Pattern and Texture

Pattern and texture are two common elements of art, and both very important.

An example of pattern can be seen here.

 (Copyright Mark Fuller)

Pattern, as one can see, is marks, shapes and motifs repeated with a sense of regularity. The snow dunes in the photo above repeat with enough regularity that a sense of pattern emerges.

The tiger stripes, although not perfectly uniform or symmetrical, also are an example of pattern, and in this case as opposed to the snow dunes, they present more of a crystallographic, or all over, pattern. No single stripe is more important than an other, and without the contrasting interesting colored background, this image might not even be recognizable as tiger stripes.


Texture also has repetition, but under the association that it visually implies a three-dimensional quality, implying a sense of touch.

The photo above has repeated motifs like pattern (and pattern and texture are often intertwined), but the reason this photo is more texture is because when a person looks at it they can imagine the feeling of touching it, the coarse, jagged rocks and the fineness of the dirt.

Even with an image a bit more abstracted, like the rippled glass shown above, it can still evoke a sense of touch. A person can easily imagine running their fingers across it.