the artist as a visual communicator...• clay: before humans learned to weave cloth, they wore...
TRANSCRIPT
The Artist as a Visual
Communicator
Why is it art?
Why do people create art?
Why is it art?
• Craftsmanship: Someone who is skilled in the use of materials and tools
to produce well made objects.
• Design: If an object displays the conscious use of the elements of design,
then the product may qualify as a work of art---Line, Color, Shapes, Texture,
Form or Mass
• Technology: An object may also be classified as a work of art because it
reflects the technological advancement of the culture which produced it.
• Imagination: Another quality that characterizes a work of art is
imagination---it cannot be pointed to, like aspects of good design, but it can
be sensed.
• Image of Society: Art pieces also serve as an image of the times in which
they were created---artisans often provide or confirm the information about
early cultures.
Why do people create art?
• Utility: A term that describes the role of objects made primarily to
be useful.
• Religion: Religious and superstitious beliefs and activities have
inspired the creation of temporary and permanent objects to aid in
worship.
• Politics: Political art is aimed at influencing both friends and
enemies.
• Information: The use of art to teach assumes great importance in
cultures where there is no written language or where the literacy rate
is low.
• Aesthetics: The creation of an object just to be pleasing to sight
and touch (as most people think of most art today) has not always
been a conscious process.
The Visual
Communication Process • Subject Matter: Most artists use things as their subjects, things
such as people, objects, or animals etc…others use ideas such as
war, love, loneliness, or joy. Still others are concerned with the
scientific or mathematical aspects of art, design, and proportion
which become their subject matter.
• Narrative Subjects: In narrative paintings, the artist is telling a
story.
• Literary Subjects: Painters may use literary sources to get ideas
for their paintings.
• Religious Subjects: Any religious figure from any religion can be
the subject of a work of art.
• Landscapes: These are artworks of the natural environment---they
were not always popular subjects for artists.
The Visual
Communication Process • Cityscapes: Views of city streets, plazas, courtyards, buildings, and
activities taking place in the urban environment.
• Historical Subjects: Historical subjects have typically been painted
on large canvases, probably to lend importance or to memorialize an
event.
• The Figure: The human figure was first used as an artistic motif by
the Greeks who saw their gods as perfect human beings. During
the Middle Ages, such subjects were abolished by the church---it
was not until the late Renaissance that the figure was revived as a
painting subject.
• The Portrait: Portraits are artworks of people---alone or in groups,
young and old.
The Visual
Communication Process • Self-Portraits: Many artists make pictures of themselves.
• Genre Subjects: Genre painting refers to subjects of normal,
everyday activities which are carried out by ordinary people.
• Social Comment: Some artists want to make visual statements
about their society or the world.
• Still Life: A still life is a painting of inanimate objects---things that
cannot move.
• Animals: Artists are often intrigued by animals. Animals have been
used to symbolize fidelity, love, or cunning.
• Expression: Artists include their feelings about the subject. When
personal feelings and emotional feelings are added to a work, it is
an expressionistic painting.
The Visual
Communication Process
• Abstraction: Abstraction is the simplification of subject
matter into basic and often geometric shapes.
• Non-Objective Artwork: Artwork that has no
recognizable subject matter. The actual subject matter
might be color or the composition of the work itself.
Media: The Tools and Materials of
the Artist
• Drawing Media: • Pencil: The pencil has always been one of the most versatile
drawing tools, tracing its history back to the Roman stylus, a silver
pointed tool which made delicate lines.
• Charcoal: Charcoal is a soft, black substance, made by burning all
organic materials from twigs and sticks.
• Pen and Wash: When India ink is applied undiluted, it makes a
solid black area; when it is mixed with water, it produces a soft
gray. Washes---a term used to describe the dilution of inks with
water.
• Pastel: Oil pastels are a dry material, almost like colored chalk,
which are applied to a paper or canvas ground.
Media: The Tools and Materials
of the Artist • Painting Media:
• Fresco: Fresco is one of the oldest painting media and
considered one of the most difficult to master. It is a method
of painting in which pigments are suspended in water and are
applied to a thin layer of wet plaster so that the plaster
absorbs the color and the painting becomes part of the wall.
• Tempera: A water based paint whose vehicle is egg yolk.
Some commercially made paints are called tempera, but are
actually gouache.
• Oil: Became popular when artists needed to work on larger
surfaces with larger brushes. Oil colors are pigments bound
to a surface of wood or canvas with either linseed or poppy
oils
Media: The Tools and Materials
of the Artist • Painting Media:
• Watercolor: Watercolor has been used since ancient Egypt, it has come into its own only recently as a major medium. The binding agent in watercolor is gum arabic, a water soluble adhesive that sticks the pigments to the paper.
• Acrylic: Instead of using natural materials for binders, acrylic paints use polymer emulsions which can adhere pigments to almost any surface. Thinned with water and easy clean up, acrylics dry rapidly and can be applied heavily like oils and transparently like watercolors.
Printmaking Media
Various printmaking techniques began as a
way to furnish art to the masses at
reasonable prices. Even though copies
are made by the artist each copy is signed
and numbered---each edition is kept to a
limited number of copies, thus assuring
the value would remain constant.
Printmaking Media
• Woodcut: Parts of a flat block of wood are cut away and ink is rolled onto the raised remaining area, the surface can be printed to reveal a mirror image of the original cut-out design.
• Intaglio: Intaglio prints are made from the lines or crevices in a plate---produced an a metal plate, usually zinc or copper, by making lines and scratches in the plate.
• Lithograph: Lithograph or “stone writing” is made by drawing a design in a limestone slab with greasy crayon or ink---water will adhere only to where there is no greasy substance, is spread over the stone.
• Serigraph: Serigraphy “silk screen printing” requires a screen of silk or similar material, stretched on a frame. With a stencil attached to the silk, ink is forced through the stencil with a rubber squeegee. The open parts of the stencil allow the ink to pass through onto the paper or other printing surface.
6-color woodcut print: Kent Ambler, On the Hunt, 2008
Woodcut Print
M.C. Escher: Day and Night, 1938
Intaglio (etching) Print Albrecht Dürer, Rhinoceros, 1515
Intaglio (etching) Print Odilon Redon, The Shapeless Polyp Floated along the
Bank, a Sort of Hideous, Smiling Cyclops, 1883
Lithograph Keith Haring, Chocolate Buddha, 1988
Lithograph Joan Miró, Femme, lune étoile, 1963
Serigraph (silkscreen) Eelus, At-At-Ball, 2009
Serigraph (silkscreen)
Bob Masse, Bob Dylan concert poster
Sculpture Media
Sculptures work in a number of ways: by
cutting away (subtractive),
by putting parts together (additive),
by forming with hands (modeling),
and by producing from a mold (casting).
Sculpture Media
• Marble: One of the earliest forms of art was carving figures from wood or hard stone. Marble is an excellent sculptural material because it can be polished to a glass-like finish or left rough and textured.
• Bronze: Used in the casting process by making a mold---molten bronze would be poured into the mold, allowed to cool and then the surface cleaned and finished.
• Wood: Wood is very versatile and can be used in both additive construction and subtractive carving. It can be carved and nailed, filed and drilled, sanded and glued.
• Steel: Artists typically use an additive process with steel. Steel can be cut and welded together.
• Clay: Clay can be used in all four of the forming techniques: additive, subtractive, molding and casting.
Marble Sculpture Michelangelo, Pieta, 1499
Marble Sculpture Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, 1923
Bronze Sculpture Alberto Giacometti, Woman With Her Throat Cut,
1932
Bronze Sculpture John Wilson, Eternal Presence, 1985
Wood Sculpture Louise Nevelson, Untitled, 1964
Wood Sculpture Craig Nutt, Concorde, 1996
Steel Sculpture Richard Serra, Tilted Arc, 1981
Steel Sculpture Alexander Calder, Flamingo, 1974
Crafts: Media and Forms
In primitive cultures, people had-crafted objects for the daily activities of
cooking, carrying, and storing; for personal adornment; and for
seeking the favor of their gods or some supernatural forces. In trash
heaps and digs around the world, archaeologists have uncovered
pots, baskets, tools, utensils, ornaments, idols, weapons, and
decorative objects. Since these humble beginnings, crafts have
become more decorative, carefully designed, and durable. The
sophistication of these crafts has been a valuable aid in determining
the cultural advancement of a particular society. First and most
important to the craftsperson is the usefulness of an object and its
functional design (Form follows Function).
Crafts: Media and Forms
• Clay: Before humans learned to weave cloth, they wore animal
skins and made objects of clay. Clays of various types are dug from
the earth, and when formed, dried, and fired become extremely
durable.
• Fibers: The early processes of weaving and twining resulted from a
need for containers, clothing, and protective coverings for walls and
floors. Materials were available to twist, knot, twine, and loop into
forms that helped meet the basic needs. At a later time, weaving
was developed—the process of making textiles on some type of
loom.
• Glass: Glass is such a common item today that it’s difficult to think
of it as a precious metal. Yet the Egyptians used glass and precious
gems in jewelry, and it was an important part of King Tutankhamen’s
burial mask.
Greek Vases
Chinese Ming Vase
King Tuts Funeral Mask
Tlingit Indian Tribe
Southern Alaska
Tlingit Blanket
Joan Miro Tapestry
Egyptian Glass
Hand-Blown Glass
Italian Hand-Blown Glass
Mold-Made Glass
Crafts: Media and Forms
• Jewelry: Millions of pieces of jewelry have been made by excellent
craftspersons around the world---in nomadic societies, wealthy
families invested in jewelry and other portable items. Noblemen and
rulers in later years acquired great wealth, their collections of jewelry
until fine jewelry, gems, and wealth became synonymous. Simple
jewelry, on the other hand, can be made of any material that
enhances personal appearance---string, seeds, or basic metals like
copper. It satisfied the need for personal adornment in primitive
societies.
• Mosaics: Mosaics can be made of glass (Byzantine and Venetian
glass), stone (various colored marble bits), bits of ceramic tile,
pieces of wood, or even seeds and paper.
16th Century Jewelry
17th Century Jewelry
Crown Jewels of Britain
Crafts: Media and Forms
• Furniture: Like glass, furniture is taken for granted. Craftspersons
working with wood have produced such astounding results that they
often signed their pieces as painters and sculptors do.
Contemporary craftpersons are working with metal, glass, plastics,
leather, fibers, and wood to create furniture for offices, homes, and
public spaces, using modern production methods and finishing
techniques.
• Metalwork: Craftspersons working with metals have been
producing work for their societies ever since bronze could be
worked. As with other crafts, the competence of the craftspersons
provides a good indication as to the sophistication of the society and
its level of technology. Working in gold, silver, copper, bronze, iron,
steel, and aluminum, artisans have created their metal magic for
years.
Quaker Furniture
Shaker Blanket Chest
Louis XIV Furniture
Louis XIV Chair
Sterling Silver Sconce
Bronze Vessel
Gold Candelabra
Crafts: Media and Forms
Most crafts were made to be useful and not
simply to look at and enjoy. Some,
however, are of such high quality that their
aesthetic value outweighs their
usefulness---and they must be called art.
Design
A lot of artists have produced excellent work that seems
well planned and carefully designed, yet they might not
have had any formal training. Most artists and craftsmen
have an innate sense of design so that when they work
on a painting, sculpture, or ceramic piece, they intuitively
know what is right and comfortable. After centuries of
looking at paintings, sculptures, crafts, and buildings, art
historians and theoreticians have discovered that certain
aspects of good art are repeated.
This is called DESIGN!
Design
Design is really the structure of art---the grammar of visual language. Just as verbal language needs structure to make it understandable and effective (random words strung together are confusing), visual language needs structure to make it comprehensible. The elements of design are the vocabulary with which artists work; the principles of design are the grammar, suggesting how these elements can be used most effectively. These features are rarely used in isolation. Artists usually use all the elements and principles in concert to produce an effective visual statement.
The Elements of Design
The elements of design are everywhere, not just as paintings or sculptures. Lines are seen everyday. They can be two-dimensional like those on a sheet of writing paper or three-dimensional like the branches of tree or the cracks in a rock.
If a line on paper wanders around and finally crosses itself, the enclosed area is called a shape. Shapes have two dimensions. They can be geometric or organic.
A form is three-dimensional and encloses volume. Like shapes, forms can be geometric, irregular, or free form.
Value refers to the light or dark quality of a color or shape in a painting. Black is the darkest value; white is the lightest. When a basic red color is mixed with white, its value is lightened; if black is added, its value is darkened.
The surfaces of things have texture. Sandpaper, wool, cloth, leather, and asphalt have texture. A painting may simulate textures by using color and value contrasts.
Space is where people live. The volume of air around us is negative space (space not occupied by solid forms). But space also refers to the illusion of depth in a painting or drawing. Real space is three-dimensional while space in a painting is two-dimensional.
Design: Line
Line: An element of design that may be
two-dimensional (pencil or paper), three-
dimensional (wire), or implied (the edge of
a shape or form). Lines can be horizontal,
vertical, dotted, bold, or fine. Lines can
show direction, lead the eye, outline an
object, divide a space, and communicate a
feeling or emotion.
Design: Shape
A shape is an element of art. Specifically, it is an enclosed space, the boundaries of which are defined by other elements of art (i.e.: lines, colors, values, textures, etc.).
Shapes are limited to two dimensions: length and width. Geometric shapes - circles, rectangles, squares, triangles and so on - have the clear edges one achieves when using tools to create such shapes. Organic shapes have natural, less well-defined edges (think: an amoeba, or a cloud).
Design: Form
Form, the volume of mass objects have, is
the most important art element for
sculptors.
• Form is an element of art. At its most
basic, a form is a three-dimensional
geometrical figure (i.e.: sphere, cube,
cylinder, cone, etc.), as opposed to a
shape, which is two-dimensional, or flat.
Legos
Wood
Marble
Paper
Design: Texture
Texture, another element of art, is used to
describe either the way a three-dimensional
work actually feels when touched, or the visual
"feel" of a two-dimensional work.
Take rocks, for example. A real, 3-D rock might
feel rough or smooth, and definitely feels hard
when touched or picked up. A painter, depicting
a rock, would create the illusions of these
qualities through use of color, line, shape, etc.
Design: Space
Over the years artists have devised ways of showing depth or space in a painting—a process called perspective. When two objects overlap on a flat surface, and one is clearly behind and the other is in the front, a sense of depth is created.
Painters, drawers, and other 2-D artists also use atmospheric perspective (The effect produced by diffusion of light in the atmosphere whereby more distant objects have less clarity of outline and are lighter in tone) to show depth. The darker values are up close and the lighter values are far away; the colors also are more intense up close while the edges become softer farther away.
Figure Ground Reversal
One point Perspecitve
One-Point Perspective
Two-Point Perspective
Three Point Perspective
Atmospheric Perspective
Foreground and Background
Design: Color
Color is the one phase of art that is also a
science. There are three terms that artists use
in talking about color: hue, value, and intensity.
Hue is the name of the color—yellow is a hue.
Value is dark or light quality of a color—pink is
light value of red because white has been added
to it. Intensity is the brightness or saturation of a
color—the pure color is the most intense; if one
adds the compliment and grays it, it is less
intense.
Ray of Light
Prism
The Spectrum
Complimentary Colors
Design: Value
Value is the relative lightness or darkness of an object. The position of an object in relation to the light source has an impact of the relative value gradations. A gradation is a gradual change of color or shade such as from light to dark. An example of a gradation can be seen in a Grey Scale. Artwork that have mostly light values are called high-keyed and those of mostly dark values, low-keyed.
Josef Albers
Victor Vasarely
Principles of Design
The principles of design describe the general ways in which artists arrange the parts of their compositions (or sculptures, pots, weavings, buildings, or woodcuts). These organizers are balance, unity, emphasis, contrast, pattern, movement, and rhythm. The principles are never used in isolation but always in concert. A design may use balance to achieve equilibrium, but it may also contrast certain areas, emphasize one part of the design, achieve rhythm and movement, or produce an overall pattern. One principle may dominate, but when an overall unity is achieved, all the principles have probably been employed.
Principles of Design:
Balance • Symmetrical: Symmetrical (or formal) balance is a
roughly even distribution of visual weight or activity on each side of a central axis—like two equally sized children on a teeter-totter. Most paintings are perfectly balanced symmetrically as one side would be a mirror image of the other.
• Asymmetrical: Asymmetrical balance means the larger masses on one side of the painting may be balanced by smaller, contrasting, or more intensely colored parts on the other side. The asymmetrically painting is informally balanced and is usually more exciting than a formally balanced composition.
Symmetrical Balance
Symmetrical Balance
Asymmetrical Balance
Asymmetrical Balance
Principles of Design
Unity
• Unity: Unity combines the principles of design and the physical aspects of a painting to create a single, harmonious work. It can be compared to bringing together all of the instruments, tonal movements, and chords to make a single passage of sound. Artists can use various means to achieve unity—ie: Values are mostly high-keyed, specific brushstrokes appear throughout, all forms are rendered in the same fashion, and a consistent palette an insure unity because of the relationships they create.
Principles of Design
Emphasis
• Emphasis: Emphasis is a way of developing
the main theme in a work of art. It answers the
question: “What is the artist trying to say?” The
answers can be obvious or obscure. Artists may
emphasize one or more of the art elements---
such as color, line, or texture---and subordinate
the rest. Artist may also emphasize a particular
subject or concept—symbolism, daily life,
material magnificence, or historical fact.
Vermeer
Officer and the Laughing Girl
1655-1660
Principles of Design:
Contrast
• Contrast: Contrast refers to the to the differences in values, colors, textures, and other elements to achieve emphasis and interest. If all the parts of painting were alike, it would be monotonous and the viewer would lose interest quickly. To avoid monotony and to make the painting as visually interesting and exciting as possible, artists use contrasts of various kinds.
Tiepolo
Adoration of the Magi
1753
Contrast: artist: El Lissitzky
Principles of Design:
Pattern
• Pattern: Pattern can be produced by the
repetition of motifs, colors, shapes, or lines
in a painting.
Gustav Klimt:
Forest of Beech Trees, 1903
Islamic Art
Principles of Design
Movement
• Movement: Visual movement in art
directs the eyes of the viewer through the
work to a point of interest.
Van Dyck
Samson and Delilah
1628
Hokusai:
The Great Wave at Kanagawa
•
Principles of Design
Rhythm
• Rhythm: Rhythm is established in a
painting or other work of art when
elements of the composition (such as
curves, angles or vertical or horizontal
lines) are repeated. Repetitions can occur
at either regular or irregular intervals.
Rhythm and movement, like rhythm and
pattern are inseparable.
Giacomo Balla:
Speed of a Motor, 1913
Donald Judd:
Untitled, 1977