Introduction to Art History

Slide Contents
I. What is Art? Its Purpose and Its Function
II. Fundamentals of Interpretation: Formal and
Contextual Analysis
III. Principles of Design: Style
Leonardo da Vinci
Mona Lisa
Oil on poplar
c. 1503
Claude Monet
Impression, Sunrise
Oil on canvas
1872
Andy Warhol
Superman
Screen print
1961
 What is Art?
• Art (art), n. 1. the quality, production, or
expression of what is beautiful, appealing,
or of more than ordinary significance
• Work of art = visual expression of an idea
• Medium = a particular material, along with
its accompanying technique (plural =
media)
 Popular Media
• Paint media
– Acrylic, Enamel, Gesso, Glaze, Ink, Oil, Tempera,
Watercolor
– Used on: Canvas, Cloth, Glass, Metal, Paper, Wood
• Drawing media
– Chalk pastel, Charcoal, Colored pencil, Marker, Oil
pastel, Pen and ink
• Sculpture materials
– Beads, Clay, Found objects, Jewels, Marble, Metals,
Papier-mache, Plaster, Plastic, Sand, Stone, Textile,
Wax, Wire, Wood
Medium: Watercolor
Thomas Girtin
Jedburgh Abbey from the River. 1798-99. Watercolor on paper.
 What is “History”?
• History (his-tuh-ree), n. 1. the branch of
knowledge dealing with past events. 2. a
continuous, systematic narrative of past events as
relating to a particular people, country, period,
person, etc., usually written as a chronological
account; chronicle: a history of France; a medical
history of the patient.
– economic realities
– historical events
– social dynamics
– religious and spiritual organizations
– technological advancements
 Purposes and Functions of Art
• Communicating
information
– In non-literate societies,
art was used for
teaching
– Today, photography,
film & television are
used for disseminating
information
 Purposes and Functions of Art
• Spiritual
Sustenance
– All of the
world’s major
religions have
used art to
inspire and
instruct the
faith
 Purposes and Functions of Art

• Personal & Cultural

Expression
 Purposes and Functions of Art
• Social & Political Purposes
– Artist have criticized or influenced values or public
opinion
– Often it is clear & direct
– Other times, it is less obvious
• Monarchs who commissioned projects to symbolize
their strength & power
 Social & Political Influences
Paul Revere
Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin-Mansar
The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street, Boston,
Massachusetts. 1770. Engraving. Palais de Versailles, Versailles, France. 1668-85.
II. Fundamentals of Interpretation:
Formal and Contextual Analysis
 Art = Form + Content
• In the most basic way art can be thought of as
having two parts:
1. its form
2. its content
• Form relates to the “formal” aspects of art or
how the art is made.
• Content relates to the subject of the art.
 Formal Analysis of Painting
• Looking at a work of art to try to
understand what the artist wants to convey
visually
1. Line and Shape
2. Color
3. Texture
4. Space and Mass
5. Composition
6. Scale
 1. Line and Shape

• Lines define space and may create an outline or

contour, as style called “linear.”
• They can be visible or implied
• It may be two-dimensional, three-dimensional (as
with a wire), or suggested or implied.
• Wherever there is an edge, the place where one
object or plane appears to end and other object or
space
 2. Color
• Color is the event of wavelengths of light hitting an object and
those wavelengths reflecting back into your eyes.
• Color is also an element of art with three properties: hue,
saturation, and value:
– Hue is the name of the color (e.g., red, blue, or yellow.)
– Saturation is the quality or brightness or dullness of the hue; sometimes
called “intensity”
– Value is the degree of lightness or darkness of a hue
• On a color wheel, colors are divided into groups called primary
(red, yellow & blue), secondary (orange, green & violet), and
tertiary (mix of a primary & a secondary)
• Complementary or opposite are two colors directly opposite one
another on the color wheel
2. Color: Hues
2. Color: Saturation - quality or brightness or
dullness of the hue (a.k.a. intensity)
2. Color: Value - degree of lightness or
darkness of a hue
 3. Texture
• Texture is an element of art pertaining to the surface
quality or “feel” of the work of art.
• Texture can be described as smooth, rough, soft, etc.
Some textures are real and others are simulated.
• Textures that can be felt are ones that the fingers can
actually touch, however, in paintings drapery and clothing
often have a texture that can only be seen, as it is
simulated.
 4. Space and Mass
• Space references to what
contains objects; may be three
dimensional (actual) or two
dimensional (illusion)
• Mass refers to the effect and
degree of bulk, density, and
weight of matter in space
• In architecture or sculpture, it is
the area occupied by a form
• As opposed to plane and area,
Mass is used for three-
dimensional objects
 4. Space and Mass: Perspective
• Perspective is the technique that artists use
to project the illusion of three-dimensional
space onto a two-dimensional surface.
• Perspective helps to create a sense of
depth–a sense of receding space.
• Artists achieve perspective in several
different ways:
1. by making objects in the foreground larger than
those in the background
2. by making objects at the bottom of the
composition larger than those at the top
3. by using lighter colors and fuzzier edges to
suggest the distant objects and space
4. by using mathematical or linear perspective,
where the recession is directed towards a
vanishing point.
 4. Space and Mass: Foreshortening
• Foreshortening is way of representing an object so that it conveys the illusion
of depth–an object appears to be thrust forward or back into space.
• Foreshortening succeeds particularly well when the near and far parts of the
object contrast greatly.
• Picture Space makes use of foreground, middle ground and background

Andrea Mantegna, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, c. 1490 CE

 5. Composition
• How items are arranged or organized in a work
of art
– Symmetrical or assymetrical
– Static or dynamic
• Consider pictorial depth (illusion) rendering 3D
on 2D surface or plane (picture plane)
• Picture space is comprised of foreground,
middle ground, and background and extends
from beyond the picture plane
 5. Composition
• Composition, then, is the relationship of the parts of a
painting, sculpture, or work of architecture.
• Artists consider composition when they structure the
relationships of colors, lines, shapes, and masses in their art.
• Artists generally try to make the composition of their works
pleasing by balancing the aforementioned relations.
• Other times, artists will use composition to be expressive in
some way, for example making some aspect of their art
unbalanced or asymmetrical.
 6. Scale
• As an art history term, scale refers to the size of the
art object at hand or the size of the objects
represented in a particular art object.
• Scale can also have to do with the size of a building
as compared with the people who inhabit that space.
• Artists often use scale to suggest relationships
between figures and landscape, figures and other
figures, and/or sometimes a figure’s importance.
 Movement
• Another quality an artist might utilize
• Gives lifelike feeling to a work
• Artists often search for ways to create a sense
of movement, from manipulating the objects
within a work to the medium itself
 Analysis of Raphael’s
School of Athens
• Subject Matter/Content: It is not a school but a gathering of important Greek philosophers.
• Materials and Technique: Raphael painted in the style of fresco. Fresco means painting on wet
plaster.
• Composition: The School of Athens is done in a pyramidal composition which is very characteristic
of Raphael and the High Renaissance.
• Use of Color: Raphael uses mostly natural colors with lots of browns and greys. He uses some
orange and blue but mostly very earthly tones. Raphael did not use bright colors because he
intended the mood to be more solemn.
• Lines and Forms: Raphael gives his figures mass, bulk and weight by using perspective, drapery,
chiaroscuro, and contropposto. The way the clothing of the figures falls on their bodies gives them
a sense of underlying body structure. All the lines converge between Plato and Aristotle's heads
which gives it the pyramidal composition. "There is also an interest in accurate body proportion,
which is reminiscent of classical Greek works." (http://hyper.vcsun.org...)
• Sense of Movement: All characters in "The School of Athens" are doing something. This indicts a
great sense of motion which is visible in the poses of the figures.
• Use of Space: Although the painting seems crowded in some parts (especially around Plato and
Aristotle) Raphael creates a great sense of space. He has a vanishing point so the painting looks like
it goes back forever. He also paints the figures in the foreground larger than the rest which adds to
the sense of space.
III. Principles of Design:
Style
 Style
• Style refers to the consistent and
characteristic handling of media, elements of
form, and principles of design that make a
work identifiable as the particular culture,
period, region, group, or person
• Style = Form and Composition
– Makes a work distinctive!
 Cultural Style

• Societies develop their

own beliefs and style of
material forms (clothing,
buildings, etc)
• Artists are a product of
their culture

Standing Vishnu, 10th Century ce, India, Tamil Nadu, Tanjore region.  Bronze, H. 33" 
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
 Period Style
• Styles change over time
• Art changes because of economic & political
changes, new technology, religious insight
• Sometimes a desire for something new comes
along
 Regional Style
• Geography also leads to diverse styles
• May be conscious decision or caused by a
mere lack of communication over distance
– Ex: variations in Maya architecture; Hindu
sculpture in India varies from North to South
India; and abstract paintings produced in
California differed from New York in the 1950s
 Group Style
• Sometimes artist form alliances, exhibit
together and publicize their aims as a group to
promote a distinct style
• One of the best known group styles is
Impressionism
 Personal Style
• Individual artists often have characteristic
modes of personal expression
 Two Basic Forms of Style
• Representational • Abstract
– Seeks to create – Seeks to capture the
recognizable subject essence of a form, not
matter literal representation
 Representational Styles
• Realism – the attempt to depict objects
accurately, objectively
• Naturalism – similar to Realism except often
implies a grim subject
• Illusionism – seeks to create a convincing
representation or illusion of reality
Realism
Naturalism
Illusionism
 Abstract Styles
• Non-representational – does not produce
recognizable imagery
• Expressionism – Plays with subjectivity, artist’s
own ideas/feelings or viewer’s ideas/feelings
– Exaggerates to get the essence of a form
Non-Representational
Expressionism