2. Formal Analysis:
The process of explaining how the form (size,
shape color etc.) of a work of art changes the
representation of the subject matter and
creates the expressive content.
3. Form: How a work looks, including:
Media: materials used
Style: constant recurring or coherent traits
Composition: the organization of Design Elements &
Principles
Subject Matter:What the work portrays.
Iconography Culturally specific signs.
Remembering from Chapters 1-3 that…
Formal Analysis
4. Form + Subject Matter = Content
What the work says including:
Message (more specific)
Meaning (determined by the viewer)
Formal Analysis
5. Henri Matisse, 1917, Portrait de famille (The Music Lesson), oil on canvas, 245.1 x 210.8 cm, Barnes Foundation
Example
6. When interpreting a work of art, let’s start by noting a few
things about the form of the previous Matisse painting.That
it’s painted is pretty trivial.
What else?
How is it painted?
What kind of colors are used?
We noted that the use of colors and lines imply that this
family appears to have a close relationship.
Then what is the general subject, a family portrait.To
determine the message we must look for clues: symbols or
iconography. Each of them are engaged in some type of
creative or intellectual pursuit.The arts (music, literature,
sewing, and visual arts) seem to fulfill and unite this family.
Formal Analysis
7. Pablo Picasso
Spanish, worked in France, 1881–1973
The Old Guitarist, late 1903–early 1904
Form + Subject Matter
= Content
Form: Dusty blue colors.
Elongated limbs, twisted pose.
Subject Matter: Old man, in
tattered clothes. Street
musician?
Content: General sadness,
precariousness of life. The
Artist’s life?
8. Chapter 4:The Formal Elements
Line: Contour, Direction and Movement
Shape: Figure and Ground
Light: Digital & Electronic
Actual & Implied
Value: Relative light & dark
“Chiaroscuro” (light & dark)
Color: Hue, Primary & Secondary
Complementary,Analogous
(warm & cool)
9. Roger Fry’s
An Essay in Aesthetics 1909
He calls these visual feature of artworks the
Emotional elements of design.
“These elements are connected to the essential
conditions of physical existence. ...The graphic arts
arouse emotions in us by playing upon what one
may call the overtones of some of our primary
physical needs.”
10. Contour lines are interior and exterior boundaries
(edges) of an implied three-dimensional Form.
“The drawn line is a record of a gesture, and that gesture is
modified by the artist’s feeling which is thus communicated to
us directly.”
15. Kazuo Shiraga
Japanese
1924 -2008.
A lead member of the
Gutai Art Association, in
Osaka in the 50’s-60’s.
Hanging on ropes to slide over the canvas at quickly changing
paces, Kazuo Shiraga resolutely spreads the colored oil paste,
guiding it through the surface and allowing it to guide him. Each
painting is a short vibrant event, each canvas a different new
dance, in which the material is in continuity with both the matter
and the energy of the body.
20. Visual rhythm:
Depends on the repetition of accented elements, usually shapes
Figure 5.26 KaihoYusho, Fish Nets
Drying in the Sun, 17th century.
Rhythm
21. Rhythm is repetition and is part of our lives:The rhythm of
seasons, waves on the shore, and cycles of the moon. It is an
integral part of music, dance, poetry, and visual art.
In art it is often difficult to describe what we are seeing
directly with words.Artists and writers often use other
metaphors to help describe visual experience.With rhythm
we are using a term from music. A beat in music is the
underlying rhythm that unifies the composition. In visual art,
rhythm is used to structure a composition and lead our eyes.
Rhythm
22. Lines imply direction and movement
Martin Puryear (American, b. 1941). Ladder for Booker T.Washington, 1996. .
Line
24. Vertical lines seem
assertive, or denote
growth & strength.
Horizontal lines appear
calm.
Diagonal lines are the
most dramatic and imply
action.
Line: Direction and Movement
28. Gericault is depicting an actual shipwreck of the French ship
Medusa off of the North African coast in 1816. Here the
survivors on the raft signal a rescue ship far away on the
horizon.
The diagonals of the limbs, the mast, and rope imply intense
human effort and stress, while the verticals of the figure with
the waving shirt conveys hope and strength. It is only when we
follow the implied lines of their attention that we notice the
ship on the horizon.The rope leads our eye to the sail, which
we realize will pull the survivors away from the rescue craft.
Implied Line
30. Implied line works because our brains try to make
patterns out of what we see and because we have a
tendency to visually follow motion.
i.e. if someone points, we look.
32. Shape:
an enclosed line;
A two-dimensional
area with identifiable
boundaries
i.e. circles or squares
Painters
Progress,
Elizabeth Murray
(American,
1940-2007
spring 1981
Shape vs. Mass
33. Raphael,The Madonna of the Meadows, 1505.
Implied Shape
Here we see another type
of Implied line, the Implied
Shape.The shape doesn’t
actually exist.
It is our eye movement in
the grouping of figures
that follows This triangular
composition was a popular
device to provide unity
during the Renaissance.
34. Raphael,The Madonna of the Meadows, 1505.
In the same was as the
white triangle in the
above figure doesn’t exist,
yet our brains fill it in…
The contrast of light and
dark creates emphasis,
which helps our eye
movement in the painting.
35. Mass/Form: A three-dimensional
area with identifiable boundaries
ie: spheres and cubes
ANISH KAPOOR
Svayambh
2007
wax and oil-based paint
Dimensions variable
Shape vs. Mass
37. “When an object is represented that we recognize it as
having inertia, we feel its power of resisting movement, or
communicating its own movement to other bodies, and our
imaginative reaction to such an image is governed by our
experience of mass in actual life.”
Roger Fry’s
An Essay in Aesthetics 1909
39. Texture
Actual Texture:
A possible tactile experience.A perception of smooth or
rough, fine or coarse.
Paint applied thickly creates an actual texture, called Impasto,
that we could feel (again, if we were allowed).
JAMES HAYWARD
Icon 66 x 111 flesh/gold/
sky blue, 1988
Oil and wax on canvas on
wood, 660 1/10 × 111 in
40. Implied Texture:
The illusion of a tactile experience. Dufy’s painting is on a flat
canvas, but he creates a visual illusion or an implied texture
through his brushstrokes.They create “rough patches.” The
water does not have a representational illusion, but still conveys
choppiness.
Raoul Dufy,
Regatta at Cowes,
1934.
Texture
41. When a implied or actual texture is repeated regularly it is
called a Pattern.
Yayoi Kusama
Dots Obsession – New Century, 2000
11 balloons and vinyl stickers
Overall dimensions vary with each installation
42. Figure: a “positive” shape, the foreground,
Usually convex (curving outward)
Ground: a “negative shape”, the background, or
appearing to behind the figure. Usually concave
(curving inward)
The concept of the “figure” and “ground” in visual experience
comes out of 20th century Gestalt Psychology.These
psychologists tried to figure out how our brains sort all of
the stuff that we see coming into our eyes into different
categories, like an object or a void, near or far, etc.
Figure / Ground
43. Figure-ground Controversy:
A figure-ground controversy occurs when the positive
and negative spaces are in balance and it becomes hard to
say which one is in from (is figure) and which part is
behind (is ground)
44. Figure / Ground
Logo designers frequently rely on figure / ground
relationships to make their designs interesting.
45. Sculpture, architecture, and all forms with mass exist in
Three dimensional space that has height, width, and depth.
Frank Gehry, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, 1997.
Space
46. “the spatial judgment is equally profound and universal in its
application to life; our feeling about inclined planes is connected
with our necessary judgments about the conformation of the
earth itself;”
Space
47. Fred Sandback (1943 – 2003) was a minimalist conceptual-
based sculptor known for his yarn sculptures, drawings, and
prints.
Sandback is primarily known for his Minimalist works made
from lengths of colored yarn. His yarn, elastic cord, and wire
sculptures define edges of virtual shapes that ask the viewer's
brain to perceive the rest of the form.
Space
48. Fred Sandback, UNTITLED (SCULPTURAL STUDY,TWO-PARTVERTICAL CONSTRUCTION)Yarn, nails. CA. 1986/2008
Space
50. Implied Space
The picture plane is the flat surface of a two-dimensional
work.The space in a drawing, photograph or painting is
only implied, as there is no actual depth.
Artists use many devices to give the illusion of depth.
52. Size: Objects that are farther away appear smaller.
Edgar Degas
French, 1834-1917
The Star, 1879/81
53. The size of an object is interpreted relative to
the objects around it and within its context.
54. 54
Scale:
Size in relation to
a constant or “normal”
size
Proportion:
Refers to size relationships
between parts of a whole
or between two or more
items perceived as
a unit
Figure 5.18 René Magritte, Delusions of
Grandeur II, 1948.
Proportion and Scale
56. Ron Mueck,“In Bed” 2005
Q: Big Scale or Big Proportion?
A: Big Scale! The woman in Ron Mueck’s sculpture is
in the same proportions as a normal human, but at a
bigger, giantlike scale!
57. India
Rajasthan, Mewar, Udaipur,
Attributed to Ghasi (active
c. 1820-36)
Maharana Bhim Singh in
Procession, c. 1820
Hierarchical scale:
Other cultures
sometime use size
to show social
importance not
space.
60. Linear Perspective
1. Forms seem to diminish
in size as they recede.
2. Parallel lines that recede
seem to converge towards
a “vanishing point”, where
they appear to disappear
on the horizon line.
In order to create a “window on the world,” Renaissance artists
used the camera obscura, a drawing device, to replicate how
structures recede into space. It is based on two observations:
63. Linear Perspective
Here we see Leonardo DaVinci using the “vanishing point” in a
system of linear perspective to place the central character of
the Last Supper, Jesus at the center of the composition and the
focus of the room as well.
Linear perspective always locates the place of the viewer in
relationship to the picture space… are we looking down, up
or on equal level. It really privileges the primacy of visual
experience in Western thought.
64. Two-Point Linear Perspective
Both “horizontal” lines recede to two vanishing points.
Vertical lines remain vertical.
Note that the “hovering” boxes are above the “eye level”
66. Isometric Perspective
Other systems of perspective exist. Isometric perspective
is popular for early video games as well as many Asian
cultures.
No reduction in
scale with distance
of objects.
Objects recede on
45 degree angles.
68. Station of Otsu: From the Fifty-three Stations of theTokaido (The "Reisho Tokaido"), Edo period
(1615–1868), ca. 1848–49
Ando Hiroshige
Isometric Perspective is also known as “bird’s eye” perspective.
70. In addition to the fact that our eyesight fails as objects
reach the vanishing point, moisture and dust in the
atmosphere scatter light. Blue light scatters the most,
hence the sky appears blue, and things take on a bluish
tinge as their distance from us increases. Bierstadt’s
dramatic landscape draws our eyes through the
encampment, to a waterfall, and on to the distant
mountain peaks.
In abstract works closeness to the background color
causes things to look further away, as does blurring of
shapes. Clearer shapes appear closer in implied space.
Atmospheric Perspective
72. Larry Poons. Nixes Mate. acrylic on canvas. 1964.
Atmospheric Perspective
73. Value: The relative darkness or lightness of a line or
area. Usually considered to in black and white.
Contrast: Two different values next to each other
produces a visible difference that is interpreted as a
change in shape or volume.
Implied Light
74. Ansel Adams,Autumn Moon, the High Sierra from Glacier Point. It was taken on 15 September 1948.
Areas of high contrast also draw the eye to them.
Artists us this to create areas of emphasis.
75. Value enables our eyes to
perceive form and spatial
relationships, even on a flat,
two-dimensional surface.
Chiaroscuro: Means light/
dark(contrasts of light and
shadow)
This unfinished drawing
shows continuous tones on a
middle-value brown paper
with charcoal and white
chalk. Notice the raised hand
of Saint Anne and the flatness
due to the lack of value
range.
Leonardo daVinci,TheVirgin and Saint Anne with…
76. Roger Fry’s
An Essay in Aesthetics 1909
Implied Light
“Our feelings toward the same object will become totally
different according as we see it strongly illuminated against a
black background or dark against light. …
Light is so necessary a condition of our existence that we
become intensely sensitive to changes in its intensity.”
77. Implied Light
Our perception of light and dark allows us to make visual
judgments about the shape of objects that we haven’t felt
yet. But we have subconscious habits.
78. Our perception of a surface depends on its orientation with
respect to the light source.The visual system assumes that the
light comes from above. Brighter patches appear to be tilted up
facing the light.
Implied Light
79. Using a Prism, Newton observed that a ray of sunshine
refracted into colors of the rainbow.With a second prism
he found he was able to recombine these colors into
white light.All color is dependent on light.
What we perceive as color is reflected light rays. A red
shirt, for example, absorbs all of the color rays except the
red ones, which are reflected back to our eyes.
Color Theory
80. Color Wheel:
Made up of the colors
refracted by Sir Isaac
Newton’s prism. An
attempt to create a
system to understand
and describe color.
Color Theory: Reflected Light
81. Two color circles are included as illustrations in
the 1708 edition of Traité de la peinture en
mignature, an artist's manual attributed to
"C.B." (often assumed to be Claude Boutet, or the
publisher, Christophe Ballard).
Lichtenberg's replication of Tobias Mayer's triangle has only seven
chambers per side, rather than Mayer's suggested 12. In his
comments to the Opera inedita, Lichtenberg complained of the
difficulties of creating a color reproduction according to Mayer's
instructions.Trans. and ed. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.
Göttingen, 1775, plate III.
http://www.gutenberg-e.org/lowengard/A_Chap03.html
Early Color theory systems.
83. Color Temperature
Cool Colors
Warm Colors
Cool and Warm colors are qualitative distinctions between
colors base on how we experience the world.
Color Theory
84. Color Temperature
he notion of cool or warm colors is another example of trying to
nd a metaphor to describe our visual experience of color. Or
aybe certain colors occur more frequently in actually warm or cold
ontexts?
Color Theory
85. Color; Hue:
Name of the color.
Value:
Relative lightness or darkness.
Intensity:
Relative purity and impact of a color.
Color Properties
86. Color Theory: RGB
RGB =
Red, Green, Blue
as the primary
colors
Artists who work with light (film, theater, video monitors)
work with a different set of primaries, as shown in the
chart. Colors are mixed through an additive process.
87. Used in Theatrical Lighting or old TV’s where it mixes the
colors together to make white light.
Color Theory: RGB
88. CMYK:
Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
(K) Black
Color Theory: CMYK
The CMYK color model, referred to as process color or four
color, is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, also
used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the
four inks used in most color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and
key black.
89. Color Harmony
According to color theory, harmonious color combinations
use any two colors opposite each other on the color wheel,
any three colors equally spaced around the color wheel
forming a triangle, or any four colors forming a rectangle
(actually, two pairs of colors opposite each other).The
harmonious color combinations are called 'color harmonies’.
The current form of color theory was developed by Johannes
Itten, a Swiss color and art theorist who was teaching at the
Bauhaus. Johannes Itten developed 'color chords' and modified
the color wheel. Itten's color wheel is based on red, yellow,
and blue colors as the primary triad and includes twelve hues.
90. Monochromatic:
Variations of the same hue.
James Abbott McNeil Whistler, Nocturne in
Blue and Gold, c. 1872-75.
Monochromatic color
schemes usually include a
range of values and
intensities.This nighttime
scene is soothing with tints
and shades of one hue: blue.
This is an example of a
“Restricted Palette” (few
pigments with tints and
shades). Color combined
with verticals for stability,
horizontals for peacefulness,
and hazy negative space all
help to create the mood.
91. Monochromatic Color:
The image is made of all
different values of one
color or hue.
i.e. Light blue, Dark blue
Color Harmony
92. Complementary:
Directly opposite on the
color wheel.
Hans Hoffman
Complementary schemes
tend to accentuate each
other vividly.The red is
intensified by the green of
the square shape.The
contrast creates a buzz
charging the abstract
painting.
Since these colors are the
farthest away from each
other they create the
most energy or conflict of
any of the harmonies.
93. Complimentary Colors:
Colors opposite of each
other on the color wheel.
Considered to be the most
energetic pairing.
i.e.Violet andYellow
Color Harmony
96. Triadic:
3 equidistant colors on the color wheel
i.e. Red, yellow and blue.
Paul Gauguin,
Woman with a Flower,
1891
The Triadic color harmony
is the most balanced of
the options because the
colors are equally
different.There is a lively
sense in this pictures but a
measured one.
97. Color Harmony
Sameness and Unity Difference andVariety
M
onochrom
atic
Analogous
Triadic
C
om
plem
entary
98. David Hockney, American Collectors (Fred and MarciaWeisman), 1968
Acrylic on canvas 83 7/8 x 120 in.)
Color Harmony
99. David Hockney, American Collectors (Fred and Marcia
Weisman), 1968
Acrylic on canvas 83 7/8 x 120 in.)
Color Harmony
In this example the pink of Marcia Weisman’s dress is a
complementary color to the cool blue green of the rest of the
image.The colors are also chosen to give that feeling of the
California lifestyle of Beverly Hills.
Color can communicate place, taste, emotion and memory all
without words!
