9/26: ARTWORK ANALYSIS WORKSHEET due Tuesday, October 1st

ARTWORK ANALYSIS WORKSHEET

CH. 4 & 5, LIVING WITH ART

Find one piece of art on this campus. It can be either 2D or 3D and any medium (sculpture, print, photography, painting, drawing, etc.) Take a photo of it with your phone or with a digital camera and email to me. Type your responses to ALL the following sections: Description, Analysis, Interpretation and Judgment. Address ALL the prompts in each section. Your typed, hard copy analysis is due at the beginning of class on TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1^st. No email.

DESCRIPTION=pure description of the object without value judgments, analysis, or interpretation.

It answers the question, “What do you see?”

How is color used (color palette, temperatures, primaries, secondaries, tertiaries, tints, shades, saturation)?

How is line used? (how line describes shape and space, what kinds of lines—thick, think, implied, actual, contour, curved, straight, etc.)

How is shape/mass used? (large, small, relationships between them—overlapping, near or far apart, etc.)

How is space used?

How is texture/pattern/surface quality used?

How is value used, value contrast, number of values, high key, low key, full range?

How is movement or time/motion used?

How is scale used? (relationship of elements within the art and relationship of the piece to the viewer)

Using your best guess, what medium/media and what methods are used?

ANALYSIS

How is the artwork composed or organized? Address each of the following—UNITY and VARIETY, BALANCE, EMPHASIS AND SUBORDINATION, SCALE AND PROPORTION, RHYTHM, ORGANIZED, CHAOTIC, HARMONIOUS, GEOMETRIC, CURVILINEAR

Which visual element has the most effect on the viewer’s experience of the art?

(line, shape, space, color, texture, value)

INTERPRETATION=establishing the broader context for this type of art

It answers the question, “Why did the artist create it and what does it mean?”

Can you express what you think the artwork is about in one sentence?

What evidence inside or outside the artwork supports your interpretation?

Does this piece remind you of any other art pieces we have looked at or that you have seen before? Which ones?

Using your best guess, and considering all the formal elements you’ve observed, what is this artwork about? What’s the story? Is there any symbolism, reference to historical events, reference to pop culture, reference to a specific time, place, person, etc.? Does it elicit a specific emotion (colors??) or feeling from you?

JUDGMENT: Judging a piece of work means giving it rank in relation to other works and of course considering a very important aspect of the visual arts; its originality.

Is it a good artwork? Do you like it or not? Why?