1. Exploring Art:A Global,
Thematic Approach
Chapter 3
Media

2. Media
INTRODUCTION
Media can be defined as the material
substances used to create an artwork
Disciplines are the various branches of art
making activity, like painting or video

3. Damien Hirst, For the
Love of God, 2007
Platinum life-size cast
of human skkull,
human teeth and
diamonds.
Skulls often symbolize
mortality as well as
vanitas (ultimate
emptiness/impermanen
ce of earthly things).

4. Media in Two-Dimensional Art
Drawing
Supports and grounds
Dry Media
Wet Media
Printmaking
Relief
Intaglio
Lithography
Serigraphy
Monotype
Painting
Encaustic
Fresco
Tempera, Gouache, and Watercolor
Oil, Acrylic and Sprayed paint

5. Dry Media
Willem De Kooning. Seated Woman, 1966-
1967. Charcoal on paper, 18 3/4” X 23 1/4”.
Collection of the Newark Museum, New
Jersey.
Edgar Degas. At the Milliner, 1883. Pastel,
29.9” X 33.5”. Fundacion Coleccion
Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
Dry media include pencils, chalk, pastel and silverpoint.

6. Wet Media
Wet media commonly uses
ink, pen, and brush.
MI WANZHONG. Tree,
Bamboo and Rock.
Calligraphy by Chen Meng.
Ink, 43 1/3” X 14 1/4”. Musee
National des Arts Asiatiques-
Guimet, Paris.

7. Relief Printmaking
Woodcut and linocut are two relief printmaking methods.
Left The Printmakers Workshop, color woodblock print, Japanese Edo period,
School of Yokohama, 19th century
Right Woman in a Hat, linocut print, Pablo Picasso, 1962.

8. Kitagawa Utamaro, Artist, Block Carver, Applying Sizing,
from the series “The Cultivation of Brocade Prints, A Famous
Product of Edo, c.1893 AIC
The most common of the Ukiyo-e prints was the oban…
15x10” often in pairs or triptych. Read from right to left.
Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, 1753–1806)
Edo period (1615–1868)

9. Utamaro, Artist, Block Carver, Applying Sizing
Right…the artist is creating a preparatory drawing
Center…drawing placed face done on flat wooden block and
workers are creating the block
Left…three figures apply glue-based ‘sizing’ to mulberry
paper and hang up the sheets to dry, prior to their use for
printing

10. Intaglio Printmaking
Etching and engraving are
intaglio printmaking
processes.
Pablo Picasso,
The Weeping Woman, 1937, is an
etching.

11. Kiki Smith, Born, 2002
Lithograph 68x56”
Victorian children’s book.
Interested in taking images out of the
context…rebirth

12. Wassily Kandinsky. Cover of the journal Der Blaue Reiter, 1912. Color lithograph

13. Serigraph…screen print…Warhol used repetition to allude to mass production and
commercialism

14. Gauguin, Two Marquesans, 1902 monotype
Monotype

15. Jasper Johns. Flag, 1954-1955. Encaustic, oil, and
collage on fabric mounted on plywood, 41 1/4” X 60
5/8”. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Painting
Glass Bowl with Fruit. Wallpainting, Roman, 1st
Century, found in the Mt. Vesuvius region, Italy.
Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy.
Two ancient paint media, still used today, are encaustic (pigment mixed
with hot wax) and fresco (pigment applied to wet or dry plaster).

16. Oil paint, like in the Venus of Urbino, allows intense colors with lustrous
surfaces.
Acrylic paint, while faster drying than oils and more versatile, is suitable to
flat broad areas of color.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio). Venus of Urbino, 1538. Oil
on canvas, 4’ X 5’6”. Uffizi, Florence, Italy. David Hockney. A Bigger Splash, 1967. Acrylic
on canvas, 8’ X 8’. Tate Gallery, London.

17. Fabrics, needlework, weaving
Bitter Nest #2: Harlem Renaissance Party 1988 Acrylic on canvas, dyed,
painted and pieced fabric 94 x 82"

18. Methods and Media in Three-Dimensional Art
Carving
Modeling
Assembling
Ready-mades, Assemblage, and Fabrication
Installation
Performance
Technology based media
Crafts

19. Carving and Modeling
Stone and wood, and some contemporary materials, are suitable for
carving, a subtractive process.
Easter Island Monumental Heads
15th
c., volcanic tufa
Freestanding meant to be seen from all sides
Olmec Pectoral, 900400 BC
4” jade
Relief sculpture meant to
be seen from the front

20. Richard Serra,Tilted Arc, 1981, raw steel 120’x12’
Site-specific sculpture…Tilted Arc was a sculpture commissioned by
the United States General Services Administration's Arts-in-
Architecture program for the Federal Plaza in NewYork. It was
dismantled, after much debate, in 1989.
“site specific
sculpture”

21. Carving and Modeling
Clay and wax are soft materials, suitable for modeling, an additive
process, like the Aztec Eagle Knight here.
Eagle Knight, c. 15th century. Earthenware and plaster, 66
7/8” X 46 1/2” X 21 5/8”. Aztec, Museo Templo Mayor, Mexico.Marathon Boy, 330 BC, bronze, 51”
Greek

22. Assemblages are often of natural or ready-made components and are assembled,
combined, and fabricated in a variety of ways. Installations are usually mixed
media and are designed for specific interior or exterior spaces.
Assembling and Installation
Marcel Duchamp. Bicycle
Wheel, 1963. Ready-made,
found objects. Henley-on-
Thames, UK.
Robert Rauschenberg. First
Landing Jump, 1961. Combine
painting, 7’51/8” X 6’ X 8 7/8”.
The Museum of Modern Art, New
York.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Running Fence,
Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-
1976. Height, 18’. Length: 24 1/2 miles. Nylon
fabric, steel poles and steel cables. Photo:
Jeanne-Claude.

23. The Gates

24. Performance and Technology-based Media
Suzanne Lacy and Leslie
Liebowitz. In Mourning and In
Rage. Photo by Maria Karras.
Lorna Simpson. Easy to Remember, 2001.
Still from 16 mm film transferred to DVD,
sound; 2 1/2 minutes. Courtesy of the Sean
Kelly Gallery, New York.
Performance art is a live action event that is staged as
an artwork.
Technology based media as art uses photography,
film, video, and digital imaging.

25. Photomontage
Hannah Hoch, Cut
with the Kitchen
Knife, 1919

26. Craft
Ceramics
Glass
Wood
Metalwork and Jewelry
Fiber
Crafts are finely skilled handwork in
various media. They can be functional or
non-functional and decorative in nature.
Typical craft materials are:

27. Maria Martinez’ pottery raised the craft of ceramic pottery to a fine art. Faith
Ringgold uses the craft art of quilting to create fine art.
Fig. 3.41 Maria Martinez. Bowl, Undated.
Blackware, 6 3/4 X 9 1/2”. Smithsonian American
Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Fig.3.48 Faith Ringgold. The Bitter Nest, Part II: The
Harlem Renaissance Party, 1988. Acrylic on canvas with
printed, dyed, and pieced fabric, 94” X 83”. Smithsonian
American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

28. Faith Ringgold is an African American artist
who is well known for her painted story
quilts. One of her most famous quilts is
called Tar Beach. The quilt was made into
a book about how Cassie Lightfoot
dreamed about flying over her city. "I will
always remember when the stars fell down
around me and lifted me up above the
George Washington Bridge..."