As a last step towards the concrete and practical, attention devoted to this subject will help clear the way in the everyday interpretation of the visual composition. This text had in mind following media (all with significantly different impression of composition): mainly photography and film, then painting (including drawing and graphic arts), all in different possibilities of presentation. With all the respect to the three dimensional composition of sculpture and architecture, these have been somewhat put aside, I guess in regard to the importance of frame in this study. For the same reason, the theater (including the dance, and opera), often can be interpreted in relation to the frame, conditional to the traditional division between the stage and auditorium, and created direction of sight.

Please excuse avoiding the tedious description of every mentioned medium and its specifics. Media are in this regard described mostly by the level of abstraction they use, similarities and dissimilarities to the reality that they consist of. Let's just try to address "whatever we haven't" - mostly the context of our real contact with the medium. A painting, drawing or photograph can be found on the floor of a studio, or printed in a book, or perhaps in the magazine folded in our pocket. Not even going into what print reproduction can do to an image, or the obvious influence of the magazine layout, there is one fundamental difference between having this image in our hand, and standing in front of it hung on the gallery wall. There is a difference of relation - between something as intimate as our pocket, and as pompous as the Louvre wall.

Besides, the image on the wall is firmly anchored in the specific spatial orientation. That's why the hanging is so important: I have to mention the fear I always had towards the arrangement of my works on the gallery walls; there always seems to be only one right combination (which has to be found) - mostly in relation to the other images, and then of course to the interior design and architecture of the place - a "neutral spot" is a myth. All this isn't such a quest if the objective is only a likable and aesthetic presentation, but it becomes just impossible if our mission is to allow every image its complete, undisturbed and autonomous life.

The size of image belongs in the same category. This is not only the physical size, but everything influencing the angle of view: mainly our distance from it, somewhat arbitrary in the gallery, but more determined in the printed form, and completely by the theater row (here is another difference between film and tv). Size of an imaginary field perceived as a whole is what's at stake here. While a post stamp can hardly be observed as else but an indivisible whole, let's just imagine a walk over a 1/2 mile enlargement: perception is down to collecting individual elements that only our imagination can join. Every image has only one best distance for the observation; there is only one "right" row in the theater: it is the one where we are still capable of feeling the whole - but already have the insight into the smaller relations inside it. Emotionally, the loss of the perception of whole feels like a certain fall in the gaps of space in the image, so, add the accentuated movement, it is easy to understand the front row addicts.

It is also interesting how much of a difference there is between the hanging and projection of the same image - mostly by changing the character of frame. The best example is a photograph on the wall, and the same projected as a slide. First to be noticed is a different relation of the image with the background surface. Viewing the image that's lit by the same light as our surrounding just isn't the same as looking at the image which glows at us from the all-encompassing darkness. The mentioned spatial orientation difference aside, the isolation of a projection also closes in on the illusion of reality, thereby shifting the level of abstraction, and especially the importance and strength of frame. Projection makes the image more real, so empathy becomes relation, two dimensions unfold into three, and the all mighty "edge of the world" becomes only a window into one, thus disarming a number of compositional elements and forces. This does not mean advocating a illusion of reality for the projected mediums, but rather an attempt for guarding the means of expression of the non-projected by making them firmer to withstand "the darkness".

In such thinking, it becomes clear that video, so popular in its direct documentary realism, actually suffers greatly in this exact attribute: surrounding surpresses the illusion, just as the small size and screen resolution does; on the other side, the positive aspect of spatial orientation is wasted by the soft oval (now mostly gone) of the frame, and imprecision of the displayed area of transmitted image. The low resolution and the pain of visible line-texture inspire the abstract use (hence the appeal of video art), which is, unfortunately, hampered by the ordinary commonness of the monitor, realism of the 60 fields per second movement, and the fact that we are looking into a plain physic technical instrument - cathode ray tube. The sad reputation of video is mostly result of this inherent contradictions.
It is by now also clear that we do not absolutely favor sharpness: this is a fundamental attribute of image, often subconsciously perceived, and characteristically different among mediums. It is understood as a primary matter out of which the images in medium are built, and so directly determines the workings of every compositional element. The standard of sharpness is established not only by the technical limitations, but also by the subjective average, physiological capacities, personal "taste" and demand of the viewer, and also his viewing situation. Our described levels of sharpness are differently established in every medium, acquiring specific properties. In this sense, the choice of negative format in motion picture is an early decision on the dominant levels of abstraction, ways the expression will be carried out in the project.

The difference of b/w versus color image have been described elsewhere, although a reminder certainly belongs to this chapter too.
What we didn't mention is the influence of time on composition - observed in basic difference between photography and motion picture. The absence of the time flow, timelessness, is always perceived as a sort of liberation in eternity - so we take the immobile composition just like that: once for all, without expecting a change. Introduction of the time element has different consequences. For example, an unstable or even dynamic composition will have a harder time establishing such feeling: it will all too easy slip into a simple expectation of change. The duration of the film take in relation to the amount of information present is a subject for a whole book (which has been a published dissertation of my dear professor, unfortunately not translated to english). There are many ratios between the two with categorically different effects - one may just extend observing this influence onto composition as well.

Obviously, as we get closer to particular nuances of the mediums, we find more and more other works that have described those in great detail. Stopping here, we will just refer the reader to the list of supporting literature, for the further input.
differences among the media

Size of the image is particularly important here, because of the relation  of two distant and equally important elements. The space between them changes relative to the image size: from the right distance, it's shapeless void will give the appropriate tension to the mentioned relation. That same shapelessness will swallow the viewer if we enlarge the image, or, 0or example, look at it with one eye from the 2" distance.