Art100Su12Module05.2

MODULE 5.2FORM & CONTENT

Art 100Understanding Visual Culture

What will happen in this movie?

How do you know?

http://prezi.com/sazemrmsx16b/what-is-a-genre/

Advertisers work hard to create visual messages that can be decoded in a rapid glance.

“This is a romanticcomedy with two young stars.”

Edgar DegasEdmondo & Thérèse Morbillicirca 1867Oil on canvas45 7/8 x 34 ¾ inches

One of these belongs to our common visual culture, the other does not.

In art history, we often distinguish between subject matter and form.

Arnold Genthe, Portrait of Helen Cooke in a Field of Poppies, 1907

Paula Modersohn-BeckerOld Woman with Poppies1906

Georgia O’Keeffe, Oriental Poppies, 1928

Fields of Oats and Poppies, 1890Oil on canvas, 25 x 36 inches

Claude Monet

Stuart Franklin (Magnum photo)

Peter Melchett’s organic farm in Ringstead, with poppies and cornflowers growing alongside organic wheat

2008

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.

2 & 3-DIMENSIONAL MEDIA

Two-dimensional=flat Three-dimensional=existing in space

Sculpture Relief (bas-relief) Sculpture in the round Installation

Architecture and landscape architecture Dimension of time is added

Film Video

Drawings

Paintings

Photographs

Prints

Art in 2 Dimensions

a.k.a. things that are

FLAT

LINE and COLOR

Are considered the two most basic elements of two-dimensional art

Long history of talking about these two properties

Disegno versus colore (in Italy) Dessin vs. couleur (in France)

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

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

This is both a “drawing” and a “plan’ for how to make the work. It comes first.

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).

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

Assistant grinding colors for use in a Diego Rivera fresco

Pierre Bonnard’s worktable, 1945

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

So color was thought to be secondary.

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.

Michelangelo,Doni Tondo,1504

Michelangelo Buonarroti, CumaeanSibyl, detail, Sistine Ceiling, 1508-12

“Flesh was the reason oil painting was invented.”

—20th c. artist Willem de Kooning

Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, c. 1510

LEARN MORE ABOUT… VENETIAN PAINTING

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/vefl/hd_vefl.htm#thumbnails