan arrangement in our work will grab and hold a viewers attention. If our painting works in black and white, it will work in colour and if the Notan is strong enough you can get away with a lot of drawing and painting errors.

Conversely if a painting lacks a pleasing arrangement of light and dark it will be weak and uninteresting to the viewer and no amount of detail or colour will save it. It is this Notan structure that we should look for in our subject and should be the target right from the earliest stages of our work.

Incidentally, a powerful structure of light and dark is as valid in representational art as it is in abstract work.

All the images in this post have been reduced to black and white to help illustrate this idea.

Manet the bar at the folies-bergeres 1882 in black and white

A pleasing Notan arrangement is something that should be sought out in a scene if you are taking your painting outdoors and it can be spotted more easily if you squint down and reduce what you see to the major light and dark grouping.

Camille Corot ville-d'avrey 1870 in black and white

As artists it is important to train ourselves to firstly simplify and even omit or move some of what we see in front of us.

Without divulging too much here, I believe that it is essential to go beyond blithely copying what we see and to understand more fully the basic elements that make up natures' beauty. To attempt to copy Gods handy work and limit it to 4 sides of a canvas is of course to grossly underestimate and compromise it.

So we must learn to understand enough of nature and combine this knowledge into a simplified whole that will work together to trigger the viewers mind into recalling a beautiful place. It is not arrogant for us as artists to take what we need from our viewpoint and eliminate anything that detracts from that goal.

Notan is not to be confused with the gradation of tone or the pushing of form (the stretch of light to dark) which is of course important but it is rather the structure or initial placement of your overall light and dark pattern. 

Without a strong Notan, no matter how well rendered a subject is, the artwork will lack the all important punch of a powerful design and will fall into the realm of mediocrity.

If your intended subject lacks an interesting Notan it is best to move on, or in the case of a still life or portrait to adjust the lighting, type of objects or clothing.


You can of course invent or exaggerate but this is likely to give you unnecessary difficulties.

Berthe Morisot Manet 1872 in black and white

I would strongly recommend this book  Composition by Arthur Wesley Dow   where the application of the qualities of good design i.e Opposition/Transition/Subordination/Repetition/Symmetry are demonstrated in achieving a solid and unified design.

I would also recommend Michael Britton Resources at Art Academy.com. Michael has been an invaluable mentor in my art education and his thorough understanding and concise teaching has proved to be of a much higher standard than any official education I have received or resource I have found.

I will be writing more about Michael in another post. 

Another way to develop a good taste for strong Notan design is to look at past artists who understood this quality. This is an exercise that should not be neglected.


I understand that many teachers suggest this to their students but rarely explain why it is so important.

If you have Photoshop or similar software try picking a work you think has a strong sense of design and reduce it to black and white (or view through deeply squinted eyes), print it out and pin it somewhere you can view it easily.

Try copying the work using just black and white using any medium of choice and a larger than usual brush - DO NOT BOTHER WITH DETAIL as this will defeat the object!!

Copying from past masterworks is a sure fire way of solidifying your understanding and ensuring it manifests itself in your own work.

Enjoy.