One of the most common uses of line in design is to gently (or not so gently) tug the viewer’s eye in a guided tour of the work. They can do this because lines usually have direction. They lean forward or back. They curl around, widen and thin. Artists can use this directional tendency to tell the viewer: “See this? Now, see this? Now look over here.”
One way to suggest direction is by varying line thickness. We are used to seeing roads or railroad tracks that diminish in the distance. In the same way, a line in a piece of jewelry that starts out wide and becomes thinner draws the viewer’s gaze—like the Yellow Brick Road—on a journey through the work.
Line doesn’t have to create perspective to direct the eye, however. Our eyes search out line. When a line stops, we tend to look to see where it goes, to see if it picks up somewhere else–just as we look to see if a road continues when blocked by a gate. In other words, we look for continuity, or a continuous line.
In life, if a road stops at a gate, we might open the gate or climb over it to follow the road. In design, artists use the concept of continuous line to help a viewer’s eye cross borders—such as bezels or cloison walls–that would other wise tend to stop the movement of the gaze. The eye follows the line, jumping across obstacles and continuing to move throughout the work.
It’s important to remember that the “line” to which they eye jumps, doesn’t have to be the same type of line as the previous segment. Just like a line on the other side of a gate can be a deer path or a line of trees, the line of an inclusion can be followed across a bezel to a graved line or one of wire in the stone’s setting. The eye may follow a wire, jump to the edge of a patch of color in a stone, jump again to a series of rivets and back to a frame or bezel. Lines can appear to continue when gemstone facet edges, ridges, folds, or actual graven lines coincide. This can lead the eye from a stone, to the setting and back again.
The eye can also be seduced by an implied line. These are not lines per se, but line-like elements, such as a dissimilarity in the lightness or darkness in a patch of color, for instance.
We even respond to invisible “lines.” We’ve all turned to see what someone else is looking at. Using this idea, artists who use figures in their work use line of sight to guide a viewer’s gaze. If a carved face looks in a certain direction, the viewer’s eyes will tend to follow the figure’s gaze—to see what the figure is looking at.
Look at paintings, photographs and jewelry to see if there are obvious or subtle lines that are guiding you to look at all areas of the work. How can you alter or strengthen the lines in your piece to show the viewer what you want him to see?