THE PURPOSE & FUNCTIONS OF

ARTArt 100: Fundamentals of Art

What is Art?

• Usually refers to: music, dance, theater, literature, and the visual arts.

• Fine Art: painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, installations and prints

• Each grows from a common need to give expressive substance to feelings, insights, and experiences.

• The arts communicate meanings that go far beyond ordinary verbal exchange.

Banksy. “Parking” S Broadway Parking Lot (at W 9th St)

Los Angeles, CA. 2010

Work of Art• Visual expression of an idea or

expression, formed with skill, through the use of a medium.

• Medium: a particular material, along with its accompanying technique. (plural: media)

• Mixed Media : using various mediums to create a piece of art.

HOW TO TALK ABOUT ART: AN INTRODUCTION

Intention

The artist deliberately creates the object or experience as artThis is important, because once an artist has claimed the work to be art

the lenses through which we view it changes and so do the question.

Dan Havel & Dean Ruck. The Tunnel House. 2005

Olafur EliassonIce Watch Paris

2015

Intention differentiates the work from regular chunks of ice than snow you'd see in a snow storm.

ReceptionThe viewer deliberately approaches the object

or experience as art • There are objects that may have not been

intended to be art but we view them now as art because of their placement such as in a museum.

• Think about Egyptian tombs or Native American masks

• Think about your reception and how you perceive this art

ASKING QUESTIONS: WHAT WE CAN SEE

Formal AnalysisQuestions based on what you can

seeHelps to break down the art and

makes it more approachableRequires no outside research just

lookingComposition: how is the work

organized

Julie Blackmon. Olive and Market Street. 2012

Materials

What are artists working with.Traditional materials: oil, acrylic,

ink, pencil, watercolor.

El Anatsui (Ghana). Focus. 2015

“Media which comes with history, meaning, with something, means something to me. Not just oil paint from a tube. I can’t relate to that well. I would rather go for something people have used. Then there is a link between me and other people who have touched that piece.”

El Anatsui

Technique

How is the material used?The way they approach can make work incredibly different

Hilda Palafox (Poni).(Mexico). 2013. Oil on Wood

Chuck Close. Self-Portrait. Oil on Canvas. 1967-68

Rodolfo Baeza. Zapata. 2016 (Tepotzlan, Mexico)

Subject Matter• What is the work of?

• Is it a portrait, a landscape, historical, mythological, biblical, an image of war?

• Is the work abstract , representational or non-representational?

James Nares. 2016

Contextual Analysis

This part requires us to research the art about the things we can’t see.

• Reception and Intention• Who was the work intended for?• Who made it? A known individual, an

anonymous one, or a group of people?

• If the artist is known, is there information about his or her life, other artworks, or ideas that you can apply to understand the work of art you are analyzing?

• Was the artwork commissioned, or made for sale?

• Why was the work of art made?

• Who paid for it, and what does that tell us? (Art historians call this patronage.)

• Who would have seen this artwork, and where?

• Is there cultural and religious symbolism (iconography) in the work?

Deborah Kass. OY/YO. 2015

Process

What stages did the artist go through when creating the work, which may or not be visible in the final product?

Ben Charles Weriner. 5 Hour Energy Drawing #2. 2014

To create his drawings, the artist soaks monochrome drawings or to-do lists on chromatographic paper in solutions of drugs, creating colorful psychedelic washes generated by chance based on the substance’s chemical composition

How do you find “contextual” information about a work of

art? ■ Research! ■ Go online! Go on Google! Art websites.

Books! ■ Don’t be afraid to ask around the people

around you at museums/ gallery assistants/ even security guards!

Representational Art• depicts the natural appearance of things.

Abstract Art• works of art that have no reference at all

to natural objects• works that depict natural objects in

simplified, distorted or exaggerated ways.

Nonrepresentational Art• no specific reference to anything outside

themselves

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Representational Art

• Representational art depicts the appearance of things.

• It represents objects we recognize from the natural, everyday world.

• Objects that representational art depicts are called subjects.

• When human form is the primary subject, it is called figurative art.

• The most “real”-looking paintings are in a style called trompe l’oeil (pronounced “tromp loy”) French for “fool the eye”

René Magritte. La Trahison des Images. 1929. Oil on Canvas

Abstract Art• In art, abstract art may refer to

either two thing:

• 1. works of art that have no reference at all to natural objects

• 2. works that depict natural objects in simplified, distorted or exaggerated ways.

• In abstract art the artist changes the object’s natural appearance in order to emphasize or reveal certain qualities.

Theo van Doesburg. Abstraction of a Cow series. 1917. Pencil on Paper.

Nonrepresentational Art

• Often called nonobjective or nonfigurative art- presents visual forms with no specific reference to anything outside themselves.

• Amish quilts, many Navajo textiles, and most Islamic wood carvings consist primarily of flat patterns that give pleasure through mere variety of line, shape, and color.

• Just as we can respond to the pure sound forms of music, so can we respond to the pure visual forms of nonrepresentational art.

• Absence of subject matter actually clarifies the way all visual forms affect us.

FUNCTION & PURPOSE OF ART

Art for Delight• We need delight, enjoyment,

pleasure, decoration, amusement and embellishment in our lives to “lift us above the stream of life”

• Aesthetics: refers to an awareness of beauty or that quality in a work of art or other manmade or natural form which evokes a sense of elevated awareness in the viewer.

• Monochromatic: based mostly on one color

James Abbott McNeil Whistler.Nocturne: Blue and Gold- Old Battersea Bridge.

182-1875

Miriam Sweeney. Subversion. 2017

Geronimo Balloons

Chris LaBrooyby. Auto Aerobics

2013

Art as Commentary• Artists who view art’s primary

goal as communication between the artist and the viewer by the means of subject matter.

• Examples most often include: political statements, social commentaries, etc.

• Prints: works that exist in multiple copies

Francisco Goya. I saw This (The Disasters of War), 1810. Etching, drypoint and burin.

Shepard Fairey. Greater Than Fear.

2017

Patrick Martinez. equality,, 2016

Patrick Martinez. free 99 (hold ya head), 2016

Rora Blue.Handle With Care Series.2016-2017

Testifies clearly to what the artist experienced and takes us to a

specific place and time. Painterly: loose or spontaneous

brushworks

Berthe Morisot. In a Villa at the Seaside, 1874. Oil on Canvas.

Art as Commentary

• Another function of art has been to enhance religious contemplation

• most of the world’s religions have found ways to incorporate artists’ creativity into their sacred rituals, places, and ceremonies.

• Sainte-Chapelle. Paris, France.

Art in Worship and Ritual

Buddha Shakyamuni or Akshobhya

13th centuryNepal, 1200–1299

Coatilcue. Aztec. Late-Post Classic. (900-1521)

Mexico.

• Commemoration is something done as an aid to memory

• More often a public act, perhaps celebrating a significant person or event, or honoring patriotic actions.

• Commemoration of any kind connects us with the chain of humanity that stretches back for millennia, making human life seem more significant and valuable.

• “Crown of the Palace” was a tomb for the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan’s favorite wife, who died in childbirth.

• It sits at one end of a four-part paradise garden that recalls the description of Paradise in the Qur’an.

• Taj Mahal. Agra, India. 1632-1648

Art for Commemoration

Great Pyramids of Giza.Giza, Egypt.

4th century -2325 B.C.

Martin Luther King MemorialLei Yixin

Washington, D.C.2011

Daniel Chester French. Lincoln Memorial. 1920

• Government buildings, public monuments, television commercials, and music videos all harness the power of art to influence action and opinion.

• They invite and urge us to do or think things that we may not have otherwise thought of.

• idealism: the representation of subjects in an ideal or perfect state or form.

Augustus of Prima Porta. Early 1st Century AD. Rome.

Art for Persuasion

Barack Obama “Hope”Shepard Fairey2008

• Art fulfills an expressive function when an artists conveys information about his or her personality or feelings or worldview, aside from a social cause, market demand, commissioning ruler, or aesthetic urge.

• Art becomes a meeting site between artist and viewer, the viewer feeling empathy and gaining an understanding of the creator’s personality.

• Self-portraiture has traditionally been an important vehicle by which artists reach out to us.

Felix Nussbaum. Self-Portrait with Jewish Identity Card. 1943 Oil on Canvas.

Art for Self-Expression

Jackson Pollock Number 1, 1950 (Lavender

Mist)1950

VISUAL ELEMENTS & PRINCIPLES OF

DESIGN

Two-dimensional: picture surface that can be also covered with lines, shapes, textures and other aspects of visual form.

Two-dimensional art consists of paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs, which differ from each other primarily in the technique of their execution.

Three-dimensional: Three-dimensional media occupies space defined through the dimensions of height, width and depth.

It includes sculpture, installation and performance art, decorative art, and product design

LineA line is an extension of a point.

Characteristics of a line:

• Active or static

• Aggressive or passive

• Sensual or mechanical

• Can indicate directions

• Define boundaries of shapes and spaces

• Imply volumes or solid masses

• Suggest motion or emotion

• Can form patterns and textures

Lee Friedlander. Bismarck, North Dakota. 2002. Photograph

ShapeShape refers to the expanse within the outline of a two- dimensional area or within the outer boundaries of a three-dimensional object.

• Geometric shape: such as circles, triangles and squares

• Organic shapes: irregular, often curing or founded and seem more relaxed and informal than geometric shapes.

• When a shape appears on a picture plan (the flat picture surface)- the dominate shapes are referred to as figures or positives shapes; background areas are ground or negative shapes.

• Fundamental aspect of perception* it allows us to sort out and interpret what we see. Because are conditioned to see only objects and not the spaces between them and around them. M.C. Escher. Sky and Water I. 1938. Woodcut.

MassA three-dimensional area is called mass: the physical bulk of a solid body of material.

Fernando Botero- created a bronze horse of immense mass for a public monument in Mexico. The bulging legs and neck are intensified by the horse’s short backbone, bringing the four legs together like strong pillars.

The mass of this horse goes far beyond what mere muscle could produce, giving the body an inflated look.

Fernando Botero. The Horse. 2008. Bronze. Monterrey, Mexico.

SpaceSpace: indefinable. Simply put: it’s the empty space around us.

Linear perspective: system used to depict the way objects in space appear to the eye. Developed during the Italian Renaissance.

Note* objects appear smaller when seen at a distance than when viewed close up.

Vanishing Point: The place where parallel lines meet up at in space.

Horizon: the place where land and sky appear to meet.

One-point perspective: all the major receding “lines” of the subject are actually parallel and meet at one vanishing point.

Raphael. The School of Athens. 1508. Fresco

Light Everything we see is made from light!

Sunlight, or natural light, although perceived as white, actually contains all the colors of light that make up the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The source, color, intensity, and direction of light greatly affect the way things appear; as light changes, surfaces illuminated by it also appear to change. Daniel Chester French. Lincoln Memorial.

1911-1922

Color Artists and interior designers have long understood how color can dramatically affect moods, feelings, and emotions.

It is a powerful communication tool and can be used to signal action, influence mood, and cause physiological reactions.

Certain colors have been associated with increased blood pressure, increased metabolism, and eyestrain.

People surrounded by expanses of solid orange or red for long periods often experience nervousness and raised blood pressure

Blue has calming effects

Color to create hunger?

Color preferences is one way we express ourselves!

Color schemes Color groupings that provide distinct color harmonies are called color schemes.

Complementary: color schemes emphasize two hues directly opposite of each other on the color wheel, such as red and green.

When complementary colors are placed side by side they contrast strongly and intensify each other!

*the complements yellow and violet provide the strongest value contrast possible!

-Monkey Puzzle contains various examples of several complementary pairs, all in one exuberant disk. In some cases the complementary pair is one of the bodies; in others the pair includes the surrounding stripe. The black background further heightens the impact!

Keith Haring. Monkey Puzzle. 1988. Acyrlic on canvas.

Texture Refers to the tactile qualities of surfaces, or to the visual representation of those qualities.

Actual textures are those we can feel by touching, such as polished marble, wood, sand, or swirls of thick paint.

Simulated (or implied) textures are those created to look like something other than paint on a flat surface. Meret Oppenheim. Object (Breakfast in Fur) 1936.

Looking & Seeing

Difference between Looking and Seeing.

• Looking is habitual and implies taking in what is before us in a generally mechanical or goal-oriented way.

• Ex: doorknob, winters day.

• Seeing is a more open, receptive, and focused version of looking. In seeing, we look with our memories, imaginations, and feeling attached.

• Ordinary things become extraordinary when see them deeply. Edward Weston. Pepper #30. 1930.

Photograph.