It occurs to me that most of what humans know about composition in
images is known by painters and that they've spent a long time
accumulating, refining and classifying that knowledge. What I need is
someone with a fine-arts background to tell me what textbooks stand as
the canonical references and tutorials for composition. Are there a
couple of books that are read by every first year art student in the
English speaking world?
FWIW, I come to this question having recently bought and goggled at a
book by Saul Leiter [hat tip to TOP]. These are photos that are
clearly taken by someone who has found a different way to look at
things than the one I know about. Perhaps he learned it while becoming
a painter...