The phrase "a principle of composition" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing the fundamental rules or guidelines that govern the arrangement of elements in a work, such as art, music, or writing.
Example: "In visual arts, a principle of composition such as balance can greatly enhance the overall impact of a painting."
Alternatives: "a rule of design" or "a guideline for arrangement".
Here we were told that Henry James's decision in "The Ambassadors" to make his two chief male characters reverse positions by the end of the novel was a bad idea, a shoehorning of human vagaries into the rigors of unbending "pattern," whereas Proust's far better principle of composition was subject to a more fluid and spontaneous sense of "rhythm".
From Camacho, Mario learns to let "contrast, not continuity, be the ruling principle of composition: the complete change of place, milieu, mood, subject, and characters".
Moreover, component instantiation found in hardware designs is almost identical to the principle of "composition" used in C++ for creating hierarchical design.
Accustomed to manga -- the massive comic books published in Japan for adults as well as for children -- the Japanese public does not favor movement over composition as a principle of expression.
"Seven rules of usage, 11 principles of composition, a few matters of form, and a list of words and expressions commonly misused – that was the sum and substance of Professor Strunk's work".
Hang on, is he proposing this as a basic principle of literary composition?
Dow wrote an artists' manual emphasizing Japanese principles of composition and taught art at the Pratt Institute and Columbia University in New York from 1895 to 1922.
From that meager beginning, Giazotto fleshed out a complete composition according to established Baroque principles of composition, creating something generally in the style of a chaconne, in which a set of repeated pitches underlies an evolving melody.
After the English lawyer Daines Barrington examined the 8-year-old Mozart in 1764, he wrote: "He had a thorough knowledge of the fundamental principles of composition.
William Strunk and E. B. White, in their famous book The Elements of Style, suggest, in rule 16 (one of the "Elementary Principles of Composition") that a writer ought to always "use definite, specific, concrete, language".
