ART ANALYSIS MEANING

Introduction to Art
This course is called “Introduction to Art”. It might better be called
“Introduction to Visual Culture” because that is what we are all engaged with
from the moment we wake up until the end of our day. When you turn on your
television, open your phone or computer, or simply walk outside you have
already accessed visually any number of aesthetic objects that someone – for
our purposes we’ll call her an artist – made choices about in its presentation.
From the packaging of your cereal to the design of your bicycle, the
components and techniques artists use to make another visual medium we
call “fine art” are tapped. For centuries makers have divided objects into
utilitarian things and things with no other obvious use except to give us
pleasure (there are exceptions – 18th century tapestries did keep out the
castle drafts, but that’s a story for later). Today that dividing line has eroded,
and even though we still have sections in museums for things like furniture,
and museums for so-called crafts, the fact remains that these objects are also
appreciated for their formal characteristics sufficiently that they are collected
and placed in galleries, museums, and private collections. This class is
intended to make you more visually sensitive to the world around you and to
begin to understand your own aesthetic tastes and to seek out things that give
you visual pleasure. (Another aside: “pleasure” is loosely used here;
sometimes work we love makes us think, or even brings up unpleasant
emotions, but we none-the-less appreciate them for their ability to touch us in
some way.)

Human beings seem to be hard-wired to create. From sites of the earliest

human – and even proto-human – occupation come objects that seem to be
attempts to illustrate the world.

These images and objects have accompanied human beings throughout time.
The forms, mediums, and techniques with which we have pictured our world
has changed along with human beings, but their impulse to picture that world
has not.

What is Art?
So how do we define “fine” art, then? Art is a highly diverse range of human
activities which create visual, auditory, or performed artifacts— artworks—that
express the author’s imaginative or technical skill, and are intended to be
appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.

The oldest documented forms of art are visual arts, although archeologists
suggest early humans also made music. Over time techniques – media – has
included painting, sculpture, printmaking and, beginning in the 19th century,
photography. Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however,
like the decorative arts, it involves the creation of objects in which the practical
considerations of use are essential in a way that they usually are not in
another visual art like a painting. Art may be characterized in terms
of mimesis (its “realistic” representation of reality), expression, communication
of emotion, or other qualities. Though the definition of what constitutes art is
disputed and has changed over time, general descriptions center on the idea
of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency and creation.
When it comes to visually identifying a work of art, there is no single set of
values or aesthetic traits. A Baroque painting will not necessarily share much
with a contemporary performance piece, but they are both considered art.

Despite the seemingly indefinable nature of art, there have always existed
certain formal guidelines for its aesthetic judgment and
analysis. Formalism is a concept in art theory in which an artwork’s artistic
value is determined solely by its form, or how it is made. Formalism evaluates
works on a purely visual level, considering medium and compositional
elements as opposed to any reference to realism, context, or content. In this
class you will learn to “read” an artwork according to its formal qualities – a
“formal analysis”.

Art is often examined through the interaction of

the principles and elements of art. The principles of art include movement,
unity, harmony, variety, balance, contrast, proportion and pattern. The
elements include texture, form, space, shape, color, value and line. The
various interactions between the elements and principles of art help artists to
organize sensorially pleasing works of art while also giving viewers a
framework within which to analyze and discuss aesthetic ideas. In our next
reading, we will learn more about the elements and principles of art and begin
to use them to describe works of art.
 Caravaggio, Ecce Homo,
1605, oil on canvas.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CaravaggioEcceHomo.jpg Wikimedia

Caravaggio’s Ecce Homo is an example of a Baroque painting. It depicts the

scene from the Bible in which Pontius Pilate displays Jesus Christ to the
hostile crowd with the words, “Ecce homo!” (“Behold this man!”).

DEFINITION OF ARTS
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that
involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty,
emotional power, or conceptual ideas.[1][2][3]
There is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art,[4][5][6] and its interpretation
has varied greatly throughout history and across cultures. In the Western tradition, the
three classical branches of visual art are painting, sculpture, and architecture.
[7]
Theatre, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, music, film and other
media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of the arts.[1][8] Until
the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated
from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic
considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from
acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts.
The nature of art and related concepts, such as creativity and interpretation, are
explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.[9] The resulting artworks are
studied in the professional fields of art criticism and the history of art.
 INTRODUCTION TO ARTS, TYPES AND
BRANCHES
DEFINITION OF ART

Art is the creative expression of our thoughts. Art is the study and creation of things that
give pleasure to our mind and satisfy our sense of beauty. Art is a way of life. It is a
universal language in which the artist uses to express his or her inner feelings and
ideas. The word ‘art’ originated from a Latin word ‘arti’ which means to do well or do it
well.

TYPES OF ART

There are two basic types of art namely

1. VISUAL ART:visual art appeals to our sense of sight or vision. Sub-branches

of visual art include fine art and applied art.

2. NON-VISUAL ART: Non-visual art is the art we cannot feel with our hands and see
with our eyes but rather,it appeals to our mind, emotion and feeling. Sub-branches of
non-visual art include performing art and literary art.

BRANCHES OF ART

Art spans across several branches as shown below:

EVALUATION

1. What is art?
2. Explain the two types of art.
3. Show a diagram reflecting the branches of art.

HISTORY / ORIGIN OF ART

Art has been in existence before the creation of man.The origin of art is traced to the
early men who involved in art activities during the pre-historic era.Art began during the
time of the early men or pre-historic men who drew animals on rock surfaces by
incising, scratching and engraving with sharp objects which they devised. They equally
 painted on cave walls using various pigments obtained from nature. For example, earth
colours and sooth mixed with animal fat which serve as a strong binder and other
pigments obtained from natural things like leaf, blood of animals etc.

The history of the early men spans across five agesnamely:

1. PALEOLITHIC AGE (Old Stone Age): This is divided into lower and upper Paleolithic
era.
 LOWER PALEOLITHIC ERA stretched between 35,000BC – 15,000BC
 UPPER PALEOLITHIC ERAstretched between 14,000BC – 8,000BC.

 MESOLITHIC AGE(Middle Stone Age): During the Mesolithic era, artists focused on
the painting of human figures looking abstracted as against the back drop of animal
figures painted on cave walls by the early men during the upperPaleolithic era. Farming
and proper settlement occurred during the Mesolithic age.The MESOLITHIC
AGE stretched between 8,000BC – 3,000BC.

 NEOLITHIC AGE (New Stone Age):During the Neolithic era,life became more stable
and predictable.Metal farm implements were introduced,crops like beans,squash and
maize were cultivated and writing emerged. Huge Architectural Monuments were
erected like the Stonehenge discovered in Europe in Salisbury Plane
Wiltshire,England. (1,800BC-1,400BC)The NEOLITHIC AGE stretched
between 3,000BC-1,500BC.

 BRONZE AGE: This marked the beginning of the skillful use of metals to cast objects
that were expressed in bronze. It is a time period characterized by the use of bronze,
proto-writing, and other early features of urban development like the Bronze Age Britain.

 IRON AGE:This era marked the inception of the Indus valley civilization.Recent
archaeological remains of iron working in the Ganges Valley in India have been
tentatively dated to 1,800BC.It is an archaeological era referring to a period of time in
the pre-history and protohistory of the Old World (Afro-Eras) when the dominant tool
making material was iron. It preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia and the
Stone Age in Africa. Meteoric metal has been used by humans since at least 3,200 BC,
but ancient iron production did not become widespread until the ability to smelt iron
ore ,remove impurities and regulate the amount of carbon in the alloy were developed.
Contemporary Art, an introduction
"Getting" Contemporary Art

It's ironic that many people say they don't "get" contemporary art because, unlike
Egyptian tomb painting or Greek sculpture, art made since 1960 reflects our own recent
past. It speaks to the dramatic social, political and technological changes of the last 50
years, and it questions many of society's values and assumptions—a tendency of
postmodernism, a concept sometimes used to describe contemporary art. What makes
today's art especially challenging is that, like the world around us, it has become more
diverse and cannot be easily defined through a list of visual characteristics, artistic
themes or cultural concerns.

Girl Looking at Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, synthetic polymer paint on
32 canvases, each 20 x 16 inches (The Museum of Modern Art) (photo: Steven Zucker)
Girl Looking at: Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962, synthetic polymer on 32
canvases each 20 x 16 inches (The Museum of Modern Art) (photo: Steven Zucker)

Minimalism and Pop Art, two major art movements of the early 1960s, offer clues to the
different directions of art in the late 20th and 21st century. Both rejected established
expectations about art's aesthetic qualities and need for originality. Minimalist objects
are spare geometric forms, often made from industrial processes and materials, which
lack surface details, expressive markings, and any discernible meaning. Pop Art took its
subject matter from low-brow sources like comic books and advertising. Like
Minimalism, its use of commercial techniques eliminated emotional content implied by
the artist's individual approach, something that had been important to the previous
generation of modern painters. The result was that both movements effectively blurred
the line distinguishing fine art from more ordinary aspects of life, and forced us to
reconsider art's place and purpose in the world.

Shifting Strategies

Minimalism and Pop Art paved the way for later artists to explore questions about the
conceptual nature of art, its form, its production, and its ability to communicate in
different ways. In the late 1960s and 1970s, these ideas led to a "dematerialization of
art," when artists turned away from painting and sculpture to experiment with new
formats including photography, film and video, performance art, large-scale installations
and earth works. Although some critics of the time foretold "the death of painting," art
today encompasses a broad range of traditional and experimental media, including
works that rely on Internet technology and other scientific innovations.

John Baldessari, I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, 1971, lithograph, 22-7/16 x 30-
1/16 inches (The Museum of Modern Art). Copyright John Baldessari, courtesy of the
artist.
John Baldessari, I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, 1971, lithograph, 22-7/16 x 30-
1/16 inches (The Museum of Modern Art). Copyright John Baldessari, courtesy of the
artist.

Contemporary artists continue to use a varied vocabulary of abstract and

representational forms to convey their ideas. It is important to remember that the art of
our time did not develop in a vacuum; rather, it reflects the social and political concerns
of its cultural context. For example, artists like Judy Chicago, who were inspired by the
feminist movement of the early 1970s, embraced imagery and art forms that had
historical connections to women.

In the 1980s, artists appropriated the style and methods of mass media advertising to
investigate issues of cultural authority and identity politics. More recently, artists like
Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Wall in Washington D.C., and
Richard Serra, who was loosely associated with Minimalism in the 1960s, have adapted
characteristics of Minimalist art to create new abstract sculptures that encourage more
personal interaction and emotional response among viewers.

These shifting strategies to engage the viewer show how contemporary art's
significance exists beyond the object itself. Its meaning develops from cultural
discourse, interpretation and a range of individual understandings, in addition to the
formal and conceptual problems that first motivated the artist. In this way, the art of our
times may serve as a catalyst for an on-going process of open discussion and
intellectual inquiry about the world today.
Describing Art
What is a formal analysis?

A formal analysis is more than just a description of a work of art. It is an

argument based on your own visual evidence that takes a stance and creates an
interesting discussion from the formal elements of the work.

How is a formal analysis different from other writing?

 A formal analysis presents the difficult challenge of translating the visual (what
you observe in the art) into the verbal (what you actually write).
 Not only do you have to describe the work, but you also have to use your
description to support your argument. You are therefore simultaneously analyzing
and describing the work.
 All of your evidence and analysis will come from the formal elements of the work.

Prewriting

 Carefully choose the work you will analyze — choose one that speaks both
emotionally and intellectually.
 Take a pad and pencil to record your thoughts while observing the piece. It is good
to set aside at least 20 minutes for pure observation.
 Focus above all on the formal elements of the work, including line, medium, color,
light, space, composition, and style. What feeling do they give to the viewer and
what are their relationships to the rest of the work as a whole?
 Consider the context of the work: artist, time, historical background, location.
These facts cannot be used in your visual analysis, but they can give shape to your
conclusion.
 Review all of your notes to develop an argument. Try to make connections
between the formal issues and the broader concepts of context and personal
response to develop this argument.

Writing

The conventions for a formal analysis for a work of art is similar to other writing in
the humanities. You
should have a thesis statement and structured paragraphs, and you should
adhere to general rules of grammar and style.

Remember that you are not simply describing the work; rather, you are using
your descriptions of the work to reinforce your thesis.

 Avoid using the first person since your arguments should develop from the formal
elements, not your personal response.
Avoid: I was disturbed by the painting.
Better: The sharp, heavy lines outlining the figures and the dark blues which
dominate the sky in the background give the painting an ominous and disturbing
feeling.
Formal Elements of Art
Last week, we explored the Renaissance model of the painting as a window on the
world. We illustrated this model with Vermeer’s The Painter and His Model as
Klio: the painter at his easel composing his image of a model, all nested within
curtained framework of the painting we are viewing. The distance separating us from
the painter invites us to reflect on the artist’s viewpoint, his tools and media, his
composition, and our own perception.

Jan Vermeer. (1660), The Painter and his Model as Klio. René Magritte. (1933). The Human Condition. Oil on
Oil on canvas. canvas.

Almost 300 years later, René Magritte toys with this notion of the painting as a
window on the world. He paints a window looking out on a landscape. Centered in the
pane is a canvas with an apparently, transparent canvas. The image doubles a selected
rectangle of the “natural” landscape, just as paintings are supposed to do. The
representational technique appears to be straightforward. And yet, we can’t really be
sure. Is the tree actually in the landscape or did the painter add it from imagination?
The painting raises questions about paintings, and also about The Human
Condition. The title invites us to think about the ambiguity of all human perceptions
of the world around them. How much do we see and how much do we embellish?

Let’s take a step back and think about the dimensions of this model of painting.
Traditional art is Representational. The artifact of the painting produces an image of
a visual subject:

In this model, viewers’ attention often focuses on the visual subject: what is it? How
realistically is the “real thing” depicted? Often, viewers experience impatience or
annoyance when they can’t tell what the subject “is supposed to be” or if they feel the
technique is awkward or inaccurate. When we focus on the subject, textures of the
medium recede. Paradoxically, we admire the brushwork and pigmentation because
they vanish in a rich emulation of the object.

But not all art is representational. We’ve looked at geometrical designs on ancient
pottery, arabesques, and architecture with linear designs. People see beauty in such
compositions without asking, what is it? Do we critique a paisley shirt if we can’t tell
what its designs depict?
 Clearly, something besides representation is at play in art. We could turn our attention
away from its representational agency and pay attention to the Medium: the canvas,
the paint, and the brushstrokes. We could look at color and shape and design as values
in themselves. Doing so, we begin to Foreground—to bring to the front of our
attention—the formal elements of art.

Formal Elements of Art

We do not need theory to begin to perceive formal elements of images. We do so all
the time. “I really love that wallpaper”—the colors, the abstract design. These are
formal art elements:
Formal Elements of Visual Art
The formal art elements form the basis of the language of art; they consist of eight
visual parts: line, color, form and shape, value, texture, space, and movement.

The following bulleted list condenses definition highlights from Credo articles on
formal aspects of art and design.

 Line: one dimensional path of a point through space (article):

o Descriptive lines (drawn): including outlines, contour lines, and hatching lines
o Implied lines (suggested): including edges and lines of sight (the direction in which
figures in a composition are looking)
o Direction and movement: generally, verticals, horizontals, and diagonals are
directional lines, whereas zigzag and curved lines are movement lines.
 Shape (article): a two-dimensional area defined by a clear border or outline and
possessing only height and width
 Form (article): a three-dimensional shape or object. … Form has height, width, and
depth, and may be organic, such as a cloud, or geometric, such as a pyramid or
cylinder. Organic forms suggest naturalism, while geometric forms convey
artificiality.
o Organic: irregular forms suggesting natural contours—clouds, bushes
o Geometric: artificial, i.e. human constructions, such as pure lines, curves, angles:
pyramids, cones, cylinders, triangles, rectangles
 Texture (article): surface quality or appearance; how the surface feels or … would
feel.
o Simulated: making something look as though it is rough,
o Actual: for example the surface being textured either because of thickly applied
paint, or the addition of granular material to the paint, such as sand.
 Movement (article): component of a composition that implies or gives the sensation
of activity or action and appear dynamic instead of static
o Optical movement: tricking the eye into seeing movement as used in op art.
o Repetition: using a repeated shape as seen in some cubist works; and
o Suggested movement: relying on the viewer’s knowledge of the subject matter to
communicate the idea of movement – for example, a viewer looking at a painting of
a car chase will expect the cars to be moving.
 Value (article): the relationship between tones (ranging from light to dark), and the
degree of lightness or darkness of a color; … a scale from white to black
o Reflected light: light that bounces off an object making it visible
o Shading: a technique used to make a form look solid
o Chiaroscuro(Italian ‘light–dark’): dramatic contrast of light and dark
o Value as mood or feeling, representing a certain frame of mind or state.
 Color (article): the quality or wavelength of light emitted or reflected from an object.
o Hue: the name of the color achieved by mixing pigments, adding colored elements
(as in a mosaic) or the like
o Value, the lightness and darkness of a color
o Saturation (color) or intensity: brightness or dullness of a color
o Complementary colors: hues directly across from each other on the color wheel.
o Warm (yellow, red, orange) versus Cool (violet, green, blue) colors

Obviously, artists achieve these formal elements using media. Color and Value are
captured in a mosaic by tesserae and in painting by pigments fixed in oil, tempera, or
ink. Texture can be simulated, but also embodied in media and technique: e.g.
brushwork leaving daubs of paint and allowing the texture of the canvas to show
through.

Composition (visual): Design Principles

Formal elements are furthermore composed—artistically combined— to form
a design. Core aspects of design include the following (Design Principles):

 Unity: the “wholeness” of composition, … parts working together creating one total
picture – a seamless composition
 Proximity or putting objects close to one another in the composition: … When
objects are placed close together the viewer’s eye is forced to move from one object
to the next inevitably taking in the entire composition
 Similarity: making things similar, also creates a sense of wholeness. Using similar
textures, colors, or shapes tends to visually connect the parts of a composition.
 Continuation: when vision is directed by a line (actual or implied) that travels around
the composition.
 Variety and harmony: variety pertains to differences and diversity. … Harmony in art,
as in music, is the agreeable blending of elements … in a perfect balance.
 Emphasis (or dominance): the focal point of a composition, … highlighting an
element in order to control the viewer’s eye and stress significance of objects.
o Lines of sight: eyelines of figures in the work drawing our eyes to a subject
o Central location in a composition
 Rhythm and movement: repeating an element creates a sense of movement, flow, or
activity. In art, rhythm can be felt as well as seen.
o Repetition of the same element or of multiple elements in a type of pattern, [1]
o Progressive repetition of an element, very small to very large; dark to light.
 Balance: equal distribution of visual weight or the placement of elements evenly.
o Asymmetrical balance: balance of different elements, objects, or figures with equal
visual weights: e.g. large open space balancing heavy, perhaps dark zones
o Symmetrical balance: balance of the same elements on both sides of an implied
central vertical or horizontal axis.
TYPES OF ART ANALYSIS
1. formal analysis
Breaking down art/talking about formal elements.
2. stylistic analysis
Styles and movements, what time period, Regional, Personal.
3. iconographic analysis
(Greek) "The writing of images" Refers to content and subject in art.
4. contextual analysis
Putting the artwork into its historical context; often from a particular time or
culture.
5. feminist analysis
considers the role of women in an artwork as its subjects, creators, patrons, and
viewers.
6. gender studies analysis
experience based on a person's gender; can also reflect the intentions of an
artist, the perspective of a viewer, the interpretation of a critic, or all three.
7. psychological analysis
investigates an artwork through consideration of the state of the artist's mind.
8. biographical analysis
Considers the artist's personal experiences and opinions.
9. historical/social analysis
considers historical events, either past or present, and the way they appear in the
artwork.
10. religious analysis
the artwork in relation to the religious context in which it was made; this method
often includes identification of narratives, key symbolism, and important figures.