How Are Patterns Used in Art?

A principle of art and the universe itself, a pattern is an element (or set of elements) that is repeated in a piece of work or an associated set of works. Artists use patterns as decoration, as a technique of composition, or as an entire piece of artwork. Patterns are diverse and useful as a tool that grabs a viewer's attention, whether it be subtle or very apparent.

What are Patterns?

Patterns are innate parts of art that attract and mesmerize the viewer. The ability to recognize patterns is a baseline skill of humans and identifying patterns in paintings is a practice that tends to have a soothing psychological effect on the viewer. 

Pattern recognition is a fundamental function of the human brain—in fact of all animals, and it can apply to visual images but also sound and smell. It allows us to take in and quickly understand our environments. Pattern recognition is what allows us to do everything from recognizing individuals and their emotional states to solving jigsaw puzzles to sensing when a storm is due. As a result, patterns in art satisfy and intrigue us, whether those patterns are clearly identifiable, such as Andy Warhol's repeated images of Marilyn Monroe, or must be parsed out, as in Jackson Pollack's seemingly random splatters. 

How Artists Use Patterns

Patterns can help set the rhythm of a piece of art. When we think of patterns, images of checkerboards, bricks, and floral wallpaper come to mind. Yet patterns go far beyond that: a pattern doesn't always have to be an identical repetition of an element.

Patterns have been used since some of the first art was created in ancient times. We see it in a pride of lions on the walls of 20,000-year-old Lascaux Cave, and on the cord-markings in the first pottery made 10,000 years ago. Patterns have regularly adorned architecture throughout the ages. Many artists over the centuries added pattern embellishments to their work, whether strictly as decoration or to signify a known object, such as a woven basket.

"Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern."—Alfred North Whitehead (British Philosopher and Mathematician, 1861–1947)

Forms of Patterns

In art, patterns can come in many forms. An artist may use color to signify a pattern, repeating a single or select palette of colors throughout a work. They can also use lines to form patterns such as in Op Art. Patterns can also be shapes, whether geometric (as in mosaics and tessellations) or natural (floral patterns), that are found in art. 

Patterns can also be seen in an entire series of work. Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Can" (1962) is an example of a series that, when displayed together as intended, creates a distinct pattern.

Artists tend to follow patterns in their entire body of work as well. The techniques, media, approaches, and subjects they choose can show a pattern across a lifetime of work and it often defines their signature style. In this sense, pattern becomes a part of the process of an artist's actions, a behavioral pattern, so to speak.

Natural Patterns

Patterns are found everywhere in nature, from the leaves on a tree to the microscopic structure of those leaves. Shells and rocks have patterns, animals and flowers have patterns, even the human body follows a pattern and includes countless patterns within it.

In nature, patterns are not set to a standard of rules. Sure, we can identify patterns, but they are not necessarily uniform. Snowflakes nearly always have six sides, but each separate snowflake has a pattern that is different from every other snowflake.

A natural pattern can also be broken up by a single irregularity or be found outside of the context of an exact replication. For instance, a species of tree may have a pattern to its branches but that doesn't mean every branch grows from a designated spot. Natural patterns are organic in design.

Man-Made Patterns

Man-made patterns, on the other hand, tend to strive for perfection. A checkerboard is easily recognizable as a series of contrasting squares drawn with straight lines. If a line is out of place or one square is red rather than black or white, this challenges our perception of that well-known pattern.

Humans also attempt to replicate nature within man-made patterns. Floral patterns are a perfect example because we are taking a natural object and turning it into a repeating pattern with some variation. The flowers and vines do not have to be replicated exactly. The emphasis comes from the general repetition and placement of the elements within the overall design.

Irregular Patterns in Art

Our minds tend to recognize and enjoy patterns, but what happens when that pattern is broken? The effect can be disturbing and it will certainly catch our attention because it is unexpected. Artists understand this, so you will often catch them throwing irregularities into patterns.

For example, the work of M.C. Escher plays off our desire for patterns and that is why it is so captivating. In one of his most famous works, "Day and Night" (1938), we see the checkerboard morph into flying white birds. Yet, if you look closely, the tessellation reverses itself with blackbirds flying in the opposite direction. 

Escher distracts us from this by using the familiarity of the checkerboard pattern along with the landscape below. At first, we know that something isn't quite right and that's why we keep looking at it. In the end, the pattern of the birds mimics the patterns of the checkerboard.

The illusion would not work if it did not rely on an uncertainty of pattern. The result is a piece with high impact that is memorable to all who view it.

Sources and Further Reading

• Briggs, John. "Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos: a New Aesthetic of Art, Science, and Nature." New York: Touchstone, 1992.
• Leoneschi, Francesca and Silvia Lazzaris. "Patterns in Art: A Closer Look at the Old Masters." Abbeville Press, 2019
• Mattson, Mark P. "Superior Pattern Processing Is the Essence of the Evolved Human Brain." Frontiers in Neuroscience 8 (2014): 265–65. Print.
• Norman, Jane. "Patterns East and West: Introduction to Pattern in Art for Teachers with Slides and Materials." Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. 
• Phillips, David. "Patterns in Pictures for Art and Science." Leonardo 24.1 (1991): 31-39. Print.
• Shen, Xi, Alexei A. Efros, and Mathieu Aubry. "Discovering Visual Patterns in Art Collections with Spatially-Consistent Feature Learning." Proceedings IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR). arXiv:1903.02678v2, 2019. Print.
• Swan, Liz Stillwaggon. "Deep Naturalism: Patterns in Art and Mind." The Journal of Mind and Behavior 34.2 (2013): 105–20. Print.