Effective Distortion - Streamlining

Though they contain complex systems with irregular shapes, vehicles from rockets to autos are designed with simplified outlines to improve efficiency and performance.  Similarly, the artist Michelangelo furnished Jehovah and an elaborate cluster of youthful figures with a simple enclosing outline which conveys the quality of fleetness and freedom from gravity.

Albert Ryder combined a rocky eminence, a wooden rowboat and the shadows they cast into one simple shape which seems eerie and mysterious, yet is rational.

Diego Rivera encloses an involved pose of a woman and child in a simple outline which produces a compact, snug effect of protection and devotion.

The Belgian artist Constant Permeke has streamlined the outline of this tough character.  The distortion causes him to appear self-contained, unapproachable and stubborn.