Scale and Proportion

Scale is used to depict an object from the size of an original object. The object in a painting can be bigger or smaller than the original object by using scale. Proportion includes the object and it's surroundings. Katsuskika Hokusai used both scale and proportion in his artwork From the Illustrations to 100 poems by 100 poets. The boat is seen as the main focal point of the painting. However, if you look in the background, you see hills and houses. In real life, a boat is not bigger than a grouping of hills or a house. Hokusai used scale and proportion to make the houses and hills in the background fit into the frame with the boat.

Visual Movement

Visual Movement or Continuation is used to create a path that the audience should follow in the picture. Eugene Delecroix uses this in his painting called Christ Asleep During the Tempest. In the picture I have included six arrows to show where the artist wants you to look. When looking at the picture, the movement starts at the bottom right hand corner and moves diagonally into the top left hand corner. The three yellow arrows were used to show the movement towards Jesus Christ. Starting with the yellow arrow in the water, the waves are painted on an angle so that they frame Jesus Christ in a depression in the water. The boat looks like it is going over a wave, but it also looks like the water is framing Jesus Christ. The middle yellow arrow demonstrates the arm of the man next to Jesus. He is painted to look like he is falling, but he creates a visual movement or point towards the sleeping Jesus. The third yellow arrow was used to depict how the people in the boat are mostly looking at Jesus. They are surrounding him, but their faces are looking at him. The red arrows depict the movement of the boat to the mountain. The storm in the sky looks like it began at the mountain peak because of the vertical lines that the clouds make. The boat and the man behind Jesus are pointed toward the mountain.

Contrast/Variety

Variation is created through contrast in a piece of art. For example, the rough textured background compared to the paintings on top of it in Dark Dreams on the Hillside by James Lavadour create variety. He uses the different lines within the pictures to make them blend, but the color with the texture of the background makes it stand out against them. The pictures use darker colors whereas the background uses a brighter purple and white to create a variety within. The pictures also look smoother than the background which portrays extreme roughness. The arrows point to the texture of the background compared to the smoothness of the pictures.  

Repetition/Rhythm

Repetition is the idea of something happening over and over again. Rhythm occurs when something happens over and over again in a composition. When these two work hand in hand, you create an artwork that has a certain object repeating over and over again. For example, the white, brown, and purple dots placed on the red background of Larry Poons Nixes Mate all seem to create a rhythm of vertical lines going off of the paper. If you follow the dots, they seem to make a criss-cross design on top of a red background which makes them pop out. The black arrows in the piece show the imaginary lines that are being created through the dots. 

Emphasis

Emphasis is used to draw the audience's attention to a certain spot or focal point in the artwork. This can be done many different ways. Color, contrast, isolation, and grouping are just a few ways that emphasis can be used. Anselm Kiefer's Heliogabal has at least three separate focal points. The painting is of a body of water at sunset. The main focal point in the sun in the center of the portrait. It is the main focal point because when you first look at the painting, it is the first thing you look at. The sun is set off through contrast from the blue ocean. It is intensely bright compared to what the water looks like. The second focal point is the orange part of the sunset just above the sun. This draws you to the third focal point of the word Heiogabal written into the sunset in orange and yellow. All three focal points are emphasized through direction. The water looks like it fades into the sun, while the vertical lines of the sunset lead you directly to the three focal points. The scale of the painting also helps with emphasis. The sun is smaller than everything else and as you progress through the paintings, each focal point becomes a little bigger.  

Asymmetrical Balance

Asymmetrical Balance is the balance of a picture through equal visual weight on each side. The Astronomer by Jan Vermeer includes two lines of asymmetrical balance. There is one horizontal line and one vertical line. Jan Vermeer is also known as Johannes Vermeer who is mentioned in our textbook on p. 155 through his artwork called Woman Holding a Balance. In The Astronomer, the horizontal line of symmetry is created by the holder of the globe. It separates the bottom half from the top half of the painting. A vertical line of symmetry is created through the edge of the cupboard in the background. This line shows equal spots of light and dark on each side of the painting. The top left hand corner and bottom right hand corner are shaded darker than the rest of the painting.

Frottage

By definition, frottage means to rub. Artists use this technique by placing a piece of paper over an object that has texture and rubbing the texture onto the paper. For example, Max Ernst created The Sea using this technique. You can see the textured area located in the circle. It looks rough and stone like, but is really just paint on a paper. You can also see frottage in the lines that are created. He used string as his textured object and rubbed over it in order to create the textured lines. There is also an example of impasto in the black background on the top part of the painting. The paint has been laid on thick in order to make it look textured. 

Impasto

Impasto is an art technique that is used to create actual texture. An artist uses paint in thick and heavy maneuvers. In Robert Ryman's painting Untitled, he has painted thick white strokes on top of thick tan strokes. He then put smaller brush strokes of yellow, green, and lavender in certain spots to make the white paint look textured. These different colors were used to make the white seem like it was rough and standing higher than the rest of the paint. Yellow, green, and lavender stand as the “shadows” to the white paint. Also, the dark colored canvas that he painted on makes the white stand out more which increases the texture.  

Intermediate Color Scheme Palette in an Artwork

An Intermediate Color Scheme Palette in an Artwork consists of the colors yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, red-violet, red-orange, and yellow-orange. Palette in an artwork means that the artist prefers to use certain colors. In this case the artist would prefer to use the colors mentioned above. Steve DiBenedetto's Contact was created using all of the above colors and black. Contact puts a spin on the intermediate color scheme palette because the background is done in these colors, but they fade into black in certain spots and then appear again. A great place to see this is in the bottom right hand corner of the painting. It starts as black, fades into the intermediate colors, and then fades back to black. The tie-dyed circle and triangle in the center of the picture demonstrate the intermediate colors of yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, red-violet, red-orange, and yellow-orange.  

Primary Color Palette in an Artwork

The primary color palette in an artwork consists of the colors red, yellow, and blue. In easier terms, the artist enjoys using these three colors to create their artwork. Jame Hammond created an artwork called Untitled using the colors red, yellow, and blue. Her artwork then becomes a primary color palette. The entire background red, yellow, and blue vertical lines intersecting. To create a contrast, she has a lite blue circle drawn in with a smaller picture drawn in the center. Although there is that contrast, the basis of the painting consists of the primary colors in the color wheel so it demonstrates the idea of a primary color palette.  

Cross Hatching

Cross Hatching is used to create volume and space within a drawing. One set of hatching is crossed by a different set of hatching at a certain angle on the figure. Sometimes, an artist will use a third or forth set of hatching to create what they are going for. The closer the lines get to each other, the darker the area becomes. Nude Woman, Kneeling by Michelangelo is completed by using cross hatching. It is demonstrated throughout her entire body but is most clearly seen on her chest, stomach, and left thigh. The cross hatching makes her look like she has volume or depth. As you can see, in the spots with the most cross hatching, she is darker in appearance than in places that have very little cross hatching like on her right thigh.  

Hatching

Mary Cassatt's piece called The Map demonstrates the technique called hatching. Hatching is when an artists uses parallel lines within close proximity. The closer the lines are to each other, the darker the area becomes. When looking at The Map, you can see that the picture is created strictly through parallel lines. The wall that was drawn behind the people clearly shows hatching as it is made of parallel lines. Another clear example of hatching is within the children's hair. Both of their heads have straight hair because the lines need to be parallel.  

Forshortening

Foreshortening is used to adjust an object so that it looks normal during the process of distorting an artwork into a close up view. For example, if the artist wanted to use this technique on a person, the whole body would be painting shorter. In the painting Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and His Parents, the entire piece of work demonstrates foreshortening. Andrea Mantegna painted the people so that they could be viewed sitting down. If he didn't use this technique, the people would have looked distorted. Instead, he created them so that they are proportional but closer up.   

Visual Overlapping

Visual Overlapping makes an artwork look like it is three dimensional. Overlapping makes the objects in the picture look like they are in front or behind one another. 1947 by Steve DiBenedetto uses the technique of overlapping. The gray rock shaped form clearly looks like it is placed in front of the rest of the painting. The different colors such as yellow, green, red, and orange are also clearly in front of the blue background. One way to create this technique to to paint an image bigger than the rest of the picture. Anther way to do this is to make the audience feel like they are looking down on the painting like in his artwork called Deliverance. 

Expressive Lines

Expressive lines are produced by the artist. They can be wispy or completely straight depending on what emotion the artist wants to recreate. For example, Van Gough is famous for using wispy lines in his artwork while Sol LeWitt is famous for using mostly straight lines. In Jasper Johns Passage, he uses straight lines. They seem more free flowing than rigid. He uses this technique is a bunch of his different paintings included the one mentioned in the textbook called Numbers in Color. Jasper Johns demonstrates an expressive line through his free flowing straight lines. 

Contour Lines

A contour line is a detected line that demonstrates the border of an object on a space. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's Study of a Small Boy shows the idea of a contour line through the rough sketch of the image. Although this is the final output of his idea, the sketch shows the border of the small boy.  It doesn't show a tremendous amount of detail.  All it does is clearly define where the boy is located on the space. 

Implied Lines

An implied line is a line that is created by a figure in a piece of art. It is a moving line is established by someone pointing a finger or an angle of a building. Madonna and Child, created by Titan was created with an implied line built in. If you look at the Madonna, her head scarf is painted so that it tips downward towards the child. The implied line is created through the head scarf and Madonna's head. It makes the audience focus on the child. 

Outlines

An outline a line that is drawn or painted on the outside of a figure. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith's Hide and Seek demonstrates what an outline is. The outlines separate the trees and Indians from the corn fields. This is a good example because there isn't a lot of detail, but just enough to distinguish what each object is based on the colors and outlines.  

Abstraction

Abstraction fits in between representational art and nonrepresentational art. Abstract art is art that shows hits of realism but usually can't be see by a person's eye. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's Two Dancing Men doesn't really tell a story when you first look at it, but the realism behind it is there. The two men are drawn in the center facing the circled ant hill. There is a cow on the top to signify a farm. There are also white feathers used to show a celebratory dance. All of these ideas can be seen in a realistic world which makes the painting abstract. 

Iconoclast

Iconoclasts or “image breakers” would destroy religious images because they thought it was a sin to draw people on religious books. They believed in the commandment against the worship of carved illustrations. Their life work was to destroy all pictures to prevent artists from upsetting God. In the textbook, they show a picture that has been destroyed. All of the heads have been erased from the people in the picture. I found another sculpture by Ai WeiWei called Perspective that also has a damaged face. It is meant to display a man laying on his back, but he has no arms, and his face is distorted. This sculpture demonstrated iconoclast ideas because the face looks like it has been destroyed. The entire body is rounded out and sculpted to look like a human body except for the face. It is choppy and looks like it is missing part of his head. This is why people are led to believe that it has been destroyed.  

Icons

An icon is used to speak powerful messages to the community through an artist's work. They can be religious, political, or pop culture as some examples. I used Jean-Michel Basquiat's In Italian to demonstrate how powerful an icon can be. For example, Basquiat uses the symbol of a crown in many of his paintings. In In Italian he wrote out crown of thorns and then crossed out the word thorns. He uses the symbol of a crown to demonstrate his own idea that he is a king and also to similar to the dreadlocks that he used to have (Book 7, n.d.). Another point is that of all of the words on the canvas, not one of them is in Italian so people try to understand why he named it In Italian in the first place. The reason for the name is that he spent a lot of time in Italy selling paintings. He was once detained at the Italian customs for have 100,000 dollars in cash on him. The main character is supposed to resemble a picture of Christ from the Baroque era which is why the crown of thorns is written over his head. As you can see, Jean-Michel Basquiat has many different meanings all combined into one painting (Seed, n.d.). This is why his In Italian is perfect to demonstrate how powerful an icon really is.

References

Book  (7), t. (n.d.). Jean-Michel Basquiat at Gagosian Gallery | New American Paintings/Blog. New American Paintings/Blog | Juried Exhibitions-in-Print. Retrieved June 8, 2013, from http://newamericanpaintings.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/jean-michel-basquiat-at-gagosian-gallery/

Seed, J. (n.d.). John Seed: Jean-Michel Basquiat: 80 Percent Anger and 20 Percent Mystery. Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. Retrieved June 8, 2013, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/basquiat_b_2750666.html

Nonrepresentational Art

Nonrepresentational Art is represented through an image that has no relation to the natural or objective world. Beatriz Milhazes's Picabo is a great example of nonrepresentational art. When you look at it, it has no relation to anything that can be seen from your own eye. The basis of Picabo is different colored squares. Milhazes paints over the squares with different objects such as circles and swirls. If you notice in the background, she paints small hearts and flowers. These are the only parts of the artwork that have any relation to the objective world. This makes it very much nonrepresentational.  

Representational Art

Representational Art shows natural images in a recognizable form. In other words, the more it looks like what you would see thorough your own eyes, the more representational it is. Albert Bierstadt's Sea Cove shows the ocean hitting the sand with a small land form with trees on it in the background. He also shows how the land form slopes down onto the sand with tree roots jutting out. There is seaweed on the beach to show how far the tide comes up on the sand at different times of the day. Sea Cove is extremely realistic which is the exact definition of Representational Art.

Subject Matter vs. Content

The subject matter of a piece of art is defined by what the picture literally shows you while content is defined by the meaning of the image. Yayoi Kusama's depiction of dots is great to use to demonstrate the difference between subject matter and content because they are completely different on this particular installation. As seen with Yayoi Kusama's artwork called Narcissus Garden, the subject matter is a room of 1,500 silver plastic balls that each reflect the person that is standing in the middle of the room. The content of the piece is meant to demonstrate how each person is simply a dot in the universe. She wants to show people that they are a little piece of this giant world by letting them see 1,500 reflections or “other people” around. I found it interesting to see how different the subject matter is compared to the content. When I first looked at the picture I just saw someone laying in a sea of chrome balls, but after completing my research I have found out that this artwork means so much more.

References

Unknown, A. (n.d.). A dot in the universe – Yayoi Kusama and the link between self and other | Mutable Matter. Mutable Matter | Interdisciplinary writing on representation, materiality and agency. Retrieved June 7, 2013, from http://mutablematter.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/a-dot-in-the-universe-yayoi-kusama-and-the-link-between-self-and-other/