The Bates College Musuem of Art presents

Rhythym and Motif

Artists making pictures use several strategies to make their images appealing, and to make them feel unified. One important strategy is the use of motifs. These are repeated designs or pictorial elements. By repeating a shape, or even a colour, the painter creates a sense of rhythm.

Writers do this too. Everyone who has read a Dr. Seuss book as a child knows that his repeated use of rhyming, alliteration, assonance, and meter help create both a mood and a quirky believability in his stories. Also, by returning to an idea over and over again, a writer can strengthen descriptions or arguments.

In this drawing by Crystal Nicholas, what kind of rhythm has she created? What motifs does she employ?

It might help to take a very close look at some of the details

Nicholas uses repetition of line, colour, and shape all over her drawing. But notice that nothing is repeated exactly. There is variation in her repetition. The dots in her sky combine to create lines that undulate and seethe with subtle but important motion that echoes the lines in the grasses and weeds. How can writers create rhythm? Rhyme is an obvious answer, but very hard to use well in the English language. Besides, nothing rhymes with certain words, like “orange.” The writer can repeat other sounds in words through alliteration (which repeats the same beginning sound) and assonance (which repeats other sounds in words, especially vowel sounds). Writers can also create rhythms with syllables, and control of lines—several short, choppy sentences creates a different rhythm than long sentences would.

Writing exercise: compile lists of rhyming words based on observation of painting, like
      Alive
      Thrive
      Teem
      Seem
Next try words with alliteration, like
      Grass
      Green
      Curvy
      Chaos
      Dot
      Dapple

Finally, create a list of words that have assonance, like
      Green
      Breeze
       Pattern
      Scattering.