Experiencing Art

1
Experiencing Art

• How to look at visual and decorative arts

2
Where do you start?

• Take your time
• Warm up your eyes and mind

3
Describe the work

• Tell about the work
• Title, artist, nationality, year
• Does it depict an event or tell a story?
• Social context?
• Symbolic or representative?
• Does it inspire emotions?
• Use of color, lines, shapes
• Does it convey ideas?

4
Analyze the work

• Technical elements
• Line, texture, shape, space, color, light
  darkness
• Arrangement composition
• Focal point, contrast, variety, harmony, scale

5
Evaluate the work

• Did the artist accomplish what they were trying
  to do?
• What did you think of the work?

6
Mood

• What is the overall mood of the piece?
• How does it make you feel?
• Can you think of your own title for the piece?

7
Materials

• What is it made of?
• Do you have any associations with that material?
• What do you think it would be like to work with
  that material?

8
Colors

• What colors do you see?
• Are they warm or cool?
• What other ideas and feelings do you associate
  with those colors?

9
Lines

• What kinds of lines do you see (straight, curvy,
  jagged)?
• What do those kinds of lines suggest (power,
  energy, stability, movement, peace)?
• Does it seem to move in one particular direction?

10
Shapes

• Do you see any shapes?
• Do they appear organic or geometric, stable or
  unstable?
• Are there any negative shapes? How do they relate
  to the positive ones?

11
Texture

• What kind of texture does the piece have (smooth,
  rough, jagged, wrinkled, etc.)?
• Imagine it in a different texture - would the
  feeling/effect change?

12
Scale

• What is the scale (tiny, large, huge)?
• How does it compare to you or to things in the
  area around it?
• How would the piece be different if the scale
  were different?

13
Space

• How does the piece use space?
• How does it relate to the space around it?

14
lChristinas World, Andrew Wyeth (Amer.) 1948
15
Nighthawks, Edward Hopper (Amer.) 1942
16
Return of the Prodigal Son, Bearden (Amer.) 1967
17
Duel after a Masked Ball, Gerome (Fr.) 1858
18
Confrontation at the Bridge, Lawrence (Amer.) 1975
19
The Starry Night, Van Gogh (Dutch) 1889
20

• The Constructors, Leger (Fr.) 1950

21
Jimson weed, OKeefe (Amer.) 1932
22
Red Cross Train Passing a Village, Severini
(Ital.) 1916
23

• Pepper, Edward Weston (Amer.) 1930

24
Roll Call, Lady Eliz. Butler (Eng.) 1874
25
Adele Bloch-Bauer, Klimt (Austrian) 1907
26
Femmes de Tahiti (Sur la plage) Gaugin (Fr.) 1891