GEC 11:

Reading Visual Arts

Prepared by:
Lyha L. Fias-ilon, MAENGL.
Faculty, College of Teacher Education and Liberal Arts
• Reading (and Understanding) Visual Arts is
an introduction to the visual arts.

• It surveys techniques, composition, materials

terminology, and the culture and social
influences of art forms.

• It is a modern but imprecise umbrella term for

a broad category of art which includes a
number of artistic disciplines from various
sub-categories.

• It emphasizes both art appreciation and

criticism, art making, and the further
development of the mind to which the visual
arts can contribute.
• Visual Arts Works:
• For copyright purposes, visual arts are
original pictorial, graphic, and sculptural
works, which include two-dimensional and
three-dimensional works of fine, graphic, and
applied art.

• Examples of visual arts works:

• advertisements, commercial prints, labels
• artificial flowers and plants
• artwork applied to clothing or to other useful
articles
• bumper stickers, decals (decorative stickers)
• cartographic works such as maps, globes,
relief models
• cartoons, comic strips
• collages
• dolls, toys
• drawings, paintings, murals,
• enamel works
• fabric, floor, and wallcovering designs
• games, puzzles
• greeting cards, postcards, stationery
• holograms, computer and laser artwork
• jewelry designs
• prototypes (models)
• mosaics
• needlework, craft kits, patterns for sewing,
knitting, crochet
• original prints such as engravings, etchings,
serigraphs/ silk screen prints, woodblock prints
• photographs, photomontages
• posters
• record jacket artwork or photography
• relief and intaglio prints
• reproductions such as lithographs, collotypes
• sculpture, ceramics, carvings, figurines,
maquettes, molds, relief sculptures
• stained glass designs
• stencils, cut-outs
• technical drawings, architectural drawings or
plans, blueprints, diagrams, mechanical
drawings
• weaving and lace designs, tapestries
• tattoos
Art is the product of creative human activity in
which materials are shaped or selected to convey
an idea, emotion, or visually interesting form.

The word art can refer to the visual arts,

including painting, sculpture, architecture,
photography, decorative arts, crafts, and other
visual works that combine materials or forms.

We also use the word art in a more general sense

to encompass other forms of creative activity,
such as dance and music, or even to describe
skill in almost any activity, such as “the art of
bread making” or “the art of travel.”
• Historical Views on Art:
• Antiquity: Skill or Technique

In ancient Greece, the word techne is the closest

equivalent to art. Techne, which means work or
technical skill, can be applied to the fashioning of any
sort of object. But the Greeks had a special
appreciation of mimesis (the imitation of reality) in
painting and of especially pleasing proportions in
sculpture and architecture.
Temple of Poseidon
The temple of Poseidon at
Paestum, Italy, was
constructed in the mid 5th-
century bc. Its massive,
closely spaced columns
are characteristic of the
Doric order.
• The Middle Ages: Craftsmanship

During the Middle Ages (about 350 to 1450),

Christianity dominated Western culture.

Thus the main purpose of the visual arts was to

teach people, many of whom could not read,
about religion.

Art taught by means of delight, drawing people’s

attention and helping them understand the
spiritual through fascinating forms (whether
delicately refined saints or monstrous devils),
ornately carved and painted decoration, precious
materials (including gold, ivory, and gems), and
colored light pouring forth from stained glass.
The Lady with the Unicorn
N o p ar t i cu l ar f o r m o f ar t w as co n si d e r e d
superior during the Middle Ages. High value was
placed on small-scale luxury objects such as
illuminated manuscripts, jewelry, and metal
objects used in church services.

The great medieval cathedrals—buildings that

required the skills of hundreds of craftsmen—
became the pride of entire cities.

Wealthy people decorated their homes with

huge tapestries that told stories from mythology.
Even clothing could be elaborately decorated
and express a person’s status and moral views.
Craftsmen, carefully trained in specialized
medieval workshops, made the objects we now
call art.

Our word masterpiece comes from this medieval

workshop tradition. The term refers to an object
made by a craftsman at the end of his training to
show he had acquired the skills to be called a
master.

During the Middle Ages a masterpiece could be a

statue, a stained glass window, or a pair of shoes.
• The Renaissance: The Genius and Design

The importance of skill and craftsmanship continued well into the

Renaissance, a period of artistic and literary revival that began in
the 1400s. During the Renaissance, the visual arts were often
associated with other trades based upon the type of material they
used. For example, in the guilds (trade associations) of 15th-
century Italy painters were grouped with doctors because both
used chemicals, and sculptors who worked in bronze were
grouped with makers of armor. However, the position of artists
began to change in the 15th century. Painters and sculptors
associated informally with poets, who occupied a higher social
status because poetry had long been considered a higher art.
Books were written to explain the theory of art and architecture,
and artists claimed that they were inspired geniuses and not
merely workers.
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Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise

The Gates of Paradise are bronze doors

created by Italian Renaissance sculptor
Lorenzo Ghiberti between 1425 and 1452
for the east entrance to the baptistery of
the Florence Cathedral in Italy. This detail,
showing Isaac and Esau, is from one of the
doors' ten panels, each of which illustrates
a story from the Bible. Ghiberti endowed
the scenes with volume, depth, and
movement, and helped initiate many of the
artistic practices of the Renaissance.

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During the 16th century, Italian theorists began to group
architecture, painting, and sculpture as the arts of disegno
(“design”)—that is, as creative activities that required an
artist to visualize an idea and to transfer this idea to a
drawing. (The Italian word disegno means both design and
drawing.)

Italian Renaissance writers also regarded narrative painting

as more valuable than other kinds of painting, such as
portraiture or landscape. Narrative painting told a story—
mythological, historical, or religious—and thus could teach
morals just as literature could. This type of painting, called
istoria in Italian or history painting in English, was
considered the highest form of painting until the late 19th
century.
15
Bacchus and Ariadne
(1518-1522, Nati onal
Gallery, London), by
Italian Renaissance
artist Titian, depicts a
scene from a Greek
myth about Bacchus,
the Greek god of wine,
and Ariadne, who has
been abandoned on the
island of Naxos.
Bacchus, arriving on
Naxos with his
entourage, leaps from
his chariot to reassure
Ariadne, left, who
appears somewhat
frightened by the
onrushing revelers. The
two quickly fall in love.
16
• 17th to the 19th Century: The Fine Arts

By the 17th century, artists across Europe were seeking

more creative freedom.
They viewed the workshops of the Middle Ages and
Renaissance as restrictive.
Some artists gained freedom by working at the courts of
monarchs and the nobility, while others made art to sell
directly to individual collectors.
Such freedom could mean a loss of artistic quality,
however.
As a result, art academies became increasingly important
as a way to enter into the profession without conforming to
guild regulations.

17
Charles I in Hunting Dress

Flemish artist Anthony van

Dyck was serving as court
painter to King Charles I of
England when he painted
this portrait in 1635.
Van Dyck’s elegant, refined
style had a lasting
influence on English
portraiture.
This piece is in the
collection of the Louvre, in
Paris, France.

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Painting of Arcadia by
Poussin
First mentioned in Greek
mythology, Arcadia is an
idealized landscape
populated by shepherds
and deities. This
pastoral setting appears
in Et in Arcadia Ego
(1640?, Louvre) by
French painter Nicolas
Poussin. Its Latin title
means ”I [death] am in
Arcadia, too,“ and the
shepherds in the
painting are looking at
this inscription on a
tomb and contemplating
their own death.

19
Academies emphasized ideas, particularly ideas that
connected the visual arts to the sciences or to literature,
fields that enjoyed much higher status than the visual arts.

At the same time, the academies wanted to separate

themselves from the workshops, where sign painting and
figure painting were seen as two variations on the same
craft.

The Académie des Beaux-Arts (Academy of Fine Arts),

founded in 1648 in Paris, France, especially emphasized
this distinction; it gave the arts of painting, sculpture, and
architecture the name beaux-arts, meaning “fine arts.”

20
The French Academy of Fine Arts made drawing from the
nude the cornerstone of its program, and it had enough
influence to force passage of a law that prohibited figure
drawing in any workshop other than the Academy.

It considered those visual arts that did not use the human
figure as crafts or mechanical arts, with much lower
prestige than painting or sculpture.

Although the Academy held classes in other subjects, such

as perspective, geometry, and anatomy, the working
methods of painting and sculpture were taught in the
studios of individual academy artists.

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Venus

Italian neoclassical artist Antoni o

Canova is noted for his marble
sculptures based on classical models.
He created the Venus Italica (1804-1812,
Pitti Palace, Florence) to replace an
ancient Roman statue known as the
Medici Venus, which French emperor
Napoleon I had seized from the Uffizi
Gallery in Florence in 1802.
The Venus Italica was hailed
immediately as Canova’s masterpiece.

22
• 19th Century: Self-Expression

The French Academy of Fine Arts enjoyed special favors

from the French government, and because of this
connection it became part of the establishment (dominant
institutions).

During the 19th century artists in France fought against

these institutions. In the early 19th century artists of the
romantic movement (Romanticism), such as Eugène
Delacroix, emphasized passionate expression. They often
chose subjects that criticized the government, although
their method of painting generally followed academic
principles of composition and technique.

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Liberty Leading
the People

French romantic
painter Eugène
Delacroix was
inspired to paint
Liberty Leading
the People after
the French
Revolution of
1830, which
ended France's
a b s o l u t e
monarchy.

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At mid-century Gustave Courbet and other French artists
promoted their individuality: They not only chose subjects
that the government might see as offensive, but also used
techniques and compositions that went against academic
teaching.

Starting in the 1860s Édouard Manet and the painters who

became known as impressionists broke away from the
Academy and established alternatives to government-
sponsored exhibitions and competitions.
These alternatives eventually evolved into the modern
commercial gallery system in which artists provide works to
dealers who exhibit and sell the works to any buyer who can
afford them.

25
Le Déjeuner sur
l’herbe
Le Déjeuner sur
l’herbe (Luncheon on
the Grass) by Édouard
Manet was painted in
1863. When it was first
displayed, the rough
brushwork and
undefined areas of
color were as
distressing to the
public as the nude
woman who was
neither a classical
goddess nor a symbol
in an allegory. Manet
claimed that the real
subject of the painting
was light, and it was
that philosophy that
g a v e b i r t h t o
impressionism.
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The idea that artists should express their own subjective
experience—what they personally feel about a theme or subject—
became firmly established in the 19th century.
Already in the 18th century some artists had reacted against the lack
of feeling in most of the art of their time. The romantic movement
continued this antiestablishment trend through its emphasis on
passion, imagination, and escape from reality.
Around the middle of the 19th century artists of the realist tradition
reacted against the subjective expression of romanticism and
demanded a return to depicting the actual appearance of things.
This response led in the 1860s and 1870s to efforts by the
impressionists to record light and color as we see them. Their
interest in light and color provided a way for artists of the next
generation to express what they felt—not what they saw—through
even purer (unmixed), bolder colors.
The idea that art should be a form of self-expression has remained
an important part of our definition of art to this day.
27
C r o w s i n a
Wheatfield (1890,
Rijksmuseum
Vincent van Gogh,
Amsterdam,
Netherlands) is
the last painting
that Dutch artist
Vincent Van Gogh
created before his
suicide.
His emotional
intensity is
conveyed through
the thick, agitated
brushstrokes and
the ominous
crows, which are
symbols of death.

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• 20th and 21st Centuries: New Media, New Art Forms

In the 20th and 21st centuries many trends have developed,

including some that seek to destroy our definitions of art.
Artists of the dada movement, which flourished in the early
20th century, created works and sponsored events that
pointed out the absurdity of all definitions.

One of the most famous dada works was exhibited in 1917 by

French-born artist Marcel Duchamp: a urinal turned on its
back, titled “Fountain,” and signed with a fictitious name (R.
Mutt) that plays on the urinal manufacturer’s name (J. R.
Mott) rather than Duchamp’s own name. Pop artists revived
the dada spirit during the 1960s, with Jasper Johns’s painted
flags and Andy Warhol’s painted soup can labels.
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Bicycle Wheel

French-born artist Marcel Duchamp

changed the course of modern art
in 1913 by exhibiting a bicycle
wheel turned upside down and
mounted on a kitchen stool.

Bicycl e Wheel was the fi rst of

Duchamp’s so-called readymades,
ordinary objects that he turned into
objects of art by changing their
context and exhibiting them as
sculpture.

Shown here is a 1964 replica of the

original, which is now lost.

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Campbell’s Soup Can (1962) by
the American pop artist Andy
Warhol is one of a number of
virtually identical paintings done
by the artist in the early 1960s.

The cartoonlike image, flat and

simplified, is characteristic of pop
art.

Warhol selected his subject

matt e r f r o m a m o n g s t i m a g e s
already present in popular culture
or advertising, thereby keeping
his work intentionally impersonal.

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Contemporary artists, aware of earlier traditions, can choose to
work in traditional media (including painting, sculpture,
printmaking, and now photography), combine media (collage and
assemblage), or avoid the traditional categories entirely.
For example, some artists create so-called environments that we
can walk around or through. Others, such as Bulgarian-born
Christo and American Robert Smithson, have rearranged the
natural landscape in ways that cannot really be called architecture,
landscape architecture, or sculpture.
Art critics have coined the terms land art and earthworks for such
endeavors. Still other artists have focused attention on the
monetary value we give to what we call art, by creating works that
cannot be sold, as some conceptual artists did in the last decades
of the 20th century.
Artists today can ignore the line that the academies drew to
separate fine art from craft, or they can affirm essential differences
between one art form and another according to their beliefs.
32
Robert Smithson was one of the pioneering artists of the earthworks movement of
the 1960s and 1970s. In Spiral Jetty (1970), one of the best-known earthworks,
Smithson explored time and entropy—the tendency toward disorder in nature.
Spiral Jetty, a narrow coil of black rock edged in salt, extends about 460 m (500 yds)
into the Great Salt Lake in Utah and is periodically submerged by water. 33
• Types of Art

Painting involves applying a pigment (coloring substance,

often a mineral) on a surface. The pigment is suspended in a
medium such as oil, water, or egg yolk, which helps the
pigment adhere to the surface or gives it other qualities
such as transparency or sheen.
Among the most common types of painting are fresco
painting, in which a water-soluble paint is applied to wet
plaster; oil painting, in which pigment is suspended in slow-
drying oil; tempera painting, in which pigment is suspended
in egg yolk; and watercolor, in which pigment is suspended
in water. The surface on which the paint is applied is called
the ground; some commonly used grounds include wood
panels, plaster, canvas, and paper.
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Sacrifice of Isaac

Italian painter
Giovanni Batti sta
Tiepolo is known for
his fresco paintings
executed in the light,
airy, rococo style.
This fresco depicts
the biblical account
of the sacrifice of
Isaac, in which an
a n g e l s t o p s
Abraham from
sacrificing his son.
The painting,
created between
1726 and 1728, is in
t h e P a l a z z o
Arcivescovile in
Udine, Italy.

35
Other two-dimensional media include vase painting,
mosaics, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, sand
painting, ink painting, and all forms of drawing and
printmaking. These other media share visual qualities with
painting—for example, color arrangements, light and dark
contrasts, or the illusion of space—and so are often
compared to each other in art textbooks.

Drawing and printmaking are often grouped together as the

graphic arts; they are generally done on paper, and line is
usually used to create form in each of them. Since the
1960s, however, the term graphic art has been more often
applied to art made for commercial purposes, such as
advertising. Today, graphic artists use photography and
digital media (images transformed or altered by computer)
as often as drawing.
36
Sculpture, a broad category, comprises three-dimensional
objects, whether freestanding (without other structures for
support) or attached to a background and called relief
sculpture.
Sculptors can make their objects by modeling a soft
material such as clay or wax; by carving hard materials,
such as stone or wood; or by assembling different sorts of
materials.
Works modeled in a soft material are often cast in a more
durable material such as plaster or bronze. Traditionally, we
have thought of sculpture as objects without movement that
are isolated from the viewer on a pedestal.
Since the mid-20th century, however, sculptors have
created objects that move, that share space with the viewer,
or that create whole environments in which people can
move.
37
Michelangelo’s David

One of Michelangelo’s best known

creations is the sculpture David
(1501-1504). The 5.17-m (17-ft) tall
marble statue shows an alert David
waiting for his enemy Goliath.

It originally stood in front of the

Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy,
but was later moved to the Galleria
dell’Accademia.

38
Architecture is the art of creating structures in which we can
live, work, worship, and play. Architects, more than painters
and sculptors, are concerned with the function of their
buildings as well as with the visual appearance, structural
solidity, and way in which a building fits into the landscape.

Landscape architecture and garden design use plants and

the land itself as materials to create outdoor spaces and
interesting visual effects. Urban planners use architecture
and landscape design at a larger scale, to shape the
communities in which we live.

A designer—someone who imagines and works with the

ideas—is common to all of these fields. Although many
people with specialized skills work to make the projects a
reality, the person considered the artist is the one who
39
Saint Basil’s Cathedral

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint

Basil in Moscow represents an exaggerated
development of Byzantine domed churches.

The richly ornamented building was

commissioned by Russian tsar Ivan IV, also
known as Ivan the Terrible, to
commemorate victories in battle and built
between 1555 and 1679.

The chapels of Saint Basil’s are topped by

colorful onion-shaped domes. Each dome is
different in size and decoration.

40
Gardens of
Dunrobin Castle,
Scotland

41
Photography, video art, film, and digital art all use
sophisticated technology to create images, which then can
usually be reproduced in multiple copies.

Photography may most closely resemble painting and the

graphic arts because most photographs are stable, two-
dimensional objects.
The photographer’s role, however, is different from the
painter’s.
Photographers select their subject matter, but light, rather
than the artist’s hand, makes the image.
Photographers make many creative decisions about film
development, printing, or digital adjustments, and they can
even add drawing or color by hand. However, the primary
process is mechanical and chemical.
42
43
Decorative arts furnish or embellish the spaces in which we
live, or adorn our bodies. Among the decorative arts are
textile and furniture design, metalwork, glass, ceramics
(pottery), and fashion design.
The categories of decorative arts and crafts overlap a great
deal, although we generally think of crafts as handmade
objects of simple materials, such as clay ceramics or
woven cloth.
Generally decorative arts and crafts are useful and lack
narrative or symbolic content. But the separation between
the decorative and fine arts is not always clear. Painters
can make works that avoid subject matter entirely, and
architects often design the furnishings for their buildings.
In many non-Western cultures, household items, such as
painted Chinese screens and African carved doors, can
have highly symbolic subject matter.
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49
Glass Marriage Cup

Glassmaking on the island of

Murano near Venice, Italy, had
reached an exceptional level of
quality by the Renaissance, as
shown in this 15th-century marriage
cup in blue glass decorated with
enameled figures and painted in
gold.

The cup, made by Italian

glassmaker Angelo Barovier
between 1470 and 1480, is in the
Museo dell’arte vetraria (Museum of
Glass Art) in Murano.

50
Original Creation by Alexander
McQueen

Cutting-edge British designer

Alexander McQueen created this
unusual outfit for his Autumn-
Winter collection in 2001.

That same year, McQueen won

Britain’s prestigious Designer of
the Year Award.

51
52
• Purposes of Art:

Through most of its history, art has served a variety of

purposes: to honor the dead, to recall the appearance of
rulers or relatives, to give visual form to gods, to create
sacred places, to display wealth, to teach, and to give
pleasure.

Many people today think of the visual arts at best as

isolated objects to contemplate in museums or, at worst, as
mere frills, unnecessary in education or life.

Historians trace such attitudes to 18th-century

philosophers who hoped to find an intellectual basis for our
perception of beauty and thus separated it from other
activities. Their view became known as “art for art’s sake.”
53
Even if we think of art as isolated from the rest of life, we
still must turn to architects to design buildings with
important functions, whether churches or banks.

We still value design in furniture and other useful everyday

objects, and want monuments to honor our heroes.

Visual effects in movies astound us, well-designed Web

pages appeal to us, and gorgeous images in advertising
persuade us.

The methods and materials have changed dramatically, but

art is still very much a part of our lives.

54
• Recording Appearances
An artist’s ability to reproduce the appearance of things in
our world lies behind some of the earliest uses of art.

Prehistoric people may have made carvings and cave

paintings of animals to ensure the fertility of the flock or for
use in rituals aimed at guaranteeing a good hunt.
Female figures in prehistoric sculpture typically have
exaggerated breasts and genitals and were probably used in
fertility rites.
Other sculptures found at burial sites show the appearance
of the person buried there.
Although no written records exist from this period, it seems
clear that prehistoric people made images for use in rituals
related to the most important events in their lives: birth,
death, and hunting—the means of the group’s survival.
55
Ferdinand VII Standing

Spanish artist Francisco de Goya depicted

the royalty and nobility who were his patrons
in a boldly straightforward, unidealized
manner.

Completed in 1814, this portrait of King

Ferdinand VII is in the Museo del Prado in
Madrid.

56
Whistler's Mother

One of the best-known

paintings by American
artist James Abbott
McNeill Whistler,
Arrangement in Black
and Grey No. 1: The
Artist’s Mother (1871,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris,
France), known more
simply as Whistler’s
Mother, demonstrates
his characteristic style
and reveals his
European influences.

57
• Making Visible the Invisible

Art can also make visible things we normally cannot see. The
extraordinary special effects in movies have their origins in the
ability of human beings to imagine and transform these imaginings
into substantial form.
Dreams and visions are dominant themes in some styles of art—
symbolism (symbolist movement) and surrealism, for example.

Throughout history, people have made images of gods, angels, and

demons; of events from the distant past or the far-off future; and of
what they wished the present would be but is not.
Imagination is at work in more practical forms of art as well. Any
act of planning involves imagining a result, and the artist or
architect uses drawings or models to show patrons—the people
who request the work—what the completed project will look like.
The drawings, as well as the finished projects, are valued as works
of art. 58
Botticelli’s La
Primavera

Italian Renaissance
artist Sandro
Botticelli painted La
Primavera (Spring)
about 1478 for the
Medici family. It
no w h a n g s i n t h e
Uffizi Gallery in
Florence, Italy. The
painting’s visual
appeal lies in a
sensual interplay of
shape, color, and
r h y t h m , b u t
interpretations of its
meaning derive
from Neopl atoni c
philosophy and
Renaissance
symbolism.
59
The Gross Clinic (1875) is
considered the masterpiece
of American realist painter
Thomas Eakins.

The painting was rejected

for an exhibition in
P h i l a d e l p h i a t o
commemorate the
centennial of American
independence because it
was considered too harshly
realistic.

The painting measures 2.4

m x 1.9 m (8 ft x 6 ft 6 in).

60
The Scream

Norwegian artist Edvard

Munch produced powerful
paintings and graphic
works that portrayed the
inner turmoil of his
subjects.

The Scream (1893), with its

sinuous forms, violent
colors, and screaming
subject, is the most famous
of his paintings.

Munch’s expressive and

anguished works
profoundly influenced the
development of German
expressionism.

61
Giving visible form to a deity is only one way people have
used art for religious purposes.

Some of the most important works of architecture are

religious structures, such as cathedrals, chapels, mosques,
or temples.

Their sizes, plans, and decoration reflect the religious

practices of the people who use them.

An enormous, ornate structure shows the power and glory

of the god, while a smaller, restricted space may express
the mystery of the divine presence.

Some societies have found exquisitely worked, costly

objects as appropriate ways to honor God, while simpler
62
forms might emphasize the accessibility of God to humans.
Saint Jerome’s
Chapel, Taos
Pueblo

The Taos
Pueblo of New
Mexico is a
N a t i v e
American
village. The
Taos people
settled in the
area more
than 1,000
years ago.
Shown here is
Saint Jerome’s
Chapel, a
C a t h o l i c
church that
was built in
1850.
63
Just as monumental architecture can honor gods, it can
also show the power and prestige of human beings and
their institutions.

The scale, organization, and ornamentation of government

buildings, schools, and residences (palaces or private
homes) give us good indications not only of the function of
the building, but also of the social or economic status of
the owners.

64
• Communicating

Art in all its forms can display wealth, power, and prestige.
Because of the high value of art, it may seem affordable to
only an elite class of patrons and collectors.
Some works of art, however, were created specifically to
appeal to the general populace.
For example, art that adorned churches communicated
religious beliefs to worshipers.
Portraits of leaders or images of historic events sometimes
carried a political point of view.
Before newspapers became widely available art also
conveyed news of general interest.
Easily reproducible art forms, such as photographs or
prints, are the perfect media for art that teaches or
persuades.
65
Spanish artist Pablo Picasso painted Guernica in 1937 in reaction to the
German bombing of the Spanish town of the same name. Francisco Franco,
the Fascist general who eventually defeated Republican forces in the Spanish
Civil War, ordered the bombing, which decimated this town in the Basque
region of northeastern Spain. Picasso took only two months to complete his
huge oil painting, which depicted the anguish and suffering caused by the
bombing. 66
• Delighting

An important purpose of art is to delight.

Some works of art are beautiful or charming in themselves.

Others delight us through their visual intricacy, by
reminding us of patterns in nature, and in many other ways.
Some art works even delight by frightening us with terrifying
sights, which are not really terrifying because we know they
exist only in the work of art.

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70
• Elements of Art:

• Composition
Of the formal elements in art, composition is probably the term
most commonly used and most confusing. Composition is the
arrangement of elements in a work of art.
All works of art have an order of some sort determined by the
artist: They may be balanced and symmetrical, swirling and
dynamic, or even chaotic and seemingly random.
We can describe some compositions by referring to a geometric
figure—for example, figures may be grouped to form a triangle—
but not all works are designed this way.
It sometimes helps to squint at a work or step back from it to see
its composition.
Look for general patterns of organization, no matter what shape
they may take.

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• Illusionism

With painting, drawing, and printmaking, people often speak of

illusionism—that is, the illusion of three-dimensional space on a
two-dimensional surface.

The techniques of illusionism range from overlapping shapes, to

using light-to-dark shading that models or rounds out a shape, to
using full linear perspective.

Perspective creates the illusion of three-dimensionality through

lines that seem to extend back in space and meet at a single point
known as the vanishing point.

The history of Western art is more often than not a history of the
quest to create perfect illusionism.

At times, however, artists have turned their backs on this pursuit. 73

Italian Renaissance painter
Andrea Mantegna worked
at the Ducal Palace in
Mantua, decorating the
Camera degli Sposi (bridal
chamber) wi th frescoes
from 1465 to 1474.

On the ceiling he created

the illusion of a dome
opening onto the sky, with
pai nted f i g u r e s l o o k i n g
down into the room below.
Such trompe l'oeil (fool-the-
eye) ceiling painting
became especially popular
in the 1600s.

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• Realism, Naturalism, and Idealism

The terms realism and naturalism are used to describe how

closely objects seen in a work of art resemble those we
experience in everyday life.

The terms are closely related but not quite interchangeable.

Realism suggests a precise copying of the actual appearance
of objects, warts and all.

Naturalism is a way of depicting objects as they might exist—

in other words, it implies a certain amount of improvement of
the actual appearance.

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Idealism refers to a perfected, or idealized, view of nature.

Sometimes this idealized image comes from an idea in the

mind, rather than anything actually observed in nature.

Idealized works also may be naturalistic in that they are

based upon nature, but at the same time they ignore
imperfections. Idealized portraits, for example, show the
subjects in flattering ways, whereas realistic portraits show
them with more flaws, but also with more individuality.

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• Abstraction

Abstract and nonobjective are terms most often used in reference

to modern art, although abstraction also commonly occurs in
ancient art and in the art of many world cultures.

Abstract art usually begins with a recognizable object, that the

artist then simplifies to show some purer underlying form.
Nonobjective, or nonrepresentational, art goes a step further and
removes any references to recognizable objects.

From a Western perspective, the elimination of a recognizable

subject from painting or sculpture seems a radical development
of the 20th century, but in other traditions people have long
placed higher value on abstraction.

In Islamic art, for example, elaborate patterns and calligraphic

lines enrich the surfaces of book pages and places of worship. 79
Spanish painter Pablo
Picasso used figures
from the circus and
the theater in a
number of his works.

The Three Musicians

(1921) features two
characters from Italian
commedia dell’arte
theater—Harlequin in
the diamond-patterned
costume and Pierrot in
white.

Some experts believe

that Harlequin
represents Picasso
himself.

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de Kooning’s Marilyn
Monroe

Dutch American artist

Willem de Kooning is
unusual among abstract
expressionists in that he
continued to paint the
human figure.

During the 1950s he

created a series of
paintings of women
using slashing strokes
of color, as in Marilyn
Monroe (1954).

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• Expressionism

No matter how realistic or abstract a work is, it can also be

expressive.

Clashing colors or rough brushstrokes often convey violent

emotions, such as anguish or anger.

Gentle curves and subdued colors can elicit quieter

emotions, such as maternal love.

It is easy to assume that artists express the emotions they

are feeling when creating a work, but more often the artist
chooses an expressive style appropriate for the subject
matter, genre, or setting of the piece.
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Still Life, Tulips by Emil Nolde

Emil Nolde was a member of Die Brücke, a

group of German expressionist painters.

He is known for his brilliant colors both in oil

paintings and in watercolors like this one. Still
Life, Tulips, painted about 1930, is in the
collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art
in Raleigh.

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• Style

The works produced by an individual artist usually have in

common distinctive and identifiable visual qualities.

These qualities form what is called the artist’s personal

style.

Because artists from a particular time or place share ways

of working, it is also possible to talk about the style of a
period—for example, a Renaissance style—or regional
styles—Polynesian style, for instance.

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by 19th-century Dutch
painter Vincent van Gogh

85
• Subject Matter

All of the formal elements of art and the more general idea
of style are separate from subject matter.

Artists working in 16th-century Italy and 19th-century

France may paint the same mythological subject, but their
styles will be quite different.

Literary sources, such as classical writings or the Bible, can

help us understand the subjects of many works of art.

Even when we recognize a work’s subject matter, further

interpretation by experts often reveals additional messages
about the work or the artist’s time.
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