Here you can play with the figures in the painting, freely creating variations on the original work, but you can also practice your compositional skills by working on some of the exercises suggested. In either case, it’s possible to drag the figures with your mouse,

to drag the figures with your mouse,
the movement buttons or the arrow keys on your keyboard, using the Space bar to change your selection. To find out about the other buttons, press ? for help and then... enjoy yourself.
Challenge 1See example


After pressing buttons 7 and 8 for "Darken" and "Abstract Mode" (see Help ?), turn all the figures with the Rotation buttons (button 4) until their axes are at 45º. Now scatter the figures around the picture, but keeping them connected to form an

articulated structure. If you prefer a figure to be in front of or behind another, slightly increase or decrease its size with the scale buttons. Press button 8 again to compare the result in Figurative Mode.




Challenge 2See example


Make all the figures as small as possible with the "Scale" (3) buttons and distribute them around the darkened background (7) to form a geometrical shape, like an ellipse, a

rectangle, a triangle, etc. Try placing a character in the middle of the group and compare the result in Figurative and Abstract modes.




Challenge 3See example


After pressing button 7 "Darken", hide one of the seven figures in the picture with button 6 and make the remaining six into three separate couples, organising the picture

into just three parts. Invert one of the characters with button 5, so that all the couples are looking at each other. Is the composition still unified?



Challenge 4See example


Rotate the figure of the fallen soldier and increase its size until it coincides —from corner to corner— with one of the diagonals. Use two other directional figures, like the woman with the lamp or the person

squatting on the right, to clearly delineate the other diagonal. Now place another figure in the middle, increasing its size until it is in front of the others.




Challenge 5See example


Change the placement, size and so on, of all the figures until you achieve an attractive composition where the protagonist is the mother who is holding her dead son. You can

darken the background to increase the contrast. Try to establish a hierarchy among the figures from greatest to least importance.