Terpning: Contrast Part 1

I was excited to finally start studying Howard Terpning. One thing I noticed was that Terpning almost bisects a composition with a character in an opposing contrast in order to de-clutter the image and provide a simplified structure.

For example, in the poster below, the man in the middle is contacted as “dark over light”. He flanked by characters in light coloring - there are still 4 characters in a row, but the simplified contrast blends the supporting characters and isolates the main focus:

Same goes for the poster of “The Sand Pebbles” below. Steve McQueen’s white costume acts as a bisector of a busy and dense montage:

More Terpning examples below: