MODULE 1

THE
CREATI
VE
IMPULSE
ELPICZON: LEC 1.1
L O O K I N G AT
LIFE AND ART
The urge to create maybe primal, but
inspiration is a prime. As a developing
artist, one of the first obstacles to
overcome the desire is to find
contentment.

The painter Eugene Delacroix said:

“Oh, young artist, you search for a
subject-everything is a subject. Your
subject is yourself, your impressions,
your emotions in the presence of
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-Delacroix
Nature.”
 The sculptor Auguste Rodin thought:
“the only thing is to see.”

Seek inspiration by beginning with

observation of nature, culture, history,
and yourself.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Thinker-sculpture-by-Rodin
N AT U R E
Humans are drawn to the drama,
the devastation, the spectacular
beauty of nature. We swoon over
the sunsets, marvel at purple
mountains’ majesty, meditate on
oak leaves. As a student of art,
the observation of nature is a
point of departure that you share
with artists across cultures and
time. Nature can serve as a
subject or as a source. It can
serve as the springs of art.
dannapaintingjournal.thewhitestyle.ru
 C U LT U R E
What is the difference between Nature and
Culture? And what does that difference
implies?

NATURE describes the native physical

world that surrounds and the biochemical
world within our physical selves.

CULTURE with manners, good taste and a

refined way of thinking, speaking, and
behaving, culture is also describes as
society’s images, its ideas and attitudes, its
customs, its skills, and it arts – things to
which we are exposed everyday, things that
shape our culture, things that are passed
along from generation to generation.
https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/269512358925881934/
ART HISTORY
Artists throughout history, some we
now consider the greatest of
innovators, have diligently studied
the works of their predecessors and
contemporaries, even if only to
reject their styles in pursuit of their
own copying works of art in
museums or reproductions – enables
the developing artists to learn by
observing and replicating technical
means, including design elements
and mediums, pictorial devices,
composition, and perspective.
https://besthistorysites.net/art-history/
 Studying the history of art puts the
student of art in a position to
recognize the relationships among
artists and the host of influences that
impact their work – historical events,
religious beliefs, social circumstances,
political maneuvering, idiosyncratic
patronage, “art for art’s sake,” to name
only some.
Studying the art of contemporaries
and of those who came before you
does something else: it establishes a
link between you and them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring
YOURSELF
For artists, Sophocles’s advice “Know
thyself” seems almost a universal mantra. For
regardless of the genre into which an artist
settles – landscape, still – life, historical or
mythological art, even non-objective art – this
artist most likely so indulged, at some point,
in self – portraiture. Perhaps gazing for long
hours into a mirror, into one’s own eyes leads
to an image that communicates the essence of
the artist – to both the sitter and the viewer.
Self portraiture is a tool with which we, as
artists, can attempt to unlock our visions of
ourselves or come to decipher who we are
and how we think and feel. https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/07/seamus-wray-self-portraits/
 T HINKING ABOUT
L IFE AND ART:
R ECORDING AND
C OMMUNICATING

Some artists feel strongly that a work should

stand on its own, out of range of the “white
noise” of art criticism . Some are suspicious
of critics or art historians who are in the
business of judging and whose
interpretations are often at odds with their
intent. As artists, it is important for you to
develop your communication skills, both oral
and written.

Being able to articulate what you are trying

to do also helps you focus on whether you
are , in truth , meeting your goals. Group
criticism is usually an important part of
studio art classes.
https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/319755642266266102/
Encouraging art students to think, write,
and speak about their work and the
works of others – in that order – results
in discourse that is concrete, poetic, and
most of all meaningful. But most
practicing artists keep sketchbooks and
journals.
It is important to remember what you are
looking at, but it is perhaps even more
important to remember what you were
thinking and feeling while you were
looking. It’s possible that you might
integrate these recollections into your
work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mynRrFOPqQI
 U N D E R S TA N D I
NG ART
Why does the artist find attempts to understand
art so worrisome? Perhaps the artists will miss the
larger point.

In our attempt to comprehend the ingredients of

art – the subject, the form, the content – we run
the risk of possibly getting it all wrong in the end.

One can argue that only artists can explain their

work, can make intelligible something that is
known or not to understood, by understanding is
defined as full awareness or knowledge that is
arrived at through an intellectual or emotional http://www.applearts.com/content/up-close-and-personal

process –
including the ability to extract meaning
or to intercept.

The ability to appreciate, or to perceive

the value or worth of something from a
discriminating perspective, then, is the
consummate reward of understanding.

https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/medium-shot-man-artist-looki
ng-his-painting_6675191.htm
SUBJECT
The subject is what of a work art – people,
places. Things, themes, processes, ideas. For
most of the history of art, the subject is
identifiable or at least reflects some sort of
visual experience. But the era of modernism
challenged the traditional definition of subject,
which grew to include anything from the
elements of art in their purest form to the
physical evidence of the processes of art
making the artist’s concept in and itself. With
abstraction, images may be difficult to decipher
because they no longer fully resemble the
original model from which the were derived,
but we cannot say that these works are without
subject. https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/413697915743150707/
 NON-
OBJECTIVE
ART
May make no reference whatsoever to the
natural world, no pretext to representing it,
but even non-objective works are not without
subject, from one perspective.

And if we’re looking for a subject in Jackson

Pollock’s most well-known canvases, we need
look no further than the process of spilling,
dripping, and flinging of paint.

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/sotheby-s-to-offer-jackson
-pollock-drip-painting-in-may-sale-series
FORM
If subject matter is the what in a work of art,
form is the how. Think of form as the all-
encompassing framework of artistic expression.
It is the general structure and overall
organization of a composition.

It signifies the totality of technical means and

materials employed by the artist, as well
as all of the visual strategies and pictorial
devices used to express and communicate. It is,
simply, the work of art as a whole.

https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/73605775145480417/
 CONTENT
Content comes to close to being the why of a
work of art in that it includes what we might
consider the reasons behind its appearance.
Content implies subject matter but is a much
bigger concept. Content contains the idea, the
cultural and artistic contexts, and the
meaning of a work of art. Symbols are a key
component of its content, even if they are
unapparent to many, even the most, viewers.
The study of such symbols is called
iconography, literally the “writing of
images.” symbols are images that stand for
ideas underlying that which is actually seen.
https://mymodernmet.com/elements-of-art-visual-culture/
ICONOGRAPHY
Is the study of themes and symbols in the visual
arts – figures and images that lend works their
underlying meanings. Many other symbols
contribute to the iconography of the painting.

But can we sometimes just admire a painting

without knowledge of the symbolism? But
unlocking it leads to a deeper understanding
and appreciation of the work.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
The basic components of a work of art (subject matter,
form, and content) do not, for the most part, exist

Much less communicate the artist’s message – absent the

elements of art, design principles, media, techniques, and
style.
VISUAL
ELEMENTS
The visual elements of art consist of line of line, shape, value,
color, texture, space, time and motion.
Line serves as an essential building block of art, but it can also
serve as the content itself of a work of art, or be manipulated to
evoke an emotional or intellectual response from the viewer.
Shapes, in two – dimensional art, are distinct areas within a
composition that have boundaries separating them from what
surrounds them.
In sculptures and other three – dimensional art forms, shape is the
essential visual element.
Value refers to the blacks and whites and grays in a work of art, as
well as the contrasts between lights and darks.

Color helps define images or areas in a work of art. It can be used

to replicate that which is seen by the human eye or to suggest the
artist’s emotional response to a subject. Color charges our senses,
our intellect, and our emotions.

Texture is often used to heighten the sense of realism in a work. It

describes the surface of an artform.
PRINCIPLES OF
DESIGN
Refers to the visual strategies used by artists, in conjunction with the
elements of art, for expressive purposes.

Unity has the effect of gathering parts of a composition into a harmonious whole.
Variety , the counterpoint of unity, adds visual interest to a composition.
Artists use emphasis and focal point to draw and hold the viewer’s eye on certain
parts of a work.
Predictable rhythms have a calming effect, while sudden changes in rhythm can
be disconcerting.
 The scale of work is its size in relation
to us – the viewers. Scale within the
work refers to size relationships of
images and objects represented therein.

The proportion of work is how parts

relate to the whole.

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/scale-in-art
W H AT A B O U T
MEDIUM?
It is when an artist works – the plural,
mediums or media, - refers to the
physical components of art. We usually
speak of two dimensional mediums such
as drawing and painting and three
dimensional mediums such as sculpture
and architecture. Artist have also sought
ways to suggest the fourth dimension –
time – in their works, or they have done
so literally by creating compositions that
change before the viewers eyes as time
passes. https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/121386152435524219/
 STYLES
Style is the most concrete and intangible of all
components of an artwork. It is a signature look of an
artist’s work

– that something that enables us to differentiate

between a Rubens and a Rembrandt, a Picasso and a
Pollock.

- It is the distinctive mode of expression that results

from an individual’s manipulation of the elements
and principles of art and design.

“Style can be consistent with some artists over the

length of their careers, or it can mark a specific
artistic moment in an artist’s oeuvre. (pronounced as
oo·vruh)

https://10cwi09.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/art-mov
Artists can be said to work more broadly in a linear style, a painterly style, a realistic style, or an
abstract style.

Linear style – a style of art characterized by a predominant emphasis on line, including outline and
pronounced contour line.

Painterly style – a style characterized by a loose and gestural handling of paint, including broad
brushstrokes, irregular and uneven, applied rapidly to the canvas surface. The opposite of
painterly is linear.

Realistic style – a style of art in which the world is represented as it is; subjects are accurately and
truthfully rendered.

Abstract style – a style of art in which characterized by simplified or distorted rendering of an

object that has the essential form or nature of that object (abstract art); a style of art in which of
the forms make no reference to visible reality (non-objective art).