Writing Assignment 1: Formal Analysis Paper

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The Short Guide Series

Under the Editorship of Sylvan Barnet Marcia Stubbs

A Short Guide to Writing about Art by Sylvan Barnet

A Short Guide to Writing about Biology by Jan A. Pechenik

A Short Guide to Writing about Chemistry by Herbert Beall and John Trimbur

A Short Guide to Writing about Film by Timothy Corrigan

A Short Guide to Writing about History by Richard Marius & Melvin E. Page

A Short Guide to Writing about Literature by Sylvan Barnet & William Cain

A Short Guide to Writing about Music by Jonathan Bellman

A Short Guide to Writing about Science by David Porush

A Short Guide to Writing about Social Sciences by Lee J. Cuba

A Short Guide to Writing about Theatre by Marcia L. Ferguson

A Short Guide to Writing about Art

TENTH EDITION

SYLVAN BARNET Tufts University

PEARSON

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FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

It seems to me that the modem painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture. Each age finds its own technique.

—Jackson Pollock

He has found his style when he cannot do otherwise. —Paul Klee

All art is at once surface and symbol. —Oscar Wilde

WHAT FORMAL ANALYSIS IS

The word formal in formal analysis is not used as the opposite of informal, as in a formal dinner or a formal dance. Rather, a formal analysis—the result of looking closely—is an analysis of the form the artist produces; that is, an analysis of the work of art, which is made up of such things as hue, shape, color, texture, mass, composition. These things give the stone or canvas its form, its expression, its content, its meaning. Rudolf Amheim s assertion that the curves in Michelangelo s The Creation of Adam convey “transmitted, life-giving energy” is a brief example. (See page 71.) Similarly, one might say that a pyramid resting on its base conveys stability, whereas an inverted pyramid—one resting on a point—conveys instability or precariousness. Even if we grant that these forms may not universally carry these meanings, we can perhaps agree that at least in our culture they do. That is, members of a given interpretive community perceive certain forms or lines or colors or whatever in a certain way.

Formal analysis assumes a work of art is

1. a constructed object 2. with a stable meaning 3. that can be ascertained by studying the relationships between the

elements of the work.

FORMAL ANALYSIS VERSUS DESCRIPTION 47

If the elements “cohere,” the work is “meaningful.” That is, the work of art is an independent object that possesses certain properties, and if we think straight, we can examine these properties and can say what the work represents and what it means. The work speaks directly to us, and we understand its language—we respond appropriately to its characteristics (shape, color, texture, and so on), at least if we share the artists culture.

Thus, a picture (or any other kind of artwork) is like a chair; a chair can be stood on or burned for firewood or used as a weapon, but it was created with a specific purpose that was evident and remains evident to all competent viewers—in this case people who are familiar with chairs. Further, it can be evaluated with reference to its purpose—we can say, for instance, that it is a poor chair because it is uncomfortable and fragile. (In a few moments we will consider opposing views.)

FORMAL ANALYSIS VERSUS DESCRIPTION

Is the term formal analysis merely a pretentious substitute for descrip tion? Not quite. A description is an impersonal inventory, dealing with the relatively obvious, reporting what any eye might see: “A woman in a white dress sits at a table, reading a letter. Behind her ...” It can also comment on the execution of the work (“thick strokes of paint,” “a highly polished surface”), but it does not offer inferences, and it does not evaluate. A highly detailed description that seeks to bring the image before the reader’s eyes—a kind of writing fairly common in the days before illustrations of artworks were readily available in books—is sometimes called an ekphrasis or ecphrasis (plural: ekphraseis), from the Greek word for “description” (ek = out, phrazein = tell, declare). Such a description may be set forth in terms that also seek to convey the writer s emotional response to the work. That is, the description praises the work by seeking to give the reader a sense of being in its presence, especially by commenting on the presumed emotions expressed by the depicted figures. Here is an example: “We recoil with the terrified infant, who averts his eyes from the soldier whose heart is as hard as his burnished armor.”

Writing of this sort is no longer common; a description today is more likely to tell us, for instance, that the head of a certain portrait sculpture “faces front; the upper part of the nose and the rim of the right earlobe are missing. . . . The closely cropped beard and mustache are indicated by short random strokes of the chisel,” and so forth. These statements,

48 CHAPTER 3 FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

from an entry in the catalog of an exhibition, are all true and they can be i useful, but they scarcely reveal the thought, the reflectiveness, that we associate with analysis. When the entry in the catalog goes on, however, : to say that “the surfaces below the eyes and cheeks are sensitively modeled to suggest the soft, fleshly forms of age,” we begin to feel that now indeed we are reading not merely a description but an analysis, because here the writer is arguing a thesis.

Similarly, although the statement that “the surface is in excellent condition” is purely descriptive (despite the apparent value judgment in “excellent”), the statement that the “dominating block form” of the portrait contributes to “the impression of frozen tension” can reasonably be called ana lytic. One reason we can characterize this statement as analytic (rather than descriptive) is that it offers an argument, in this instance an argument con cerned with cause and effect: The dominating block form, the writer argues, produces an effect—causes us to perceive a condition of frozen tension.

Much of any formal analysis will inevitably consist of description (“The pupils of the eyes are turned upward”), and accurate descriptive writing itself requires careful observation of the object and careful use of words. But an essay is a formal analysis rather than a description only if it connects effects with causes, thereby showing how the described object works. For example, “The pupils of the eyes are turned upward” is a description, but the following revision is an analytic statement: “The pupils of the eyes are turned upward, suggesting a heaven-fixed gaze, or, more bluntly, suggesting that the figure is divinely inspired.”

When one writes a formal analysis one takes a “look under the hood,” in the words of Professor Rosalind Krauss? Another way of putting it is to say that analysis tries to answer the somewhat odd-sounding question, “How does the work mean?” Thus, the following paragraph, because it is concerned with how form makes meaning, is chiefly analytic rather than descriptive. The author has made the point that a Protestant church emphasizes neither the altar nor the pulpit; “as befits the universal priesthood of all believers,” he says, a Protestant church is essentially an auditorium. He then goes on to analyze the ways in which a Gothic cathedral says or means something very different:

The focus of the space on the interior of a Gothic cathedral is . . . compulsive and unrelievedly concentrated. It falls, and falls exclusively, upon the sacrifice that is re-enacted by the mediating act of priest before the altar-table. So therefore, by design, the first light that strikes the eye, as one enters the cathedral, is the jeweled glow of the lancets in the apse, before which the altar-table stands. The pulsating rhythm of the arches in the nave arcade moves toward it; the string-course

FORMAL ANALYSIS VERSUS DESCRIPTION 49

; < . moldings converge in perspective recession upon it. Above, the groins of the apse radiate from it; the ribshafts which receive them and descend to the floor below return the eye inevitably to it. It is the single part of a Gothic space in which definiteness is certified. In any other

•r •> place, for any part which the eye may reach, there is always an ’■ • indefinite beyond, which remains to be explored. Here there is none, j • The altar-table is the common center in which all movement comes

voluntarily to rest. —John F. A. Taylor, Design and Expression in the

; Visual Arts (1964), 115-117

In this passage the writer is telling us, analytically, how the cathedral means.

Opposition to Formal Analysis Formal analysis, we have seen, assumes that artists shape their materials so that a work of art embodies a particular meaning and evokes a pleasurable response in the spectator. The viewer today does not try to see the historical object with “period” eyes but, rather, sees it with an aesthetic attitude. The purpose of formal analysis is to show how intended meanings are communicated in an aesthetic object.

Since about 1970, however, these assumptions have been strongly called into question. There has been a marked shift of interest from the work as a thing whose meaning is contained within itself—a decontextual ized object—to a thing whose meaning partly, largely, or even entirely con sists of its context, its relation to things outside of itself (for instance, the institutions or individuals for whom the work was produced), especially its relationship to the person who perceives it.

Further, there has been a shift from viewing an artwork as a thing of value in itself—or as an object that provides pleasure and that conveys some sort of profound and perhaps universal meaning—to viewing the artwork as an object that reveals the power structure of a society. The work is brought down to earth, so to speak, and is said thereby to be “demystified.” Thus the student does not look for a presumed unified whole. On the contrary, the student “deconstructs” the work by looking for “fissures” and “slippages” that give away—reveal, unmask—the underlying political and social realities that the artist sought to cover up with sensuous appeal.

A discussion of an early nineteenth-century idyllic landscape painting, for instance, today might call attention not to the elegant brushwork and the color harmonies (which earlier might have been regarded as sources of

50 CHAPTER 3 FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

aesthetic pleasure), or even to the neat hedges and meandering streams (meant to evoke pleasing sensations), but to such social or psychological matters as the painters unwillingness to depict the hardships of rural life and the cruel economic realities of land ownership in an age when poor families could be driven from their homes at the whim of a rich landowner. Such a discussion might even argue that the picture, by means of its visual seductiveness, seeks to legitimize social inequities. (We will return to the matters of demystification and deconstruction in Chapter 11, when we look at the social historians approach to artworks, on pages 241-47.)

We can grant that works of art are partly shaped by social and political forces (these are the subjects of historical and political approaches, discussed in Chapter 11); and we can grant that works of art are partly shaped by the artists personality (the subject of psychoanalytical approaches, also discussed in Chapter 11). But this is only to say that works of art can be studied from sev eral points of view; it does not invalidate the view that these works are also, at least in part, shaped by conscious intentions, and that the shapes or construc tions that the artists (consciously or not) have produced convey a meaning.

STYLE AS THE SHAPER OF FORM

It is now time to define the elusive word style. The first thing to say is that the word is not used by most art historians to convey praise, as in “He has style.” Rather, it is used neutrally, for everyone and everything made has a style— good, bad, or indifferent. The person who, as we say, “talks like a book” has a style (probably an annoying one), and the person who keeps saying, “Uh, you know what I mean” has a style too (different, but equally annoying).

Similarly, whether we wear jeans or gray flannel slacks, we have a style in our dress. We may claim to wear any old thing, but in fact we don’t; there are clothes we wouldn’t be caught dead in. The clothes we wear are expressive; they announce that we are police officers or bankers or tourists or college students—or at least they show what we want to be thought to be, as when in the 1960s many young middle-class students wore tattered clothing, thus showing their allegiance to the poor and their enmity toward what was called the Establishment. It is not silly to think of our clothing as a sort of art that we make. Once we go beyond clothing as something that merely serves the needs of modesty and that provides protection against heat and cold and rain, we get clothing whose style is expressive.

To turn now to our central topic—style in art—we can all instantly tell the difference between a picture by van Gogh and one by Norman ’ Rockwell or Walt Disney, even though the subject matter of all three |

STYLE AS THE SHAPER OF FORM 51

,pictures may be the same (e.g., a seated woman). How can we tell? By the style—that is, by line, color, medium, and all of the other things we talked about earlier in this chapter. Walt Disney’s figures tend to be built up out "of circles and ovals (think of Mickey Mouse), and the color shows no mod eling or traces of brush strokes; Norman Rockwells methods of depicting figures are different, and van Gogh’s are different in yet other ways. Similarly, a Chinese landscape, painted with ink on silk or on paper, sim ply cannot look like a van Gogh landscape done with oil paint on canvas, partly because the materials prohibit such identity and partly because the Chinese painter’s vision of landscape (usually lofty mountains) is not van Gogh’s vision. Their works “say” different things. As the poet Wallace Stevens put it, “A change of style is a change of subject.”

We recognize certain distinguishing characteristics (from large matters, such as choice of subject and composition, to small matters, such as kinds of brush strokes) that mark an artist, or a period, or a culture, and these constitute the style. Almost anyone can distinguish between a landscape painted by a traditional Chinese artist and one painted by van Gogh. But it takes considerable familiarity with van Gogh to be able to say of a work, “Probably 1888 or maybe 1889,” just as it takes considerable familiarity with the styles of Chinese painters to be able to say, “This is a Chinese painting of the seventeenth century, in fact the late seventeenth century. It belongs to the Nanking School and is a work by Kung Hsien—not by a follower, and certainly not a copy, but the genuine article.”

Style, then, is revealed in form; an artist creates form by applying certain techniques to certain materials, in order to embody a particular vision or content. In different ages people have seen things differently: the nude body as splendid, or the nude body as shameful; Jesus as majestic ruler, or Jesus as the sufferer on the cross; landscape as pleasant, domesticated countryside, or landscape as wild nature. So the chosen subject matter is not only part of the content but is also part of that assemblage of distinguishing characteristics that constitutes a style.

All of the elements of style, finally, are expressive. Take ceramics as an example. The kind of clay, the degree of heat at which it is baked, the decoration or glaze (if any), the shape of the vessel, the thickness of its wall, all are elements of the potter’s style, and all contribute to the expressive form. But not every expressive form is available in every age; certain visions, and certain technologies, are, in certain ages, unavailable. Porcelain, as opposed to pottery, requires a particular kind of clay and an extremely high temperature in the kiln, and these were simply not available to the earliest Japanese potters. Even the potter’s

52 CHAPTER 3 FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

wheel was not available to them; they built their pots by coiling ropes of clay and then, sometimes, they smoothed the surface with a spatula. The result is a kind of thick-walled, low-fired ceramic that expresses energy and earthiness, far different from those delicate Chinese porcelains that express courtliness and the power of technology (or, we might say, of art).

SAMPLE ESSAY: A FORMAL ANALYSIS

The following sample essay, written by an undergraduate, includes a good ■ deal of description (a formal analysis usually begins with a fairly full descrip- i tion of the artwork), and the essay is conspicuously impersonal (another ) characteristic of a formal analysis). But notice that even this apparently dis- i passionate assertion of facts is shaped by a thesis. If we stand back from the : essay, we can see that the basic point or argument is this: The sculpture sue- ; cessfully combines a highly conventional symmetrical style, on the one : hand, with mild asymmetiy and a degree of realism, on the other.

Figure 1. Seated Statue of Prince Khunera as a Scribe. Egyptian, Old Kingdom, 1 Dynasty 4, reign of Menkaure, 2490-2472 B.C. Object Place:

•Notes: Egypt (Giza, Menkaure Cemetery, MQ1). Limestone, Height X width X depth: 30.5 X 21.5 X 16 cm (12 X 8 X 6 5/ie in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvard University- Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition, 13.3140. Photograph © 2011 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

SAMPLE ESSAY: A FORMAL ANALYSIS 53

*' Put thus, the thesis does not sound especially interesting, but that is because the statement is highly abstract, lacking in concrete detail. A writers job is to take that idea (thesis) and to present it in an interesting and convincing way. In drafting and revising an essay, good writers keep thinking, “I want my readers to see....” The idea will come alive for the reader when the writer supports it by calling attention to specific details—the evidence—as the student writer does in the following essay. I Notice, by the way, that in his first sentence the students refers to “Figure 1,” which is a photograph of the work he discusses. (The images in an essay or book are called figures, and they are numbered consecutively.) This illustration (page 52) originally appeared on a separate page at the end (of the paper, but here it has been put before the essay.

Stephen Beer

Fine Arts 10A September 10, 2006

Formal Analysis: Prince Khunera as a Scribe

Prince Khunera as a Scribe, a free-standing Egyptian sculpture

12 inches tall, now in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (Figure 1), was

found at Giza in a temple dedicated to the father of the prince, King Mycerinus. The limestone statue may have been a tribute to that

Fourth Dynasty king.1 The prince, sitting cross-legged with a scribal

tablet on his lap, rests his hands on his thighs. He wears only a short

skirt or kilt. The statue is in excellent condition although it is missing its right

forearm and hand. Fragments of the left leg and the scribe’s tablet

also have been lost. The lack of any difference in the carving between the bare stomach and the kilt suggests that these two fea

tures were once differentiated by contrasting paint that has now

faded, but the only traces of paint remaining on the figure are bits of

black on the hair and eyes.

Museum label.

54 CHAPTER 3 FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

The statue is symmetrical, composed along a vertical axis which runs from the crown of the head into the base of the sculpture. The

sculptor has relied on basic geometric forms in shaping the statue on

either side of this axis. Thus, the piece could be described as a circle

(the head) within a triangle (the wig) which sits atop a square and two

rectangles (the torso, the crossed legs, and the base). The reliance

on basic geometric forms reveals itself even in details. For example,

the forehead is depicted as a small triangle within the larger triangu lar form of the headdress.

On closer inspection, however, one observes that the rigidity

of both this geometric and symmetric organization is relieved by

the artist’s sensitivity to detail and by his ability as a sculptor.

None of the shapes of the work is a true geometric form. The full,

rounded face is more of an oval than a circle, but actually it is

neither. The silhouette of the upper part of the body is defined

by softly undulating lines that represent the muscles of the arms and that modify the simplicity of a strictly square shape. Where

the prince’s naked torso meets his kilt, just below the waist, the

sculptor has suggested portliness by allowing the form of the stomach to swell slightly. Even the '"'circular” navel is flattened

into an irregular shape by the suggested weight of the body.

The contours of the base, a simple matter at first glance, actually

are not exactly four-square but rather are slightly .curvilinear.

Nor is the symmetry on either side of the vertical axis perfect:

Both the mouth and the nose are slightly askew; the right and left

forearms originally struck different poses; and the left leg is given

prominence over the right. These departures from symmetry and

from geometry enliven the statue, giving it both an individuality and a personality.

Although most of the statue is carved in broad planes, the

sculptor has paid particular attention to details in the head. There

SAMPLE ESSAY: A FORMAL ANALYSIS 55

' Behind the Scene: Beer's Essay, from Early ; Responses to Final Version

This essay is good because it is clear and interesting and especially because , it helps the reader to see and enjoy the work of art. Now lets go backstage, - so to speak, to see how Stephen Beer turned his notes into an effective

final draft.

Hie attempted to represent realistically the details of the prince’s face. J* ^The parts of the eyes, for example—the eyebrows, eyelids, eyeballs,

Land sockets—are distinct. Elsewhere the artist has not worked in fttsuch probing detail. The breasts, for instance, are rendered in large

.^‘forms, the nipples being absent. The attention to the details of the

;J ,face suggests that the artist attempted to render a lifelikeness of the

prince himself. r The prince is represented in a scribe’s pose but without a

scribe's tools. The prince is not actually doing anything. He merely

sits. The absence of any open spaces (between the elbows and the

waist) contributes to the figure’s composure or self-containment. But

if he sits, he sits attentively: There is nothing static here. The slight

upward tilt of the head and the suggestion of an upward gaze of the

eyes give the impression that the alert prince is attending someone

else, perhaps his father the king. The suggestion in the statue is one

of imminent work rather than of work in process.

Thus, the statue, with its variations from geometric order,

suggests the presence, in stone, of a particular man. The pose may

be standard and the outer form may appear rigid at first, yet the sculptor has managed to depict an individual. The details of the face

and the overfleshed belly reveal an intent to portray a person, not just an idealized member of the scribal profession. Surely when freshly

painted these elements of individuality within the confines of

conventional forms and geometric structure were even more

compelling.

56 CHAPTER 3 FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYI ,F.

Beer’s Earliest Responses. After studying the object and reading the museum label, Beers jotted down some notes in longhand, then, with these notes as a basis, jotted down ideas in the Notebook application from Circus Ponies software. (He could just as easily have used several other applications.) Here are the initial notes, the scratch outline, with his first tentative modification of it—the deletion of “General remarks,” the transposition of some ideas about symmetry, and the addition of one of the “smaller variations.”

Background: Egypt to Boston

free-standing, 12" limestone

give over-all view: sitting, hands on thighs

General romarke on Egyptian sculpf^___

Condition

pain-t almo$-t all fftne.

some parts missing

Symmetry (geometry?)

square (body)

circle in triangle (head)

two rectangles

Variations on symmetry

body varied

Realism: Yes and No

riMlel smaller variations (face, forearms)

Conclusion; summary (?)

geometric but varied

individualized?

combination

A day later, when he returned to work on his paper, stimulated by another look at the artwork and by a review of his notes, Beer made additional notes.

Organizing Notes. When the time came to turn the notes into a draft and the revised draft into an essay, Beer reviewed the notes and he added further thoughts. Next, he organized the note pages, putting together into one section whatever pages he had about (for instance) realism, and putting

SAMPLE ESSAY: A FORMAL ANALYSIS 57

ogether, into another section, whatever note pages he had about (again, for nstance) background material. Reviewing the notes in each section, and on !Re basis of the review (after making a backup copy), deleting a few pages

at no longer seemed useful, as well as moving an occasional page into a fferent section (via the Contents view), Beer started to think about how ymight organize his essay.

As a first step in settling on an organization, he arranged the notebook (ctions into a sequence that seemed reasonable to him. It made sense, he ibught, to begin with some historical background and a brief description,

lien to touch on Egyptian sculpture in general (but he soon decided not to nclude this general material), then to go on to some large points about the Particular piece, then to refine some of these points, and finally to offer fome sort of conclusion. This organization, he felt, was reasonable and yould enable his reader to follow his argument easily.

Preparing a Preliminary Outline. In order to get a clearer idea of where he might be going, Beer then typed an outline—the gist of what at this stage seemed to be the organization of his chief points in the OmniOutliner(Omni Group), although he could just as easily have used the Outline view in Microsoft Word. In short, he prepared a map or rough outline so that he Could easily see, almost at a glance, if each part of his paper would lead Coherently to the next part. L In surveying his outline, Beer became aware of points that he should have included but that he had overlooked.

A tentative outline, after all, is not a straitjacket that determines the shape of the final essay. To the contrary, it is a preliminary map that, when (examined, helps the writer to see not only pointless detours—these will be eliminated in the draft—but also undeveloped areas that need to be worked up. As the two versions of Beers outline indicate, after drafting his map he made some important changes before writing a first draft.

Writing a Draft. Working from his thoughtfully revised outline, Beer 'wrote a first draft, which he then revised into a second draft. The truth of the matter is that when we write a first draft—even after we have jotted ‘down notes and thought about rearranging and amplifying them—we are still writing to clarify our ideas for ourselves; we are still getting ideas, still learning, still teaching ourselves. Probably it is only after we have written a first draft that we can seriously begin to revise our thoughts for a reader.

Modem word processing programs, such as Microsoft Word, allow you to track the revisions made to a document and look at different versions of a

58 CHAPTERS FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

document. However, many writers find comfort in having a printed copy of! each draft to go over with a pen; the desired changes can then be made (and] kept track of) on the computer. ]

The word draft, by the way, comes from the same Old English root that) gives us draw. When you draft an essay, you are making a sketch, putting on| paper (or screen) a sketch or plan that you will later refine. |

Outlining a Draft. A good way to test the coherence of a final draft—to I see if indeed it qualifies as an essay rather than as a draft—is to outline it, 1 paragraph by paragraph, in two ways, indicating (

(a) what each paragraph says < (b) what each paragraph does i

Here is a double outline of this sort for Beer’s seven-paragraph essay. ] In (a) we get a brief summary of what Beer is saying in each paragraph, I and in (b) we get, in the italicized words, a description of what Beer is | doing. I

Reminder: An outline of this sort is not intended as a device that wilH help a writer produce a first draft; rather, it is a way of checking a final | draft. Probably the best way to produce a first draft is, after doing some 1 thoughtful looking, to jot down a few phrases, think about them, add I and rearrange as necessary (see the example on page 56), and then start i drafting. J

1. a. Historical background and brief description I b. Introduces the artwork |

2. a. The condition of the artwork I b. Provides further overall description, preparatory to the |

analysis 1 3. a. The geometry of the work j

b. Introduces the thesis, concerning the basic, overall geometry | 4. a. Significant details I

b. Modifies (refines) the argument I 5. a. The head |

b. Compares the realism of head with the breasts, in order to 1 make the point that the head is more detailed 1

6. a. The pose 1 b. Argues that the pose is not static I

7. a. Geometric, yet individual I b. Concludes, largely by summarizing i

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WORDS “REALISTIC” AND “IDEALIZED” 59

POSTSCRIPT: THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WORDS “REALISTIC" AND "IDEALIZED”

P A RULE FOR WRITERS: feu may or may not want to sketch a rough outline before drafting your

■essay, but you certainly should outline what you hope is your final draft, do see (a) if it is organized, and (b) il the organization will lie evident to ■the reader.

In his fifth paragraph (page 55) Beers uses the word “realistically,” and in his final paragraph he uses “idealized.” These words, common in essays on art, deserve comment. Let’s begin a bit indirectly. Aristotle (384-322 B.c.) ’says that the arts originate in two basic human impulses, the impulse to imitate (from the Greek word mimesis, imitation) and the impulse to create patterns or harmony. In small children we find both (1) the impulse to imitate in their mimicry of others and (2) the impulse to harmony in their fondness for rocking and for strongly rhythmic nursery rhymes. Most works of art, as we shall see, combine imitation (mimicry, a representation of what the eye sees, realism) with harmony (an overriding form or pattern produced by a shaping idea). “We can imagine,” Kenneth Clark wrote, “that the early sculptor who found the features of a head conforming to an ovoid,

,]br the body conforming to a column, had a deep satisfaction. Now it looks fas if it would last” (Introduction to Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries, 1970, |page 15). In short, artists have eyes, but they also have ideas about basic ^patterns that underlie the varied phenomena around us. " For an extreme example of a body simplified to a column—a body (shaped by the idea that a body conforms to a column—we can look at ^Constantin Brancusi’s Torso of a Young Man (1924). Here (page 60) the (artist’s idea has clearly dominated his eye; we can say that this body is 'idealized. (Some writers would say that Brancusi gives an abstract version .of the body, gives the essence of form.) Looking at this work, we are not sur prised to learn that Brancusi said he was concerned with the “eternal type

An outline of this sort, in which you force yourself to consider not only the con tent but also the function of each paragraph, will help you to see if your essay

' • says something and K • says it with the help of an effective structure.

If the structure is sound, your argument will flow nicely.

60 CHAPTER 3 FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

[i.e., the prototype] of ephemeral forms,” and that “What is real is not the 1 external form, but the essence of things.... It is impossible for anyone to I express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface.” The real I or essential form represented in this instance is both the young man of the 1 title and also the phallus. .1

The idea underlying works that are said to be idealized usually is the | idea of beauty. Thus, tradition says that Raphael, seeking a model for the 1 beautiful mythological Galatea, could not find one model who was in all | respects beautiful enough, so he had to draw on several women (the lips of I one, the hair of another, and so on) in order to paint an image that expressed | the ideally beautiful woman. Examples of idealized images of male beauty ]

■I

Figure 3. 1996.141, Portrait Head of Antinous, Roman, Mid-Imperial, Late Hadrianic, ca. a.d. 130-138. Marble, overall 9 Yi X 9 % in. (24.1 X 21 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Bronson Pinchot in recognition of his mother Rosina Asta Pinchot, 1996 (1996.401). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY.

POSTSCRIPT: THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WORDS “REALISTIC” AND “IDEALIZED” 61

lire provided by many portrait heads of Antinous (also Antinobs), the youth feeloved by the Roman emperor Hadrian. Writing in the Bulletin of the iMetropolitan Museum of Art, Elizabeth J. Milleker calls attention to the Combination of “actual features of the boy” and “an idealized image” in such fahead (see the head of Antinoos on this page):

This head is a good example of the sophisticated portrait type created by imperial sculptors to incorporate what must have been actual features of the boy in an idealized image that conveys a godlike beauty. The ovoid face with a straight brow, almond-shaped eyes, smooth cheeks, and fleshy Bps is surrounded by abundant tousled curls. The ivy wreath encircling his head associates him with Dionysos, a guarantor of renewal and good fortune.

—Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Fall 1997): 15

Realism has at least two meanings in writings about art:

1. a movement in mid-nineteenth-century Western Europe and America, which emphasized the everyday subjects of ordinary life, as opposed to subjects drawn from mythology, history, and upper- class experience;

2. fidelity to appearances, the accurate rendition of the surfaces of peo ple, places, and things.

Figure 2. Constantin ] Brancusi, Torso of a I Young Man, 1924. ? Polished brass, 18 with original wood base, 1 58 ViPhotographer: a Lee Stalsworth. The J Hirshhom Museum and is Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Joseph H. Hirshbom, 1966.

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In our discussion of realism, we will be concerned only with the second definition. Naturalism is often used as a synonym for realism; thus, a work that reproduces surfaces may be said to be realistic, naturalistic, or illusionistic; veristic is also used, but less commonly. The most extreme form of realism is trompe-Toeil (French: deceives the eye), complete illusionism—the painted fly, on the picture frame, the waxwork museum guard standing in a doorway, images created with the purpose of deceiving the viewer. But of course most images are not the exact size of the model, so even if they are realistically rendered, they do not deceive. When we look at most images, we are aware that we are looking not at reality (a fly, a human being) but at the product of the artists gaze at such real things. Further, the medium itself may prohibit illusionism; an unpainted stone or bronze head, however accurate in its representation of cheekbones, hair, the shape of the nose, and so forth, cannot be taken for Abraham Lincoln.

Idealism, like realism, has at least two meanings in art: (1) the belief ' that a work conveys an idea as well as appearances and (2) the belief— derived partly from the first meaning—that it should convey an idea that elevates the thoughts of the spectator, and it does this by presenting an image, lets say of heroism or of motherhood, loftier than any real object that we can see in the imperfect world around us. (Do not confuse idealism as it is used in art with its everyday meaning, as in “despite her years, she retained her idealism,” where the word means “noble goals.”) The story of Raphael’s quest for a model for Galatea (mentioned on page 60) is relevant here, and somewhat similarly, the Hadrianic sculptors who made images of Antinous, as the writer in the Metropolitan Museum’s Bulletin said, must have had immind not a particular youth but the idea of “godlike beauty.”

By way of contrast, consider Sir Peter Lely’s encounter with Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), the English general and statesman. Cromwell is reported to have said to the painter, “Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark [i.e., take notice of] all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me.” Cromwell was asking for a realistic (or natural istic, or veristic) portrait, not an idealized portrait like the sculpture of Antinous. What would an idealized portrait look like? It would omit the blemishes. Why? Because the blemishes would be thought to be mere trivial surface details that would get between the viewer and the artist’s idea of Cromwell, Cromwell’s essence as the artist perceives it—for instance, the nobility that characterized his statesmanship and leadership. What distinguishes the idealizing artist from the ordinary person, it is said, is the artist’s imaginative ability to penetrate the visible (the surface) and set forth an elevating ideal.

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In short, realism is defined as the representation of visual phenomena inexactly—as realistically—as the medium (stone, bronze, paint on paper B canvas) allows. At the other extreme from illusionism we have idealism, for instance, in the representation of the torso of a young man by a column, ^realistic portrait of Cromwell will show him as he appears to the eye, warts and all; an idealized portrait will give us the idea of Cromwell by, so to speak, airbrushing the warts, giving him some extra stature, slimming him Sown a bit, giving him perhaps a more thoughtful face than he had, setting Kim in a pyramidal composition to emphasize his stability, thereby stimulat ing our minds to perceive the nobility of his cause. f Both realism and idealism have had their advocates. As a spokesperson for realism we can take Leonardo, who in his Notebooks says that “the mind of the painter should be like a looking-glass that is filled with as many images as there are objects before him.” Against this view we can take a remark by a contemporary painter, Larry Rivers: “I am not interested in the art of holding up mirrors.” Probably most artists offer the Aristotelian combination of imitation and harmony. The apparently realistic (primarily mimetic) artist is concerned at least in some degree with a pattern or form jthat helps to order the work and to give it meaning, and the apparently idealistic artist—even the nonobjective artist who might seem to deal only in harmonious shapes and colors—is concerned with connecting the work Jp the world we live in, for instance, to our emotions. An artist might ^deliberately depart from surface realism—mimetic accuracy—in order to gdefamiliarize” or “estrange” our customary perceptions, slowing us down nr shaking us up, so to speak, in order to jostle us out of our stock responses, 'thereby letting us see reality freshly. Although this idea is especially ^associated with the Russian Formalist school of the early twentieth century, jt can be traced back to the early-nineteenth-century Romantic writers. For ^instance, Samuel Taylor Coleridge praised the poetry of William Wordsworth because, in Coleridge’s words, it removed “the film of •familiarity” that clouded our usual vision.

Somewhere near the middle of the spectrum, between artists who pffer highly mimetic representations and at the other extreme those who offer representations that bear little resemblance to what we see, we have the sculptor, hypothesized by Kenneth Clark, who saw the head as ran ovoid and said to himself, “Now it looks as if it would last.” Here the fidea” that shapes the features of the head (for instance, bringing the ''pars closer to the skull) is the idea of perfection and endurance, stability, -even eternity, and surely some such thoughts cross our minds when we perceive works that we love. One might almost write a history of art in 'terms of the changing proportions of realism and idealism during the lifetime of a culture.

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It is easy to find remarks by artists setting forth a middle view. In an exhibition catalog (1948), Henri Matisse said, “There is an inherent truth which must be disengaged from the outward appearances of the object to be represented. . . . Exactitude is not truth.” And most works of art are neither purely realistic (concerned only with “exactitude,” realistic description) nor purely idealistic (concerned only with “an inherent truth”). Again we think of Aristotle’s combination of the impulse to imitate and the impulse to create harmony. We might think, too, of a comment by Picasso: “If you want to draw, you must first shut your eyes and sing.”

We can probably agree that Prince Khunera as a Scribe (page 52) shows a good deal of idealism, but it also shows realistic touches. Stephen Beer’s analysis calls attention to its idealized quality, in its symmetry and its nearly circular head, but he also says that the eye is rendered with “descriptive accuracy.” Or look at Michelangelo’s David (page 70). It is realistic in its depiction of the veins in David’s hands, but it is idealized in its color (not flesh color but white to suggest purity), in its size (much larger than life, to convey theadeal of heroism), and in its nudity. Surely Michelangelo did not think David went into battle naked, so why is his David nude? Because Michelangelo, carving the statue in part to commemorate the civic constitution of the Florentine republic, wanted to' convey the ideas of justice and of classical heroism, and classical sculptures of heroes were nude. We can, then, talk about Michelangelo’s idealism^ and—still talking of the same image—we can talk about his realism. 1

Consider the three pictures of horses shown on page 65. Han Gan’s painting (upper left) is less concerned with accurately rendering the! appearance of a horse than with rendering its great inner spirit, hence the head and neck that are too large for the body, and the body that is too; large for the legs. The legs, though in motion to show the horse’s grace and liveliness, are diminished because the essence of the horse is the strength of its body, communicated partly by juxtaposing the arcs of its rump and its (unreal) electrified mane with the stolid hitching post. In brief, the

A RULE FOR WRITERS: There is nothing wrong with using the words realistic and idealized in vour essay but keep in mind that it is not a matter of all-or-nothing; there are degree's of realism and degrees of idealization. -

|Figure 6. Great Britain, County Down, Mount Stewart House & Garden—Hambletonian Sby George Stubbs © 1800. Oil on canvas 82 54" X 144 54". Photographer: NTPL. The Image Works.

sESgure 4. Chinese paintings. Night-Shining White, gang Dynasty (618?—907), 8th century. Attributed io Han Gan (Chinese, act. 742?-756) China Kindscroll; ink on paper; 12 % X 13 % in. |-30.8 X 34 cm.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. purchase, The Dillon Fund, 1977 (1977.78). photographer: Malcom Varon. 1990.BP41

•POSTSCRIPT: THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WORDS “REALISTIC” AND “IDEALIZED” 65

Architecture. Though for some purposes photographs of buildings are indispensable, try to write about buildings that you have visited. If you must I'ely on photographs, try to imagine yourself moving within the building.

painting shows what we in the West probably would call an idealized horseJ although the Chinese might say that by revealing the spirit the picture cap] tures the “real” horse. (It once had a tail, but the tail has been largely! eroded by wear, and the vestiges have been obscured by an owners seal.) 1

Leonardo’s drawing (upper right) is largely concerned with anatomical correctness, and we can call it realistic. Still, by posing the horse in profile! Leonardo calls attention to the animal’s geometry, notably the curves of the] neck, chest, and rump, and despite the accurate detail the picture seems tdl represent not a particular horse but the essential idea of a horse. (Doubtless! the blank background and the absence of a groundplane here, as in the! Chinese painting, contribute to this impression of idealizing.) 1

George Stubbs’s painting of Hambletonian (bottom), who had recently! won an important race, surely is an accurate representation of a particular! horse, but even here we can note an idealizing element: Stubbs emphasizes! the animal s heroic stature by spreading its image across the canvas so that ! the horse dwarfs the human beings and the buildings. 1

If your instructor asks you to compare two works—perhaps an’l Egyptian ruler and a Greek athlete, or an Indian Buddha and a Chinese | Buddha—you may well find one of them more realistic than the other, buf j remember, even a highly realistic work may include idealized elements, and! an idealized work may include realistic elements: |

gjgulpture. Photographs of works of sculpture are an enormous aid; we ^rn.see details of a work that, even if we were in its presence, might be l||yisible because the work is high above us on a wall or because it is Kfirouded in darkness. The sculptural programs on medieval buildings, Elfely visible in situ, can be analyzed (e.g., for their iconography and their Style) by means of photographs. But keep in mind the following points:

Bl • Because a photograph is two-dimensional, it gives little sense of a BL sculpture in the round. Fortunately, some Web sites do offer l|fy 360-degree panoramas of sculpture. I|k • A photograph may omit or falsify color, and it may obliterate EF distinctive textures. E1 • The photographer’s lighting may produce dramatic highlights B| or contrasts, or it may (by even fighting) eliminate highlights that K would normally be evident. Further, a bust (say, a Greek head in a Ep museum) when photographed against a dark background may seem Bp to float mysteriously, creating an effect very different from the BT rather dry image of the same bust photographed, with its mount Bp visible, against a light gray background. In short, photographs of

sculpture are highly interpretative. ■F- • A photograph of a work even in its original context (to say nothing K of a photograph of a work in a museum) may decontextualize the K work, for example, by not taking account of the angle from which Il the work was supposed to be seen. The first viewers of R Michelangelo’s Moses had to look upward to see the image, but ■ almost all photographs in books show it taken straight on. Similarly, Bp a photo of Daniel Chester French’s Lincoln can convey almost B nothing of the experience of encountering the work as one mounts B the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Bk • Generally, photographs do not afford a sense of scale (relative size); E for example, one may see Michelangelo’s David (about 13 feet tall) E as no bigger than a toy soldier, unless the photograph includes Bh human viewers.

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Impossible, therefore, write only about works that you have actually seen— Pgrks that you have actually experienced by standing in their presence. If E can’t see the original, ask your instructor to recommend the books or jEeb sites with the best reproductions of the works that you are writing ®Bout, but even with good reproductions the sense of scale is lost.

66 CHAPTER 3 FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

Cautionary Words about Digital Images Drawings and Paintings. The colors of images, reproductions in books, and images on the World Wide Web range from pretty accurate to very poor.

• Even if the color is good, reproductions give little if any sense of the texture of the original drawing or painting. They lose, for instance, the roughness or smoothness of the paper of a drawing, or the three 1-1 dimensionality and juiciness of thickly applied oil paint.

• Reproductions in books normally indicate the size of the original, but viewers nevertheless usually do not mentally transform the reproduction into the size of the original drawing or painting. A life-size portrait makes an effect utterly different from a minia ture, and standing in front of a Japanese screen that is 5% feet tall and 12 feet long differs from looking at a reproduction 5% inches tall and 12 inches long.

• Frames, even when they are designed by the painter, are rarely reproduced in textbooks or catalogs.

68 CHAPTER 3 FORMAL ANALYSIS AND STYLE

Remember, architecture is not a large sculpture, an object that one looks at; rather, it is a distinct place, a space in which one moves.

• Photographs tell us something about what the facades look like, but they tell us little or nothing about how well a building functions and little or nothing about how well it is built.

• Photographs rarely tell us how the building relates visually to its neighbors. (Eugene J. Johnson could not have said what he says on page 114 about the Seagram building if he had been working only from a photograph.)

• Human beings are rarely shown in architectural photographs, especially in photographs of interiors, which are likely to be neatly composed pictures rather than images of lived-in spaces. And without people, it is hard to sense the scale of the rooms.

Note: Advanced students may wish to consult Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936). The essay is available online: www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

ANALYTIC THINKING

1 To think is to disturb one’s thoughts. —Jean Rostand

—Neil Young

gEEING AND SAYING

; There’s more to the picture h Than meets the eye,

Hey hey, my my.

pi analysis is, literally, a separating into parts in order to understand the Hole. (Beer’s essay [53] on an Egyptian sculpture is a clear example.) ^hen you analyze, you are seeking to account for your experience of the ork. (Analysis thus includes synthesis, the combination of the parts into Se whole.) You might, for example, analyze Michelangelos marble statue

wavid (see page 70), the youth who with a slingshot killed the heavily armed giant Goliath, by considering:

, • Its sources (in the Bible, in Hellenistic sculpture, in Donatello’s bronze David, and in the political and social ideas of the age—e.g.,

[ David as a civic hero, the enemy of tyranny, and David as the embodiment of Fortitude)

• Its material and the limitations of that material (marble lends itself to certain postures but not to others, and marble has an effect—in texture and color—that granite or bronze or wood does not have)

( • Its pose (which gives the statue its outline, its masses, and its P enclosed spaces or lack of them) ; • Its facial expression

• Its nudity (a nude Adam is easily understandable, but why a nude i David? Statues of Greek heroes and gods were nude, so fcr Michelangelo dressed—so to speak—his David in heroic or even

godlike nudity. Further physical beauty can serve as a metaphor representing spiritual strength)

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/