Stokstad's Introduction p.XIV

Starter Kit XIV 
Make sure you understand the page on the Formal Elements and Principles of Design as I had shown last class.  
In it contains the language we will be using to discuss works of art continually throughout the course. 

Vocabulary needs to be studied in order to become fluent in the visual language we are discussing. 

Extrapolate the main ideas from our text...

The Words Art Historians Use

Essential vocabulary to describe - textually/audibly interpret a visual image or form

Form

Refers to an object's structure (not shape). Form describes a 3D object or the illusion of three dimensionality.  

Composition

How a maker composes a creative form. This can be made either on a flat surface (2D) or in three dimensions (3D) as in something that exists in space, occupies space and has actual form.

Material: singular         
Media: plural 

The materials that an artist/designer moves around in order to make something.  This may include the ground, also known as the substrate. Tools may also fit into this category, for instance, a cell phone that takes a digital video file. Depending on the choice of material, a work may be expressed in very different ways. 

Technique 

The way in which a maker employs the materials, personal handling of material. Form, material, and technique interrelate and are central in the analysis of any human-made form.

LINE

".... a line is a dot out for a walk." Paul Klee

A path of a moving point

It describes the direction of a plane in space (actual or illusionistic)

It can vary in width = expresses visual weight

COLOR / HUE in painting it is an additive system
Color Mapping + light

Primary colors RYB 1 . 1 . 1 

Secondary colors OGV 2 . 2 . 2  

NYC Barry McGee installation 

[painters mix or use ADDITIVE color --- a theatrical lighting professional uses the SUBTRACTIVE use of color to create white light]

Complimentary color pairing: 1 + 2 they sit across from one and other

Analogous colors: share borders (they're neighbors)

Cazenovia College freshman

Moses Harris Color Wheel, print + published

Phillippe Otto Runge Farbenkugel (ColorWheel) .  1777 - 1810

Christian Faur . Pointlist crayons

TONE - usually refers to a darker VALUE

TINT - usually refers to a lighter VALUE

INTENSITY / SATURATION  refers to the purity of color degree of brightness or dullness
local color is the actual color of something

optical color is the visual color or imaginative color of an object 

VALUE / light and darkness of a color
TONALITY = degree of lightness or darkness

optical movement 

color perception (illusionary)

the intensity of hue + saturation 

color + light - optical transparency

monochromatic (is a limited color palette) vs. polychromatic (is a multiple color palette)

student work

expresses VALUE of BLUE and BLACK in 11 steps

TEXTURE

actual

implied

the variety of surface quality

SPACE

actual

implied as in pictorial (imaginary) space
Linear perspective depicts illusionary space

MASS and VOLUME

actual

implied

Spatial depth on a two-dimensional plane may be achieved in numerous ways. Here's two of them...

PERSPECTIVE and FORESHORTENING

1. Linear Perspective 

One point perspective = Parallel perspective, each is ways of depicting the illusion of space on a two-dimensional plane.

Two point perspective = Oblique perspective

Three point perspective Aerial perspective  -- Computer Generation gaming for instance.

2. Foreshortening is another illusionary device that causes a form to compact in a pictorial space

student drawing

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1592-1595 - 1610)
The Conversion on the Way to Damascus  - 1601

Andrea Mantegna (1431 - 1506) - The Dead Christ 

The Lamentation of Christ (also known as the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, or the Dead Christ) is a painting of about 1480 by the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Mantegna. While the dating of the piece is debated, it was completed between 1475 and 1501, probably in the early 1480s.

PROPORTION and SCALE

CARVING and CASTING

RELIEF SCULPTURE

ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS

ART HISTORY and OTHER DISCIPLINES

FORM = the term encompasses quality and attributes of a composition by using the elements and principles of visual design

LINE + SHAPE = direction and movementCOLOR = hue / primary / secondary / complimentary / analogous colors

VALUE = lightness and darkness / tints and tones

TEXTURE = actual and implied

SPACE = actual and implied (depthful space)

MASS = volume / weight of solid matter, illusionary/implied or actual

SCALE = comparative size between forms and images

COMPOSITION = organization or arrangement of visual forms and images

CONTENT = subject matter - may be of representational of a social, political, religious, economic, cultural theme or may be purely formal of an abstract nature

STYLE = Period and Regional style
                Representational
                Idealization
                Illusionistic
                Formal / Abstract

MEDIUM and TECHNIQUE = use of materials and how they are employed.   Medium = singular material  

p. XXIII
Two Dimensional Pictorial Devices that Depict Recession in Space 
Overlapping
diminution = scale
vertical perspective = lower subject appears closer
atmospheric perspective = objects in distance have less clarity
divergent perspective 
intuitive perspective
linear perspective 

See class BLOG page on The Elements and Principles of Visual Design

STYLE

These are ways of pinpointing historical identification:

Period style defines the characteristics of the artistic manner within a cultural context.

Regional style describes style and variety that are tied to an area or region.

Provenance defines the historical ownership of the work and often the place of origin.

Personal style not period, nor region sets creative making apart from other forms in characterized style.

Do you see problems in identifying creative production this way?

Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973), Family of Saltimbanque ROSE PERIOD 1904 - 1906

Pablo Picasso, Afficionado

ANALYTICAL CUBIST style 1908 - 1912

Introduction p. 1 - 17 
What is Art?
Is defined by "the quality, production, expression, or realm of what is beautiful, or of more than ordinary significance."

Global perspective / across past and present cultures

Labeling objects as art is usually meant to signal that they transcend in some profound way their practical function, often embodying cherished cultural ideas or asserting foundational values. 

What is beauty? 
Thus, impacts what we feel is important. This is culturally learned and experienced. 

Art appreciation does not require knowledge of the historical context of an artwork... Art history does.

What is Art History?

Paintings and sculpture, creative works created by humans date back to 40,000 years ago. 

WAYS OF SEEING

The history of art can be a history of artists and their works, of styles and stylistic change, of materials and techniques, of images and themes, their meanings, the contexts in which they arose, the cultures and patrons."

Art historians analyze humanly created works - we can only try to reconstruct meaning through the knowledge we already have. 

Historians assess and interpret through cultural context.

Modes of Representation
Trompe l'oeil painting - to "fool the eye"

Still lifes - paintings of inanimate objects, fruits, flowers, etc. sometimes having a Classical reference

Naturalism = Realism 
Some viewers would believe that this is the highest accomplishment an artist may be able to evolve to.  Please note, not ALL artists would agree, as we will see as we continue through the course. 

Compare these modes of representation to ABSTRACT works of art, also called non-objective, nonrepresentational

Smithsonian Magazine article

Stokstad's text reports studies of genes and fossils agree that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago. Although these earliest humans looked like us, it’s not clear they thought like us.

"Viewers can react to what they see, interpret the work in the light of their own experience, and judge it a success or failure. But the enjoyment and appreciation of artworks in museum settings are relatively recent phenomena, as is the creation of artworks solely for museum-going audiences to view." RE: Gardener's Art through the Ages

Art Appreciation vs. Art History

"The central aim of art history is to determine context and cultural circumstances 'persisting events' of human history."

Why?

Works of art shed light on the cultures that made them. 

Art production also may challenge preexisting cultural notions with the human creative production of ideas and forms.

SUBJECT MATTER

narrative . action . time . place . people involved  is Representational

vs. Abstract and non-objective works

Has no subject matter, rather the subject is the creative work itself. 

The formal elements that make up the work: Line - Shape - Volume  - Mass - Space - Texture - Color - Value - Composition

The Genre 

Art historical categories of the pictorial subject: religious, historical, myth, genre (daily life), portraiture  landscape, still life

Iconography = the writing of images

The study of symbols - images that represent other ideas within creative production or communicate ideas.

c. 2012 update Who designed the Twitter bird?

Original "Larry" = 2006

"The original Larry, to which the present icon bears little resemblance, was created by Simon Oxley, a British graphic designer who has since produced many mascots for online companies. The bluebird was just one illustration he offered for sale on the iStock website in 2006, where someone at Twitter bought it for approximately $15"

Icons = Symbols, Signs and signifiers

(Christianity: Saint John = eagle, Luke = ox, Mark = lion, Matthew = a winged man).
This will be evident when we get to Medieval art

Personifications = abstract ideas codified in the human form

Who is the maker?

Who is the work attributed to? 
How can we identify an anonymous work? Base knowledge of internal evidence, shared geographical evidence, stylistic evidence, etc.

Who paid for it? 
Speaks to the concept surrounding The $value$ of Art

The patrons of a work of art, obviously, help shape what is good in terms of style and subject matter.  Example: Portraits busts from the ancient Roman world would not have been created for the lower class Bruno or Aynnemarie.

Often times the patron describes the prescribed manner in which the work will be produced.  

Does this become problematic? 
It is based on old ways of making, and thus, doesn't give rise to new forms.

In our Western world, people in power dictated what would be made.

Pharaohs, Popes, patrons, The Church, emperors, monks.  

Often only the artist/designer themselves decide what to make, where to make it, and what it is about, as seen in the work below by Keith Haring.

Keith Haring (1958 - 1990) NYC subway drawing

This is why Keith Haring got arrested numerous times

"An ancient potter decorating a vase for sale at a village market speaks about the athletes in the earliest Olympics."

Signed by Nikkias . The Metropolitan Museum of Art . NYC

Disciplines of art production

In the late 20th century and 21st c. art historians and critics of culture, are constantly expanding what the art object is. 

How old is the object? 

How is this determined?

i. Physical evidence

ii. Documentary evidence and official records

iii. Internal evidence notes identifiable objects, people, architecture, etc. discovered within the work of art.

iv. Stylistic evidence notes the artist's distinctive manner or style. 

In art history, the work of art is seen as an embodiment of the values, goals, and aspirations of its time and place of origin.
i. assessment of physical properties
ii. analysis of formal visual structure
iii. identification of subject matter / conventional symbolism
iv. integration within a cultural context

In 1971, Whitney Museum of American Art mounted an exhibition  by art historians Jonathan Holstein (of Cazenovia, NY) and Gail van der Hoof called "Abstract Design in American Quilts."

International Quilt Study Center & Museum
World Quilts: The American Story

Abstract Design in American Quilts . The Whitney Museum of American Art . 1971

The quilts were "seen" as non-representational / abstract works of art having no representational objects in them. 

Paul Klee: Fire at Full Moon, 1933

Let us return to the question -
What is beauty?

Te Pehi Kupe, Self-Portrait, 1826

John Henry Sylvester, Portrait of Te Pehi Kupe, 1826 watercolor on paper

Contemporary Mau Moko

The world of Maori tattoo. In the traditional Maori world the moko, facial or body tattoo, was the genre and part of everyday life. Individuals have/had some patterning on their skin. Men wore elaborate designs on their faces. Women's were usually less complex but elegant, and both sexes had extensive bodywork. After almost dying out in the 20th century,Maori skin art is now experiencing a powerful revival, with many young, urban Maori displaying the Moko as a spectacular gesture of ethnic pride and identity...

Te Taupura life mask at the Rotorua Museum. Ta Moko is the traditional chiseling and inking of the face and body of the Maori of New Zealand.

Jen Pepper . Performing Objects: Color Ranges throughout the Ages . ICELAND
knit Icelandic wool, felted, worn and photographed -- This is MY color chart as interpreted by colors created through the ages beginning with Prehistory - Ancient Egyptian - Ancient Greco Roman - through 20th Century with the addition of DayGlo colors!