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Summary Matric art notes
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Art notes that I used for my matric art exam. I got 93% as my final IEB mark. These cover the Visual Literacy section, Dada, Abstract expressionism, Surrealism and Pop Art topics
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How to discuss an artworkLabel information
• if it’s a work you’ve studied:
- title
- year
- artist
• If the work is unseen:
- Use the title, year, and artist as a clue to which movement it’s from.
Description
• Identify things you can see, name it and describe it.
• DO NOT: evaluate, opinionate or interpret.
• Describe = main objects + position in relation to each other (like trying to explain it to a blind
person.
• Subject: still-life, landscape, portrait-study?
• History: Does it belong to a specific art movement?
NB: you will get one mark for this
Formal Analysis
A discussion of the visual elements (Elements of Art and Principle of Design) in a composition without
reference to content (subject matter and meaning).
Visual Analysis
A fuller discussion of the interrelations between form, context and content.
Discussion
• Medium: what the work is – a painting, sculpture, drawing, multi-media/new-media piece, or
an installation.
- Subcategories: painting – watercolour, acrylic, fresco, oil.
- Surfaces/supports: canvas paper, board, plaster…
• Style: a distinctive way the medium is used: Naturalism, Figurative, Expressionism, Abstract,
Decorative works, Stylization.
- Abstract = no references to reality. A work can be abstracted with a tendency to be abstract
shapes: still figurative if there is a reference.
- Example: an expressionistic style of painting would have evident brushwork.
• Technique: NOT THE MEDIUM, but HOW it was created in the specific medium.
- Brushwork: smooth, impasto, stippled, or linear?
, Interpretation, Meaning and Message (ᴗ˳ᴗ)
• Content has to do with the deeper meaning of the artwork or the message of the work.
• Contextual factors; the context of the work plays a big role in determining meaning. The
biography of the artist, political and social situations, historic factors and/or physical place
• Use the information gathered from your DESRIPTIONS and DISCUSSION (ANALYSIS) to help you
identify the CONTENT of works (what the artwork tells of the human experience). This has to do
with the MESSAGE of the work.
• Defend your hypothesis with evidence from other sources such as art history, past experinces
the work reminds you of, or presumed purpose (to praise, criticize, predict, record an event,
make a political or social statement, ridicule, and so on).
• Look at the symbolic meanings where possible. (e.g. a dove meaning peace)
The Formal Elements of Art (ゝ◡╹)ノ♡
• Line: created by adjoining edges of shapes or by a calligraphic mark.
- Type: organic (curved) geometric (straight)
- Direction: vertical, horizontal, or diagonal.
- Function: contour lines, decorative lines, lines formed by objects in a painting.
- Purely descriptive, could carry some emotion or meaning.
- Can be implied or imaginary. (edges of object allowed to dissolve into surrounding space).
- Example of how you would describe them: calm horizontals, strong verticals, chaotic, jittery
lines, etc.
• Tone: refers to shades of light and dark (not mood/monetary value) usually to create 3D.
- Tonal value indicates the light and dark areas of the content.
- Variations of tone and sharp contracts to indicate a light source is known as Chiaroscuro.
- It helps create atmosphere, feeling and contrasts in an artwork.
• Colour: referred to as hue (primaries, secondaries, complementaries).
- Analogue hues (adjacent on Colour wheel) = harmonious (don’t confused with unity in
Formal Principle of Design).
- Complimentary hues (opposite on Colour wheel) = contrasting.
- Can be saturated (intense) or muted (neutral).
- Psychological effect: warm and cool colours create space.
- Carries emotion (symbolic meaning).
• Texture:
- Tactile: can real and felt, such as impasto paint by Van Gogh (this can heighten sense of
illusionistic space.
, - Sculpture: real tactile surface is created.
- Implied: looks as if it has texture, convinces us of reality, ultimate point in portraying visual
texture = trómpe l’oiel – French for ‘to fool the eye’.
• Shape:
- Difference from Form/volume is always 3D, so a sphere is a form/volume and a circle is a
shape.
- Positive shapes: actual positive image on which eye initially focuses on.
- Negative shapes: spaces/shapes in-between the positive shapes.
- Organic shapes: natural and curvilinear, they look relaxed.
- Geometric shapes: man-made and rectilinear; they look formal
• Volume or Form:
- 3D-looking shapes given this appearance by use of light and shade (tone)
- In sculpture, volume refers to the kind of space occupied by the mass of the sculpture.
• Depth and Perspective or Space:
- Pictorial space: refers to 2D space on the surface of the image (the picture plane).
- Cubist space: the artist shows multiple points of view.
- Real space: the actual space is occupied by a sculpture or 3D components in a two-
dimensional work (as in assemblage)
- Illusionistic space – the artist creates an illusion of 3D space using perspective.
- Paintings: artist can create tension between flat and illusionistic space -> emphasizing the
importance of meaning over illusionism, (or a modernist method of emphasizing forms for
their own sake.)
- Sculpture: space = void
• Perspective:
- Linear perspective: objects get smaller as they recede in space. Constructed using a series of
lines (horizontal lines = transversals and diagonal lines = orthogonal) and vanishing points on
the horizon lines and/or on center of vision line.
- Atmospheric perspective: denotes the way the colours of objects seem to become less
saturated (more greyish) as they recede in space, contrasts become less pronounced, edges
become blurred and details are not seen.
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