In this class we make a distinction between form and content (or what in visual culture we often call "subject matter") and begin the process of exploring the language of form.

1. 4.2 Formal Analysis

2. What will happen
in this movie?
How do you know?
http://prezi.com/sa
zemrmsx16b/wh
at-is-a-genre/

3. Advertisers work hard to create visual
messages that can be decoded in a
rapid glance.
“This is a
romantic
comedy
with two
young
stars.”

4. Edgar DEGAS
Edmondo & Thérèse Morbilli
circa 1867
Oil on canvas
45 7/8 x 34 ¾ inches
What is going to happen
to these two people?
What is their relationship like?
We aren’t sure. We’re not sure
at first, and even after long
observation, we may not be able
to answer these questions definitively.

5. Art is much slower and typically cannot be
understood at a glance. Learning to “read” the
formal vocabulary of art will go a long way
toward helping you understand it better.

6. To help us, we can make a distinction
between subject matter and form.
Arnold Genthe, Portrait of Helen
Cooke in a Field of Poppies, 1907

7. Paula Modersohn-Becker
Old Woman with Poppies
1906

8. Paula Modersohn-Becker
Old Woman with Poppies
1906

9. Georgia O’Keeffe, Oriental Poppies, 1928

10. Claude Monet
Fields of Oats and Poppies, 1890
Oil on canvas, 25 x 36 inches

11. Stuart Franklin (Magnum
photo)
Peter Melchett’s organic farm in
Ringstead, with poppies and
cornflowers growing alongside organic
wheat
2008

13. What is Formal Analysis?
• Breaking a work down into
component parts for purposes of
systematic observation and
understanding.
• When the parts are put back
together, you do so with a richer
understanding of each part and
how they fit together.

14. TO BEGIN a formal analysis
IDENTIFY the materials and medium.
What is the work physically made of: oil on
canvas, charcoal on paper? Be sure you know.

15. MATERIALS
• EXAMPLE: art made of paper will have a
different resonance than art made of steel
• Materials can have a strong expressive
content.
• Even similar materials can be handled quite
differently, resulting in different nuances of
meaning.

16. David Smith
Cubi XVIII
1965
Polished steel will have
a very different feeling from
Cor-Ten steel, which weathers
naturally (see next slide).

17. Richard Serra, Mozarabe, 1971, Cor-Ten steel

18. What is the MEDIUM of the work?
1. What is the medium of the work? Is it 2-
dimensional?
drawing—charcoal on paper
painting—pigment on a prepared surface
print—lithograph, silkscreen, etching
photograph

19. Rackstraw Downes, Under the Off-Ramp from the George Washington Bridge,
2009. Graphite on light blue paper with blue threads, 17 x 36 3/4 in.

20. PAUL NOBLE
Volume 6, 2007
Pencil on paper
39 3/8 x 27 5/8 inches

21. Rembrandt van Rijn, A Bend in the Amstel at Kostverloren, undated drawing

22. Carlo Crivelli
Madonna with Child
Tempera on panel
c. 1470

23. Vincent van Gogh, Irises, 1889, oil on canvas

24. Diego Rivera
Flower Seller
1941

25. Robert Ryman
Untitled
1964

26. Henri Matisse
La Gerbe
Cut paper
1953

27. Henri Matisse
Blue Nude
paper cutout
1952

28. Robert Adams
Colorado
Springs,
Colorado
1968
Gelatin-silver
print
14 x 14 inches

29. BILL BRANDT
Hands on the beach, 1959
Gelatin silver print, 9 x 7¾ in.

30. What is the MEDIUM of the work?
Is it three-dimensional=existing in space?
– Sculpture
• Relief (bas-relief or low-relief)
• Sculpture in the round
• Installation
– Architecture and landscape architecture
• (4th Dimension—time)
– Film
– Video

31. Brief Nod to Subject Matter
DESCRIBE the subject.
What subject is depicted? (Major features only, at
this point it does not need to be too detailed.)
Include the genre if applicable and if you know it.
history painting
portraiture
landscape
still life
are some examples of artistic genres.

32. COMPOSITION
composition: how the various elements of the
work are arranged in relationship to each other
things to look for:
spatial relationships:
– foreground
– middle ground
– background
where is the viewer positioned?
how are the objects or elements ordered?

33. LINE
The literal lines that the artist uses to create
shape, suggest depth, etc. These lines can have
a variety of characteristics, for example; line can
be fine and delicate, or bold and chunky, it can
be fluid or halting, precise or sketchy.

34. How would you characterize line in
this work?

35. What about in
this work?

36. Bridget Riley
Fall
1963
polyvinyl acetate paint
on hardboard
55 x 55 inches
What is the role
of line in this work?

37. COLOR
1. Ask yourself, how important is color in this
work?
2. In some works, color is quite significant; in
others, far less so.

38. Otto Dix
Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia van
Harden
1926
Color is one strong element that
contributes to the sense of disharmony,
confusion and conflict in this picture.
It is not the only element Dix uses to
create that sensation, but it is a
significant one.

39. Otto Dix
Small Self-Portrait
1913
By contrast, color has a less
significant role in this earlier
painting by the same artist.
It is not that color is absent—of
course it isn’t—and it’s not that
color isn’t skillfully handled—
actually, the color here is quite
subtle and fascinating. And perhaps
it is symbolically significant as well:
those burning cheeks in tandem
with all those frosty blues and silvers
seem to indicate a passionate
personality in a cool, even cold
environment.

40. Quick Historical Interlude: LINE and COLOR
• Long history of talking about these two
properties
• Disegno versus colore (in Italy)
• Dessin vs. couleur (in France)
Are considered the two most basic elements of two-
dimensional art

41. LINE • Line/design can mean
several things:
• (It’s clearer if we use a
more direct translation:
design)
• Design could mean:
– A drawing
– A plan to make something

42. Ingres,
Apotheosis of
Homer,
c. 1827,
brush,
gouache, and
gray wash on
paper, Louvre

43. This is both a “drawing” and a “plan’ for how to make the finished
painting. It is made first.

44. The finished painting is essentially the drawing “colored in.”

45. So color was thought to be secondary.
Except that some artists defied this rule.
They said, actually paint is what paintings are
made of, and paint is pigment (a color)
suspended in a medium (some sort of binder).

46. Jan van der Straet (Dutch, 1523 – 1604) The Painter's Studio

47. Assistant grinding colors for use in a Diego Rivera fresco

48. Pierre Bonnard’s worktable, 1945

49. Magdalenian era, 10,000 BCE, palette and grinding stone

50. Color was thought to be secondary;
line primary.
But artists hate rules. As soon as you give them
one they will try to break it.
This academic rule “design has priority; it is the
first thing, and the most important thing” was
closely associated with the city of Florence.
So the artists of Venice tried to disprove it.

51. Michelangelo,
Doni Tondo,
1504
Florentine painting

52. Michelangelo Buonarroti, Cumaean
Sibyl, detail, Sistine Ceiling, 1508-12
Florentine painting

53. “Flesh was the reason oil painting was invented.”
—20th c. artist Willem de Kooning
Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, c. 1510 Venetian painting

54. SHAPE
• Can be geometric (e.g., cube,
cylinder, cone, pyramid, circle,
square, triangle)
• Or “biomorphic” (sometimes
called organic); wiggly, blob-like
shapes with irregular outlines.

55. El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919

56. Vasily Kandinsky, Composition VIII, 1923
Oil on canvas, (55 1/8 x 79 1/8 in), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

57. Sonia Delaunay
Rhyme
1938
oil on canvas

58. Tina Modotti
Workers’ Demonstration,
Mexico City
1926
Platinum print

59. Arshile Gorky, Garden in Sochi, 1943

60. Frank Stella, Jasper’s Dilemma, 1962-3, oil on canvas

61. Joan Miro, Flight of the Dragonfly in Front of the Sun, 1968

62. Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970, mud, salt, rocks, water, 15 ft x 1500 ft, Rozel Point, Utah

63. SIZE

64. Donald Rodney, In the House of My Father, 1996-7

65. ORIENTATION
Carl Andre, Breda, 1986, blue Belgian granite

66. Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram, 1955

67. Xu Bing
A Book from the Sky
1987-1991

68. E.V. Day, Bride Fight, 2006

69. TEXTURE
Jean Dubuffet
Grand Master of the Outsider
1947

70. Paul Klee
Highway and Byways
1929
oil on canvas
32 5/8 x 26 3/8 inches

71. Cy Twombly
Leda and the Swan
1962
oil, pencil and
crayon on canvas
6' 3" x 6' 6 3/4"

72. Texture can be also achieved through literal means, as in Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden, 2013

73. Try this at home!
• Following are some examples you can use to review.
• Here are the guidelines:
• medium/materials (what is it made of?)
• subject matter/genre (keep very brief for now)
• composition
• line
• color
• shape
• texture
• size
• orientation
REMEMBER, not all of these categories will be applicable to
every work of art. Choose the categories that are most
relevant to the work you are considering.

74. John Frederick Peto, Still Life with Cake, Lemon, Strawberries and Glass, 1890.

75. Some artists have characteristic subject matter,
which you can use to help identify them, along
with their style.

89. IN MATTERS OF STYLE…
…nuance is key. You are training your eyes to
detect subtle differences, rather than blatant
ones.
The more fine-grained the differences you can
observe, the better you will have understood
the artist’s style.
“God is in the details.”