assignment

FORMAL ANALYSIS _______________________

WRITING ASSIGNMENT

ANALYZING A WORK OF ART

• Artworks communicate visual ideas, just as speaking and writing communicate verbal ideas.

• In order for viewers to engage with art more deeply than through personal response alone (like/dislike), we must interpret the visual language of the artist.

ANALYZING A WORK OF ART

• We use a combinaAon of various methods, such as descripAon, analysis, and criAque, to understand the appearance and meaning – or content end of the work.

• Careful looking and research contribute to effecAve analysis. We can also apply our own viewpoints, or criAque.

FORMAL ANALYSIS • Ar#sts have many tools at their disposal, which we call the elements and principles of art (discussed throughout Module 2 of this course).

• The elements include line, form, shape, volume, mass, color, texture, space, mo6on and 6me, and value.

• Ar6sts use the principles, such as contrast, balance, unity, variety, rhythm, emphasis, pa;ern, scale, propor6on, and focal point, to organize the elements.

• A work of art is therefore a product of the dynamic interrela#onships between the various art elements and principles.

FORMAL ANALYSIS • The process of analyzing the elements and principles used by the artist is called

formal analysis.

• Making a formal analysis – a visual study - of a work of art is one way to understand more clearly the language used by an artist and to grasp how she or he applies elements and principles in a particular artwork.

• To analyze a work of art fully, formally, one describes in specific detail how each element and principal is utilized within it.

• The examples given in the following slides focus on specific aspects of the chosen works in order to highlight the elements and principles most prominently used by the artists.

In order to analyze a three- dimensional sculpture formally, you need to see the piece from all sides.

As the separate photographs of the bust of Queen Nefertiti show, different aspects of the sculpture emerge as we view it from various angles, yet as a whole, it is a vision of an elegant and confident woman.

Seen from in front, the face of the Egyptian queen is symmetrically balanced, except for the missing pupil in one eye, and she holds her head high.

In addition to the sculpture being 3-dimensional, its volume and lifelike quality are further enhanced by the queen’s painted skin (color).

The sculpture itself is smooth, but texture is implied by the use of color in the rich headdress and in the necklace that drapes her graceful neck.

Nefertiti’s marked cheekbones, full red lips, well- defined eyes, and strongly defined eyebrows portray her as an ideal beauty.

The edges of the tall, flat-topped crown create two sides of a triangle.

Two points of the triangle are the upper corners of her crown, and the third point is slightly below her neck.

This triangle of her crown has a central vertical line, originally a complete cobra, which helps to enhance the elongation of her neck.

(The edges of these forms create implied lines.)

From the side, the dramaGc height and angle of her crown meet the nape of her neck to create a sideways “V.”

This “V” funcGons like a direcGonal arrow and creates an implied line from the right to NeferGG‘s chin, highlighGng the formal symmetry of her beauty.

Her long, thin neck lends the Queen Grace and femininity.

Nighthawks, by the American artist Edward Hopper, conveys a sense of absence and loneliness.

When making a formal analysis of a two- dimensional work, such as this painting, useful aspects that you can consider are the locations of objects, the colors used, and the relationships between the parts of the composition.

In this scene, we see a darkened building in the background, with large shop windows on the boRom floor and five tall windows on the red brick upper story.

Together, these areas form repeated dark gulfs that communicate a sense of hollowness, gloom, and vacancy.

We noGce that even though the scene takes place in a city, the streetlights around are devoid of people and acGvity, creaGng a slightly eerie sense of sGllness and quiet.

In front of this building, the sidewalk wraps around a curved diner on the street corner, cutting off the group of people inside, when we see through the glass outer walls.

The struts dividing the panes, and the solid walls above and below, create a strong framework through which we focus on the four figures. The inside is brightly lit, in contrast to the streets outside.

This makes the room a particular area of emphasis in the picture: it further draws our attention to the people, and, together with the use of brilliant color in the yellow wall behind the counter, exposes them clearly to us, showing how isolated they are.

The stark contrast between the woman’s red dress and hair, the black suits and hats of the two male customers, and the white uniform of the waiter make the figures more distinct, both within the scene and from one another.

The artist remarked sometime after finishing the work, “Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city,“ and if we look more closely, within this careful use of formal devices we see that he intensifies the painting’s effect through his choice of specific details.

Despite being gathered together, the figures are not smiling and have very little interaction with one another; these individuals appear to be alone in their own thoughts.

One cannot tell whether the man and woman sitting together are actually a couple – they do not look at each other: he stares ahead, all her eyes are downcast.

Their hands are close, but do not touch.

These figures echo the two drink earns to the right: set very neatly together, but apart. The man and woman are further separated visually by the line of her right arm.

The waiter is enclosed on his own within the triangular space of the bar, and the other customer sits with his back to us, surrounded by six empty barstools.

Although the waiter is in an active pose, it appears that time has stopped.

This stillness only further enhances the sense of quiet, as if these lives are frozen, sealed off in their separate loneliness.

In Crucifixion of Saint Peter, Caravaggio uses high value contrast, asymmetrical balance, shape and implied moDon, and line to capture the anguish of Saint Peter and provide an evocaDve and sensaDonal experience of the crucifixion event.

The high value contrast of the dark background and stark highlights on the figures recalls stage lighting, creating a sense of drama and piercing focus on the figures in the foreground.

The asymmetry of the composiDon contributes to a feeling of acDon and movement. This affects the energy of the space the figures occupy and adds to the feeling or implicaDon of moDon.

The diagonal lines used in the posiDon of St. Peter’s body and cross add movement and create a more dynamic composiDon.

The downward direction of the central figure enhances the morbid quality of the scene, as the body descends down towards death.

Caravaggio shows great detail in the musculature of the figures, emphasizing the twisting tension in St. Peter’s body.

The diagonal lines that define the poses of the surrounding figures add to the sense of movement – this composition is a cluster of opposing angles, which increases the sense of physical force and stress displayed in the movement of the characters.

CHOOSE ONE OF THE

FOLLOWING FOR YOUR

WRITING ASSIGNMENT

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled, 1982.

Acrylic, spray paint, and oil stick on canvas, 72 1/8 x 68 1/8 inches.

Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819-23.

Oil mural transferred to canvas, 56 x 32 inches.

Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column, 1944.

Oil on masonite, 15.7 x 12 inches.

Frederic Edwin Church, Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860.

Oil on canvas, 40 x 64 inches.

Wadsworth Jarrell, Revolutionary, 1972.

Screenprint on paper, 34 x 26 ½ inches.

Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist, 1903-4.

Oil on panel, 48 2/5 x 32 ½ inches.

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Banjo Lesson, 1893.

Oil on canvas, 48 x 35 ½ inches.

Daniela Edburg, “Death by Cotton Candy” from the series Drop Dead Gorgeous, 2006. Archival ink print.

Honore Daumier, Rue Transnonain April 15, 1834, 1834. Lithograph, 11 ½ x 17 5/8 inches.

Carrie Mae Weems, “You Became a Scientific Profile,” from the series From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, 1995.

Chromogenic color prints with sand- blasted text on glass, 25 5/8 x 22 ¾ inches.

William Hogarth, “The Marriage Settlement” (from the series Marriage a-la-Mode), 1743. Oil on canvas, 27 ½ x 35 ¾ inches.

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872. Oil on canvas, 18.9 x 24.8 inches.