Art Fundamentals Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2
The Need and Search for Art ART Many interpretations
FUNDAMENTALS The basic fabric of art
The Need and Search for Art Discussion
What is your definition of ART? What “IS” art and what is “NOT” art?
The Need and Search for Art Some Definitions of ART:
The formal expression of a conceived image in terms of a given medium. (Cheney)
The making of a form produced by cooperation of all the faculties of the mind (Longman)
Significant form (Bell)
The Need and Search for Art Definitions of ART:
A unified manifold which is pleasuregiving (Mather)
A diagram or paradigm with a meaning that gives pleasure (Lostowel)
Objectified pleasure (Santayana)
The Need and Search for Art Definitions of ART:
The formal expression of a conceived image in terms of a given medium. (Cheney)
The making of a form produced by cooperation of all the faculties of the mind (Longman)
Significant form (Bell)
The Need and Search for Art Definitions of ART:
A unified manifold which is pleasure-giving (Mather)
A diagram or paradigm with a meaning that gives pleasure (Lostowel)
Objectified pleasure (Santayana)
The Need and Search for Art PLEASURE
PLEASURE a component of art. It is a different thing to different people. Art can be a relaxant or stimulant. For the artist, it can also produce frustration and a sense of achievement.
The Need and Search for Art AESTEHTICS
AESTEHTICS the appreciation of the “beautiful”.
Definitions of BEAUTY
Historical cultures have had their own concepts of beauty, many of which would not correspond to contemporary tastes.
The Need and Search for Art The PUBLIC
What does the public often like and expect in art?
THREE THINGS:
The familiar subject The recognizable subject The sentimental or “pleasant” subject.
The Need and Search for Art The PUBLIC
Poorly executed
Expertly executed
Not all people, even with similar backgrounds, would agree on the “beauty” of a given subject, much less its interpretation.
The Need and Search for Art The ARTISTS
More concerned with the “how” (the technique used to create the work), than the “what” (the final product)
Art has always been produced because an artist has wanted to say something and has chosen a particular way of saying it.
Vincent Van Gogh
The Need and Search for Art ď Ž
Many people want to be actively engaged in art but find that much of what they see is not meaningful to them.
The Need and Search for Art ď Ž
In order to gain some appreciation for the many forms of art to which we have access today, we must understand the basics from which they have grown.
The Need and Search for Art ď Ž
Understanding by examining the nature of the many factors involved in producing artworks, including the principles that govern those factors.
The Need and Search for Art The PUBLIC
Poorly executed
Expertly executed
Not all people, even with similar backgrounds, would agree on the “beauty” of a given subject, much less its interpretation.
The Ingredients of Art
Subject - Form - Content In Art, we have the motivation (subject), the substantiation (form), and communication (content.)
Form
Subject
Content
Organic Unity Subject Form Concept
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Subject
Traditionally Person, object, theme
Today abstract age
particular configuration of the art elements, a record of the energy and movement of the artist
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Form
The work’s appearance or organization
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content Traditionally The work’s total message as developed by artist and interpreted by the viewer. Today Derived from the artist’s experience.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art: ď Ž
Principles of organization: Harmony, variety, balance, movement, proportion, dominance, and economy.
ď Ž
Elements of organization: Line, Shape, Value, Texture, and Color.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Subject
A person, a thing, or an idea. In abstract or semiabstract works, the subject may be somewhat perceivable. In nonobjective works, the subject is the idea behind the form of the work, and it communicates with those who can read the language of form.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Subject
The subject is important only to the degree that the artist is motivated by it.
The subject is just a starting point.
The way it is presented or formed to give it expression is the important consideration.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Subject
Art parallels music in presenting a “nonrecognizable” subject.
The subject is an idea rather than a thing.
All of the arts have subjects that obviously should not be judged alone, but by what is done with them.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Form ď Ž
A result of the use of the ELEMENTS of line, texture, color, shape, and value and their relationship to the PRINCIPLES of harmony and variety.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
In Art, we have the motivation (subject), the substantiation (form), and communication (content.)
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Form
Formal organization involves all the visual devices available to the artist in the material of his or her choice.
Arrange Intuitively vs Logically
Formal order
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content
The emotional or intellectual message of an artwork.
A statement, expression, or mood read into the work by its observer, ideally synchronized with the artist’s intention.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content ď Ž
The symbols of death: blacks and somber grays, reduced awareness of texture, and emphasis of low diagonals.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content
For many people, content is confined to familiar associations, usually by feeling aroused by known objects or ideas. More meaningfully, content is not utterly reliant on the image but reinforced by the form created by the artist. This content is found in an abstract as well as more realistic works.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Form
Art objects Sculpture total organization or composition A result of the use of the ELEMENTS of line, texture, color, shape, and value and their relationship to the PRINCIPLES of harmony and variety.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content ď Ž
ď Ž
Abstraction: All visual artworks require some degree of abstraction. A greater degree of abstraction is often more difficult to understand and appreciate.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content ď Ž
ď Ž
Abstraction: A process that imposes itself on the artist in reaching the desired effect in a work. Involves reordering and emphasis, stripping-down to expressive and communicative essentials.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content
Simplification vs Making the deeper meaning more accessible.
Abstract is more often a VERB than a NOUN. (a process not a product)
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content
The artist manipulates the artistic elements line, shape, etc. (the “what”) to create the kind of form (the “how”) that will result in the desired content (the “why”)
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content
Organic Unity: containing nothing that is unnecessary or distracting, with relationships that seem inevitable.
Wholeness is difficult to detect in the works of some contemporary artists who challenge tradition.
The distinction between subject, form, and content are blurred.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Organic Unity ď Ž
Conceptual Art: the concept is foremost, the product is considered negligible, and the concept and subject seem to be one.
ď Ž
Process Art: the act of producing is the only significant aspect of the artwork
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Organic Unity ď Ž
Perceptual Artist: Records only what is perceived.
ď Ž
Conceptual Artist (idea-oriented): concerned with responses that with commonplace perceptions.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Creativity ď Ž
ď Ž
Creativity emanates from ideas. An idea is born in the mind.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Concept
A Concept:
an all-encompassing plan, a unique or particularly suitable set of relationships, an attitude that could be conveyed a way of conveying an attitude a solution to a visual problem
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Concept
In the artist’s mind, the idea occurs as mental imagery, an inspiration, or the end product of much thoughtful searching (notes, sketches, …) Creative enterprises are occasionally plagued by mental blocks. In Art, an idea is of value only when converted into visual reality.
The Three Basic Components of a Work of Art:
Content
Creativity emanates from ideas. An idea is born in the mind. A Concept:
an all-encompassing plan, a unique or particularly suitable set of relationships, an attitude that could be conveyed a way of conveying an attitude a solution to a visual problem
Savoring the Ingredients ď Ž
All art is illusory to some extent.
ď Ž
Some artworks are more successful than others at drawing us out of our standard existence into a more meaningful state.
Savoring the Ingredients
In seeing and hearing the arts, we are not in the everyday world, but rather a hyper-sensitized world of “greater” values.
ART ENLARGES OUR AWARENESS.
Savoring the Ingredients
Being Subjective: the artist reaches below surface appearances and uses unfamiliar ways to find unexpected truths.
The results can often be distressing for many observers. We all have the capacity to appreciate the beautiful or expressive. We must enlarge our sensitivity and taste, making them more inclusive.
Savoring the Ingredients
See the uniqueness in things. Every rose has a different character, even with identical breeding and grooming. Every object is ultimately unique. The artist should have the ability to see the subtle difference in things.
Savoring the Ingredients
One way to extend our responses to art is by attempting to see the uniqueness in things. Every rose has a different character, even with identical breeding and grooming. Every object is ultimately unique. The artist should have the ability to see the subtle difference in things.
Savoring the Ingredients
Savoring the Ingredients ď Ž
Perception is the key.
ď Ž
Optical Perception: When an artist views an object and is inspired to try to reproduce the original as seen.
Savoring the Ingredients ď Ž
Conceptual Perception: When another artist seeing the same object, the imagination triggers the creative vision and additional images are suggested.
ď Ž
Many people judge a work of art by how closely it can be made to look like something.
Savoring the Ingredients ď Ž ď Ž
The Camera! Photographers become artists when they are not satisfied with obvious appearances.
Savoring the Ingredients ď Ž
People tend to associate visual art with literature, hoping that it will tell a story in a descriptive manner.
Savoring the Ingredients ď Ž
In adapting ourselves to the rules peculiar to art, we must also place our own taste on trial.
ď Ž
Accepting the possibility that what is unfamiliar or disliked may not necessarily be badly executed or devoid of meaning.
Savoring the Ingredients
Artists expand our frames of references, revealing new ways of seeing and responding to our surroundings.
When we view artworks knowledgeably, we can be on the same wavelength with the artist’s finely tuned emotions.
The Ingredients Assembled
Elements of Art are:
Line Shape Value Texture Color
The Ingredients Assembled
The VISION
Two-Dimensional Effect (circle, triangle, or square)
Giving shape by the way the elements are brought together.
Elements lie flat on the picture plane.
Three-Dimensional Effect (sphere, pyramid, or cube)
Elements penetrate the plane.
The Ingredients Assembled The VISION
Decorative Ornamentation
Line is decorative if it does not leap toward or away from the viewer.
The Ingredients Assembled The VISION ď Ž
Plastic ďƒ When the elements make us feel that we could dive into the picture and weave our way around and behind the art elements.
The Ingredients Assembled The VISION
Sculpture We must move about the piece. Mass and Volume indicate the presence of three-dimensional art. An empty living room has volume in its dimensions, but no mass. A brick has mass within its volume.
The Ingredients Assembled Plastic vs Graphic Art ď Ž
Graphic Arts ďƒ drawings, paintings, printmaking, photography, and so on. Generally exists on a flat surface and rely on the illusion of the third dimension.
The Ingredients Assembled Plastic vs Graphic Art ď Ž
Plastic Arts ďƒ sculpture, ceramics, architecture, and so on. Tangible an palpable (physical), occupying and encompassed by their own space.
The Ingredients Assembled The Idea
An artist must begin with an idea, or a germ, that will eventually develop into the concept of the finished artwork. A thought that has suddenly struck the artist, or a notion that has been growing in his or her mind for a long time. The IDEA must be developed in a medium selected by the artist (clay, oil, pint, water color, etc.)
The Ingredients Assembled The Medium ď Ž
The artist Controls and is Controlled by the medium.
The Ingredients Assembled The COMPOSITION
The COMPOSITION the formal structure --- the most interesting and communicative presentation of an idea.
During this process ABSTRACTION will inevitably occur; elements will be simplified, changed, added, eliminated, or generally edited.
The Ingredients Assembled The Organic Unity The Creative Process should lead to Organic Unity: ď Ž
ď Ž
The culmination of everything that is being sought in the work, that every part not only fits, but that each one contributes to the overall content, or meaning.
CD Two-Dimensional Media and Techniques
Media are the materials used in making an artwork, and techniques control their application.
The artist’s interaction with the media.
Successful Process.
CD Two-Dimensional Media and Techniques
Painters smell and feel of fresh plaster – oil and watercolors Draftsmen heavy pressure or light touch – textural quality of paper Printmaking watching the physical surface change Photography innovations – experiments New Media Digital generated imagery, acrylics, preliquified watercolors, drawing pens, welding, plastics, aluminum, video, virtual reality, performances (dance, drama, sound, light, audience), ..
The Two-Dimensional Picture Plane
A flat surface the picture plane The need to somehow establish a relationship between the actual environment and the reduced size. Spatial illusions
The Two-Dimensional Picture Plane ď Ž
The artist may manipulate forms or elements so that they seem flat on the picture plane, or extend them so that they appear to exist in front of or behind the picture plane.
The Picture Frame ď Ž
Defined boundaries around the working area, or picture plane.
The Two-Dimensional Picture Plane
In three-dimensional art, the artist begins with the material – metal, clay, stone, glass, and so on – and works it as a total form against the surrounding space, with no limitations except for the outermost contours.
The Picture Frame ď Ž
ď Ž
Once its shape and proportions are defined, all of the art elements and their employment will be influenced by it. Within the picture frame on the picture plane.
The Picture Frame ď Ž
ď Ž
ď Ž
Many artists select the outside proportions of their pictures on the basis of geometric ratios. Most artists rely on their instincts rater on a mechanical formula. The direction and movement of the elements of art should be in harmonious relation to this shape.
Positive and Negative Areas
UNITY All of the surface areas in a picture.
Positive areas areas that represent the artist’s initial selection of elements
Negative areas Unoccupied areas
Positive and Negative Areas
Traditionally
Positive figure and/or foreground Negative background
Recently
Field positive Ground negative
Positive and Negative Areas ď Ž
Inexperienced artists usually direct their attention to positive forms and neglect the surrounding areas.
The Art Elements
The art elements: Line Shape Value Texture Color
Art Fundamentals Chapter 1 Introduction End