The art elements are made up of all visual components that can be grouped together to form an art of work. The main formal elements of art are line, form space, colour etc. Line as an element of art can be used in a work of art to signify many things i.
e. contour lines can be used to define the outer border or outlines of ashape.emotions can also be expressed by use of line based on the weight, texture (smoothness or roughness) and the shape of the line .a number of line can also be combined in series to express an texture.
A shadow of an image can also be shown using lines, this can be done by hatching or cross hatching the lines in close proximity so as to express an idea of a dark value (Battcock, 123). The Art Element of Form is an example of formal elements. Form is used in any work of art to refer to any three dimension object. It is also used to refer to shapes like the work of sculpture and potery.
hard lines are used to show geometric forms while organic forms are shown using curvy lines. Space is the expression of depth in an art work by an artist. This is also the actual volume occupied by the work of art. Positive space signifies the volume occupied by a three dimensional work of art while negative space refers to the volume occupied by a two dimensional work of art ,negative space can also be used to refer to the empty space trapped within a work of art. Light can be used in any work of art to define aesthetics in the picture; the depth is shown using a pale or low hue of the brown color with a varying degree of saturation (Battcock, 93). Toyo Sesshu used some formal elements to express his work of art.
Formal elements like shape line, texture, form, light, and space, have been used to express depth. Sesshu uses a combination of lines, form, textures and other elements to express depth, shadow and distance in the above painting.