vcc midterm Flashcards
Description
- Avoid assumptions
- Physical/material aspects
- Content/subject matter
- Formal analysis
- Exhaustive (i.e. don’t skip ahead)
- Objective
Deduction
- Remain with the image itself, not outside of it
-How does the image make meaning? - Consider the viewer: you as viewer, ideal viewer, etc.
- Subjective
- Is not conclusive
Speculation
- Pose questions
- Develop hypotheses and program of research
- Use ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions
- Form research question(s)
- Determine useful theoretical
perspectives - Leading to conclusions, but still inconclusive awaiting research
Line
one-dimensional can include horizontal, vertical, diagonal & curved lines, have many purposes to delineate form and create direction
- Horizontal
- Vertical
- Diagonal
- Curved
Shape
“Shapes have two-dimensions-height and width– and are usually defined by lines
Geometric
- Circles
- Squares
- Rectangles
- Triangles
- Etc.
Organic
- Mimics nature
form
“Form exists in three dimensions, with height, width, and depth.”
Geometric
* Spheres
* Cubes
* Cones
* Pyramids
Organic
* Mimics nature
Space
“Real space is three-dimensional. Space in a work of art refers to a feeling of depth or three dimensions. It can also refer to the artist’s use of the area within the picture plane.”
Positive space
- The space occupied by main objects within an image
Negative Space
- The space surrounding main objects of an image
Three-dimensional
- Can be literal
- Can be illusionistic, through use of perspective, shading, and colour
Colour
Light reflected off objects
Hue
- gradation
Value
- brightness
Intensity
- strength
texture
surface quality of an object that we sense through touch. All objects have a physical texture. Artists can also convey texture visually in two dimensions
Two-dimensional
- Illusionistic achieved through colour, shading, line, etc.
Three-dimensional
- Literal, often determined by material and finishing
Formal Analysis
Elements of Art
Principles of Design
Elements of Art
(formal analysis)
Line
- Horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curved
Shape
- Two-dimensional
- Geometric: circular, rectangular, triangular, etc.
- Organic: imitates nature
Form
- Three-dimensional; literal
- Geometric: Spherical, prismatic, pyramidal, etc.
- Organic: imitates nature
Space
- Positive and negative; illusionistic
- Three-dimensional illusion through perspective, shading, etc.
Colour
- Value, hue, intensity
Texture
- Illusionistic or literal (three dimensional on surfaces)
Principles of Design
(formal analysis)
Balance
- Distribution of the elements of art across an image or object that creates stability
Contrast
- Opposite elements are arranged together
Movement
- Elements of art are used to direct the viewer’s eye to sequential areas of/through an image or object
Emphasis
- Elements of art are used to bring viewer’s eye to particular part of
image or object
Pattern
- Repetition of shape, form, or texture
Proportion
- Relationship of size elements
Unity
- Harmony of the relationship of all elements of composition
Denyse Thomasos
Trinidadian-Canadian artist 1964-2012
- Abstract artist
- worked mainly in acrylic
- Currently featured in retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario until February 20, 2023
- Graduate of UTM
Ekphrasis
(what is it?)
- A type of description that seeks to bring the image before the reader’s eye
- Can include the viewer’s subjective response to viewing the work
- Is sometimes criticized for being overly emotional
Ekphrasis
where did it come from?)
- Ancient Greek poetry
- Common in art history and art journalism prior to the
20th century - Became less common when it became cheaper to reproduce a work of art alongside printed text
- Key thinker: John Ruskin
Myth of mechanical objectivity
machine-made photography “more objective”than painting or drawing done by hand
Visuality
The ways vision is shaped through social context and interaction
- involves social codes
- enacted in a social field that includes images and built environments
- Whereas vision is the literal capacity to see, visuality is how practices of looking function culturally and politically
- Comes from art history and visual culture
- Began as a way to examine how power is enacted in ways that privilege the visual
- Key thinkers: Hal Foster and Nicholas Mirzoeff
Counter visuality
How resistance is enacted through visuality
- Defined by Nicholas Mirzoeff
- struggle for “the right to look”
- claim to autonomy from dominant forces
- assertion of the right to challenge dominant ways of seeing
Representation
The use of language, marks, and images to interpret the world around us
- Systems of representation do not reflect reality so much as mediate, organize, and construct it
- We “see” the material world through representations
- Systems of representation are structured by rules and conventions specific to a given culture
- These rules and conventions are flexible and changing
Semiotics
(what is it?)
- theory of signs concerned with words, images, and objects are vehicles for meaning
- A method of analyzing how people make meaning on a daily basis
- Complex images decoded almost instantly, with little thought to process
- clues may point to intended, unintended, and even merely suggested meanings
- clues may be formal elements of an image or cultural and sociohistorical contexts
- Structuralist
Semiotics
(where did it come from?)
- Philosophy and linguistics
- Late 19th century
- a way to examine how language conveys meaning
- Key thinkers: Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Sanders Peirce, Roland Barthes
- developed into a method for analyzing visual culture in the 20th century
Charles Sanders Pierce
American philosopher
Method: Semiotics
Argued that language and thought are a process of sign interpretation
Meaning is not in perception or representation, but in interpretation and action
- Iconic
- Indexical
- Symbolic
Ferdinand de Saussure
Swis Linguist
Method: Semiotics
Argued that the relationship between words and things is arbitrary and relative
- Signifier vs signified
- Denotation vs connotation
Roland Barthes
French literary theorist and philosopher
Method: Semiotics
Based ideas on Saussurian semiotics
- Sign (composed of the signifier and signified)
- Myth (when the connotative meaning appears as denotative)
Sign
(signifier)
- signifier (sound, written word or image that represents)
- signified (the concept evoked by the signifier)
examples of signs
- shape of trees
Denotation
- The signifier denotes
- First-level analysis
- Literal
Example:
- A group of forests in a meadow with a patch of dead trees on the lower right of the image
Connotation
- Cultural or emotional association that a visual carries
- Subjectively understood by people who share the same cultural code
- Deforestation is destroying the Earth and contributing to climate change