Week 5, Class 1

ART 100

agenda

• review of formal analysis: key concepts from last session

• practicing formal analysis

form vs. content

What is being expressed is the content. In visual art, we call this the subject matter.

How it is being expressed in visual language, is the form.

formal analysis

When beginning to analyze a visual work, we note the subject matter, then bracket it. (We will return to it later, but form comes first.)

Two works can have the same subject, but be formally quite different. The ultimate meanings will be different as well.

PARMIGIANINOSelf Portrait in a Convex Mirrorc. 1524

Elisabeth Vigée-LebrunSelf Portrait1790

Gustave Courbet, Self Portrait (The Desperate Man), 1844-5, 17.7 x 21.7 inches

Vincent VAN GOGHSelf Portrait1888

Francis BACON, Three Studies for a Self Portrait, 1976

Composition

composition: what goes where, how the various elements of the work are arranged in relationship to each other

Edgar DegasFour Jockeysc. 1889oil on board18 1/8 x 14 5/8 inches

René MAGRITTE, The Listening Room, 1952

Andrew WYETH, Wind from the Sea, 1947, tempera on hardboard, 18 1/2 x 27 9/16 inches

line

“Line” can refer to 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.

They can also be “implied lines” where one shape meets another.

How would you characterize line in this

work?

Pablo PICASSOGirl with a Fan1905

Pablo PICASSOWoman with a Fan1907

LINE

Pablo PicassoWoman with a Fan1907

LINE

Willem de KooningUntitled XIX1977

LINE

SHAPE

Janine Antoni, Gnaw, 1992, chocolate, lard

SHAPE

Damien Hirst, Mother and Child Divided, 1993

SHAPE

Damien Hirst, Mother and Child Divided, 1993

Richard Serra, Torqued Ellipse, 1996

Donald RODNEY, In the House of My Father, 1996-7

Carl ANDRE, Breda, 1986, blue Belgian granite

Before 1960,sculpture was usually on a pedestaland paintings werehung on the wall.

After 1960, artistsbegan to use ORIENTATION as an expressive formalelement.

Eva HESSENo title, 1970. Latex, rope, string, and wire.Dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art© The Estate of Eva Hesse. photograph by Sheldan C. Collins

Martin PURYEARLadder for Booker T. Washington1996Ash, 438 x 22 3/4 x 1 1/4 inchesInstallation view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas

CONSIDER:linecolorshapesize

Can the title help us?

Yayoi Kusama INFINITY NETS [FBB], 2013, Acrylic on canvas 130.3 x 97

Yayoi KUSAMAInfinity Nets (MAE)2013

Kusama working on an Infinity Net painting

Yoshitomo Nara, Too Young to Die, 2001