Visual Analysis: How to Analyze a Painting and Write an Essay
A visual analysis essay is an entry-level essay sometimes taught in high school and early university courses. Both communications and art history students use visual analysis to understand art and other visual messages. In our article, we will define the term and give an in-depth guide on how to look at a piece of art and write a visual analysis essay. Stay tuned until the end for a handy visual analysis essay example from our graduate paper writing service .
What Is Visual Analysis?
Visual analysis is essential in studying Communication, English, and Art History. It's a fundamental part of writing about art found in scholarly books, art magazines, and even undergraduate essays. You might encounter a visual analysis as a standalone assignment or as part of a larger research paper.
When you do this type of assignment, you're examining the basic elements of an artwork. These include things like its colors, lines, textures, and size. But it goes beyond just describing these elements. A good analysis also considers the historical context in which the artwork was created and tries to understand what it might mean to different people.
It also encourages you to look closely at details and think deeply about what an artwork is trying to say. This kind of analysis makes you appreciate art more and teaches you how to explain your ideas clearly based on what you see in the artwork.
What is the Purpose of Visual Analysis?
The purpose of a visual analysis is to recognize and understand the visual choices the artist made in creating the artwork. By looking closely at different elements, analysts can learn a lot about how an artwork was made and why the artist made certain choices.
For example, studying how colors are used or how things are arranged in the artwork can reveal its themes or the emotions it's trying to convey. Also, understanding the time period when the artwork was created helps us see how societal changes and cultural ideas influenced its creation and how people reacted to it.
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How to Write a Visual Analysis Step-by-Step
To create an insightful visual analysis, you should not only examine the artwork in detail but also situate it within a broader cultural and historical framework. This process can be broken down into three main steps:
Identifying, describing, and analyzing the visual material
Situating the visual material in its context
Interpreting and responding to the content of the visual material.
Let’s discuss each of these steps in more detail.
Step 1: Identify, Describe, and Analyze the Visual Material
Begin by clearly identifying the visual material you will analyze. This could be a painting, photograph, sculpture, advertisement, or any other visual artwork. Provide essential information such as the title, artist, date, and medium.
Next, offer a detailed description of the visual material. Focus on the key elements and principles of design, such as:
Composition
Describe what you see without interpreting its meaning yet. For instance, note the use of bright colors, the placement of objects, the presence of figures, and the overall layout. This descriptive part forms the foundation of your analysis, allowing your reader to visualize the artwork.
Afterward, consider how the artist uses elements like contrast, balance, emphasis, movement, and harmony. Analyze the techniques and methods used and how they contribute to the overall effect of the piece.
Step 2: Situate the Visual Material in its Context
To fully understand a piece of visual material, you need to consider its historical and cultural context. Start by researching the time period when the artwork was created. Look at the social, political, and economic conditions of that time, and see if there were any cultural movements that might have influenced the artwork.
Next, learn about the artist and their reasons for creating the visual material. Find out about the artist's life, other works they have made, and any statements they have made about this piece. Knowing the artist’s background can give you valuable insights into the artwork's purpose and message.
Finally, think about how the visual material was received by people when it was first shown and how it has impacted others over time. Look for reviews and public reactions, and see if it influenced other works or movements. This will help you understand the significance of the visual material in the larger cultural and artistic context.
Step 3: Interpret and Respond to the Content of the Visual Material
Now, combine your description, analysis, and understanding of the context to interpret what the visual material means. Talk about the themes, symbols, and messages the artwork conveys. Think about what it reveals about human experiences, society, or specific issues. Use evidence from earlier steps to support your interpretation.
Afterward, consider your own reaction to the visual material. How does it personally resonate with you? What emotions or thoughts does it provoke? Your personal response adds a subjective aspect to your analysis, making it more relatable.
Finally, summarize your findings and emphasize the importance of the visual material. Highlight key aspects from your identification, description, analysis, context, and interpretation. Then, it concludes by reinforcing the impact and significance of the visual material in both its original setting and its enduring influence.
Who Does Formal Analysis of Art
Most people who face visual analysis essays are Communication, English, and Art History students. Communications students explore mediums such as theater, print media, news, films, photos — basically anything. Comm is basically a giant, all-encompassing major where visual analysis is synonymous with Tuesday.
Art History students study the world of art to understand how it developed. They do visual analysis with every painting they look it at and discuss it in class.
English Literature students perform visual analysis too. Every writer paints an image in the head of their reader. This image, like a painting, can be clear, or purposefully unclear. It can be factual, to the point, or emotional and abstract like Ulysses, challenging you to search your emotions rather than facts and realities.
6 Questions to Answer Before Analyzing a Piece of Art
According to our experienced term paper writer , there are six important questions to ask before you start analyzing a piece of art. Answering these questions can make writing your analysis much easier:
Who is the artist, and what type of art do they create? - To place the artwork in context, you should identify the artist and understand the type of art they create.
What was the artist's goal in creating this painting? - Determine why the artist created the artwork. Was it to convey a message, evoke emotions, or explore a theme?
When and where was this artwork made? - Knowing the time and place of creation helps understand the cultural and historical influences on the artwork.
What is the main focus or theme of this artwork? - Identify what the artwork is about. This could be a person, place, object, or abstract concept.
Who was the artwork created for? - To provide insight into its style and content, consider who the artist intended to reach with their work.
What historical events or cultural factors influenced this painting? - Understanding the historical background can reveal more about the significance and meaning of the artwork.
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Elements of the Visual Analysis
To fully grasp formal analysis, it's important to differentiate between the elements and principles of visual analysis. The elements are the basic building blocks used to create a piece of art. These include:
Art Element 🎨
Description 📝
✏️Line
A mark with length and direction, which can define shapes, create textures, and suggest movement.
🌗Value
The lightness or darkness of a color, which helps to create depth and contrast.
🔶Shapes
Two-dimensional areas with a defined boundary, such as circles, squares, and triangles.
🔲Forms
Three-dimensional objects with volume and thickness, like cubes, spheres, and cylinders.
🌌Space
The area around, between, and within objects, which can be used to create the illusion of depth.
🌈Color
The hues, saturation, and brightness in artwork, used to create mood and visual interest.
🖐️Texture
The surface quality of an object, which can be actual (how it feels) or implied (how it looks like it feels).
Principles of the Visual Analysis
The principles, on the other hand, are how these elements are combined and used together to create the overall effect of the artwork. These principles include:
Principle of Art 🎨
Description 📝
⚖️Balance
The distribution of visual weight in a composition, which can be symmetrical or asymmetrical.
🌗Contrast
The difference between elements, such as light and dark, to create visual interest.
🏃♂️Movement
The suggestion or illusion of motion in an artwork, guiding the viewer’s eye through the piece.
🎯Emphasis
The creation of a focal point to draw attention to a particular area or element.
🔄Pattern
The repetition of elements to create a sense of rhythm and consistency.
📏Proportion
The relationship in size between different parts of an artwork, contributing to its harmony.
🔗Unity
The sense of cohesiveness in an artwork, where all elements and principles work together effectively.
Visual Analysis Outline
It’s safe to use the five-paragraph essay structure for your visual analysis essay. If you are looking at a painting, take the most important aspects of it that stand out to you and discuss them in relation to your thesis.
In the introduction, you should:
Introduce the Artwork : Mention the title, artist, date, and medium of the artwork.
Provide a Brief Description : Offer a general overview of what the artwork depicts.
State the Purpose : Explain the goal of your analysis and what aspects you will focus on.
Thesis Statement : Present a clear thesis statement that outlines your main argument or interpretation of the artwork.
The body of the visual analysis is where you break down the visual material into its component parts and examine each one in detail. This section should be structured logically, with each paragraph focusing on a specific element or aspect of the visual material.
Description: Start with a detailed description of the visual material. Describe what you see without interpreting or analyzing it yet. Mention elements such as color, line, shape, texture, space, and composition. For instance, if analyzing a painting, describe the subject matter, the arrangement of figures, the use of light and shadow, etc.
Analysis of Visual Elements: Analyze how each visual element contributes to the overall effect of the material. Discuss the use of color (e.g., warm or cool tones, contrasts, harmonies), the role of lines (e.g., leading lines, contours), the shapes (e.g., geometric, organic), and the texture (e.g., smooth, rough). Consider how these elements work together to create a certain mood or message.
Contextual Analysis: Examine how the context in which the visual material was created and is being viewed influences its interpretation. This includes historical, cultural, social, and political factors. Discuss how these contextual elements impact the meaning and reception of the visual material.
Interpretation: Discuss your interpretation of the visual material. Explain how the visual elements and contextual factors contribute to the meaning you derive from it. Support your interpretation with specific examples from the material.
Comparative Analysis (if applicable): If relevant, compare the visual material with other works by the same creator or with similar works by different creators. Highlight similarities and differences in style, technique, and thematic content.
The conclusion of a visual analysis essay summarizes the main points of the analysis and restates the thesis in light of the evidence presented.
Restate Thesis: Reiterate your thesis statement in a way that reflects the depth of your analysis. Show how your understanding of the visual material has been supported by your detailed examination.
Summary of Main Points: Summarize the key points of your analysis. Highlight the most important findings and insights.
Implications: Discuss the broader implications of your analysis. What does your analysis reveal about the visual material? How does it contribute to our understanding of the creator's work, the time period, or the cultural context?
Closing Thought: End with a final thought that leaves a lasting impression on the reader. This could be a reflection on the significance of the visual material, a question for further consideration, or a statement about its impact on you or on a broader audience.
If you want a more in-depth look at the classic essay structure, feel free to visit our 5 PARAGRAPH ESSAY blog.
Visual Analysis Example
In this section, we've laid out two examples of visual analysis essays to show you how it's done effectively. Get inspired and learn from them!
Key Takeaways
Visual analysis essays are fundamental early in your communications and art history studies. Learning how to formally break down art is key, whether you're pursuing a career in art or communications.
Before jumping into analysis, get a solid grasp of the painter's background and life. Analyzing a painting isn't just for fun, as you need to pay attention to the small details the painter might have hidden. Knowing how to do this kind of assignment not only helps you appreciate art more but also lets you deeply understand the media messages you encounter every day.
If you enjoyed this article and found it insightful, make sure to also check out the summary of Lord of the Flies and an article on Beowulf characters .
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What are the 4 Steps of Visual Analysis?
How to write a formal visual analysis, what is the function of visual analysis.
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Duke University. (n.d.). Visual Analysis . https://twp.duke.edu/sites/twp.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/visual-analysis.original.pdf
Glatstein, J. (2019, December 9). Formal Visual Analysis: The Elements & Principles of Composition . Www.kennedy-Center.org. https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/articles-and-how-tos/articles/educators/visual-arts/formal-visual-analysis-the-elements-and-principles-of-compositoin/
This article has been written for high school art students who are working upon a critical study of art, sketchbook annotation or an essay-based artist study. It contains a list of questions to guide students through the process of analyzing visual material of any kind, including drawing, painting, mixed media, graphic design, sculpture, printmaking, architecture, photography, textiles, fashion and so on (the word ‘artwork’ in this article is all-encompassing). The questions include a wide range of specialist art terms, prompting students to use subject-specific vocabulary in their responses. It combines advice from art analysis textbooks as well as from high school art teachers who have first-hand experience teaching these concepts to students.
COPYRIGHT NOTE: This material is available as a printable art analysis PDF handout . This may be used free of charge in a classroom situation. To share this material with others, please use the social media buttons at the bottom of this page. Copying, sharing, uploading or distributing this article (or the PDF) in any other way is not permitted.
READ NEXT: How to make an artist website (and why you need one)
Why do we study art?
Almost all high school art students carry out critical analysis of artist work, in conjunction with creating practical work. Looking critically at the work of others allows students to understand compositional devices and then explore these in their own art. This is one of the best ways for students to learn.
Instructors who assign formal analyses want you to look—and look carefully. Think of the object as a series of decisions that an artist made. Your job is to figure out and describe, explain, and interpret those decisions and why the artist may have made them. – The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 10
Art analysis tips
‘I like this’ or ‘I don’t like this’ without any further explanation or justification is not analysis . Personal opinions must be supported with explanation, evidence or justification.
‘Analysis of artwork’ does not mean ‘description of artwork’ . To gain high marks, students must move beyond stating the obvious and add perceptive, personal insight. Students should demonstrate higher order thinking – the ability to analyse, evaluate and synthesize information and ideas. For example, if color has been used to create strong contrasts in certain areas of an artwork, students might follow this observation with a thoughtful assumption about why this is the case – perhaps a deliberate attempt by the artist to draw attention to a focal point, helping to convey thematic ideas.
Although description is an important part of a formal analysis, description is not enough on its own. You must introduce and contextualize your descriptions of the formal elements of the work so the reader understands how each element influences the work’s overall effect on the viewer. – Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art 2
Cover a range of different visual elements and design principles . It is common for students to become experts at writing about one or two elements of composition, while neglecting everything else – for example, only focusing upon the use of color in every artwork studied. This results in a narrow, repetitive and incomplete analysis of the artwork. Students should ensure that they cover a wide range of art elements and design principles, as well as address context and meaning, where required. The questions below are designed to ensure that students cover a broad range of relevant topics within their analysis.
Write alongside the artwork discussed . In almost all cases, written analysis should be presented alongside the work discussed, so that it is clear which artwork comments refer to. This makes it easier for examiners to follow and evaluate the writing.
Support writing with visual analysis . It is almost always helpful for high school students to support written material with sketches, drawings and diagrams that help the student understand and analyse the piece of art. This might include composition sketches; diagrams showing the primary structure of an artwork; detailed enlargements of small sections; experiments imitating use of media or technique; or illustrations overlaid with arrows showing leading lines and so on. Visual investigation of this sort plays an important role in many artist studies.
Making sketches or drawings from works of art is the traditional, centuries-old way that artists have learned from each other. In doing this, you will engage with a work and an artist’s approach even if you previously knew nothing about it. If possible do this whenever you can, not from a postcard, the internet or a picture in a book, but from the actual work itself. This is useful because it forces you to look closely at the work and to consider elements you might not have noticed before. – Susie Hodge, How to Look at Art 7
Finally, when writing about art, students should communicate with clarity; demonstrate subject-specific knowledge; use correct terminology; generate personal responses; and reference all content and ideas sourced from others. This is explained in more detail in our article about high school sketchbooks .
What should students write about?
Although each aspect of composition is treated separately in the questions below, students should consider the relationship between visual elements (line, shape, form, value/tone, color/hue, texture/surface, space) and how these interact to form design principles (such as unity, variety, emphasis, dominance, balance, symmetry, harmony, movement, contrast, rhythm, pattern, scale, proportion) to communicate meaning.
As complex as works of art typically are, there are really only three general categories of statements one can make about them. A statement addresses form, content or context (or their various interrelations). – Dr. Robert J. Belton, Art History: A Preliminary Handbook, The University of British Columbia 5
…a formal analysis – the result of looking closely – is an analysis of the form that the artist produces; that is, an analysis of the work of art, which is made up of such things as line, shape, color, texture, mass, composition. These things give the stone or canvas its form, its expression, its content, its meaning. – Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art 2
This video by Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Naraelle Hohensee provides an excellent example of how to analyse a piece of art (it is important to note that this video is an example of ‘formal analysis’ and doesn’t include contextual analysis, which is also required by many high school art examination boards, in addition to the formal analysis illustrated here):
Composition analysis: a list of questions
The questions below are designed to facilitate direct engagement with an artwork and to encourage a breadth and depth of understanding of the artwork studied. They are intended to prompt higher order thinking and to help students arrive at well-reasoned analysis.
It is not expected that students answer every question (doing so would result in responses that are excessively long, repetitious or formulaic); rather, students should focus upon areas that are most helpful and relevant for the artwork studied (for example, some questions are appropriate for analyzing a painting, but not a sculpture). The words provided as examples are intended to help students think about appropriate vocabulary to use when discussing a particular topic. Definitions of more complex words have been provided.
Students should not attempt to copy out questions and then answer them; rather the questions should be considered a starting point for writing bullet pointed annotation or sentences in paragraph form.
There can be different, competing, and contradictory interpretations of the same artwork. An artwork is not necessarily about what the artist wanted it to be about. – Terry Barrett, Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary 6
Our interest in the painting grows only when we forget its title and take an interest in the things that it does not mention…” – Françoise Barbe-Gall, How to Look at a Painting 8
Does the artwork fall within an established genre (i.e. historical; mythical; religious; portraiture; landscape; still life; fantasy; architectural)?
Are there any recognisable objects, places or scenes ? How are these presented (i.e. idealized; realistic; indistinct; hidden; distorted; exaggerated; stylized; reflected; reduced to simplified/minimalist form; primitive; abstracted; concealed; suggested; blurred or focused)?
Have people been included? What can we tell about them (i.e. identity; age; attire; profession; cultural connections; health; family relationships; wealth; mood/expression)? What can we learn from their pose (i.e. frontal; profile; partly turned; body language)? Where are they looking (i.e. direct eye contact with viewer; downcast; interested in other subjects within the artwork)? Can we work out relationships between figures from the way they are posed?
What do the clothing, furnishings, accessories (horses, swords, dogs, clocks, business ledgers and so forth), background, angle of the head or posture of the head and body, direction of the gaze, and facial expression contribute to our sense of the figure’s social identity (monarch, clergyman, trophy wife) and personality (intense, cool, inviting)? – Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art 2
What props and important details are included (drapery; costumes; adornment; architectural elements; emblems; logos; motifs)? How do aspects of setting support the primary subject? What is the effect of including these items within the arrangement (visual unity; connections between different parts of the artwork; directs attention; surprise; variety and visual interest; separates / divides / borders; transformation from one object to another; unexpected juxtaposition)?
If a waiter served you a whole fish and a scoop of chocolate ice cream on the same plate, your surprise might be caused by the juxtaposition , or the side-by-side contrast, of the two foods. – Vocabulary.com
A motif is an element in a composition or design that can be used repeatedly for decorative, structural, or iconographic purposes. A motif can be representational or abstract, and it can be endowed with symbolic meaning. Motifs can be repeated in multiple artworks and often recur throughout the life’s work of an individual artist. – John A. Parks, Universal Principles of Art 11
Does the artwork communicate an action, narrative or story (i.e. historical event or illustrate a scene from a story)? Has the arrangement been embellished, set up or contrived?
Does the artwork explore movement ? Do you gain a sense that parts of the artwork are about to change, topple or fall (i.e. tension; suspense)? Does the artwork capture objects in motion (i.e. multiple or sequential images; blurred edges; scene frozen mid-action; live performance art; video art; kinetic art)?
What kind of abstract elements are shown (i.e. bars; shapes; splashes; lines)? Have these been derived from or inspired by realistic forms? Are they the result of spontaneous, accidental creation or careful, deliberate arrangement?
Does the work include the appropriation of work by other artists, such as within a parody or pop art? What effect does this have (i.e. copyright concerns)?
Parody: mimicking the appearance and/or manner of something or someone, but with a twist for comic effect or critical comment, as in Saturday Night Live’s political satires – Dr. Robert J. Belton, Art History: A Preliminary Handbook, The University of British Columbia 5
Does the subject captivate an instinctual response , such as items that are informative, shocking or threatening for humans (i.e. dangerous places; abnormally positioned items; human faces; the gaze of people; motion; text)? Heap map tracking has demonstrated that these elements catch our attention, regardless of where they are positioned – James Gurney writes more about this fascinating topic .
What kind of text has been used (i.e. font size; font weight; font family; stenciled; hand-drawn; computer-generated; printed)? What has influenced this choice of text?
Do key objects or images have symbolic value or provide a cue to meaning ? How does the artwork convey deeper, conceptual themes (i.e. allegory; iconographic elements; signs; metaphor; irony)?
Allegory is a device whereby abstract ideas can be communicated using images of the concrete world. Elements, whether figures or objects, in a painting or sculpture are endowed with symbolic meaning. Their relationships and interactions combine to create more complex meanings. – John A. Parks, Universal Principles of Art 11
An iconography is a particular range or system of types of image used by an artist or artists to convey particular meanings. For example in Christian religious painting there is an iconography of images such as the lamb which represents Christ, or the dove which represents the Holy Spirit. – Tate.org.uk
What tone of voice does the artwork have (i.e. deliberate; honest; autobiographical; obvious; direct; unflinching; confronting; subtle; ambiguous; uncertain; satirical; propagandistic)?
What is your emotional response to the artwork? What is the overall mood (i.e positive; energetic; excitement; serious; sedate; peaceful; calm; melancholic; tense; uneasy; uplifting; foreboding; calm; turbulent)? Which subject matter choices help to communicate this mood (i.e. weather and lighting conditions; color of objects and scenes)?
Does the title change the way you interpret the work?
Were there any design constraints relating to the subject matter or theme/s (i.e. a sculpture commissioned to represent a specific subject, place or idea)?
Are there thematic connections with your own project? What can you learn from the way the artist has approached this subject?
Wider contexts
All art is in part about the world in which it emerged. – Terry Barrett, Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary 6
Supported by research, can you identify when, where and why the work was created and its original intention or purpose (i.e. private sale; commissioned for a specific owner; commemorative; educational; promotional; illustrative; decorative; confrontational; useful or practical utility; communication; created in response to a design brief; private viewing; public viewing)? In what way has this background influenced the outcome (i.e. availability of tools, materials or time; expectations of the patron / audience)?
Where is the place of construction or design site and how does this influence the artwork (i.e. reflects local traditions, craftsmanship, or customs; complements surrounding designs; designed to accommodate weather conditions / climate; built on historic site)? Was the artwork originally located somewhere different?
Which events and surrounding environments have influenced this work (i.e. natural events; social movements such as feminism; political events, economic situations, historic events, religious settings, cultural events)? What effect did these have?
Is the work characteristic of an artistic style, movement or time period ? Has it been influenced by trends, fashions or ideologies ? How can you tell?
Can you make any relevant connections or comparisons with other artworks ? Have other artists explored a similar subject in a similar way? Did this occur before or after this artwork was created?
Can you make any relevant connections to other fields of study or expression (i.e. geography, mathematics, literature, film, music, history or science)?
Which key biographical details about the artist are relevant in understanding this artwork (upbringing and personal situation; family and relationships; psychological state; health and fitness; socioeconomic status; employment; ethnicity; culture; gender; education, religion; interests, attitudes, values and beliefs)?
Is this artwork part of a larger body of work ? Is this typical of the work the artist is known for?
How might your own upbringing, beliefs and biases distort your interpretation of the artwork? Does your own response differ from the public response, that of the original audience and/or interpretation by critics ?
How do these wider contexts compare to the contexts surrounding your own work?
COMPOSITION AND FORMAT
What is the overall size, shape and orientation of the artwork (i.e. vertical, horizontal, portrait, landscape or square)? Has this format been influenced by practical considerations (i.e. availability of materials; display constraints ; design brief restrictions; screen sizes; common aspect ratios in film or photography such as 4:3 or 2:3; or paper sizes such as A4, A3, A2, A1)?
How do images fit within the frame (cropped; truncated; shown in full)? Why is this format appropriate for the subject matter?
Are different parts of the artwork physically separate, such as within a diptych or triptych ?
Where are the boundaries of the artwork (i.e. is the artwork self-contained; compact; intersecting; sprawling)?
Is the artwork site-specific or designed to be displayed across multiple locations or environments?
Does the artwork have a fixed, permanent format, or was it modified, moved or adjusted over time ? What causes such changes (i.e. weather and exposure to the elements – melting, erosion, discoloration, decaying, wind movement, surface abrasion; structural failure – cracking, breaking; damage caused by unpredictable events, such as fire or vandalism; intentional movement, such as rotation or sensor response; intentional impermanence, such as an installation assembled for an exhibition and removed afterwards; viewer interaction; additions, renovations and restoration by subsequent artists or users; a project so expansive it takes years to construct)? How does this change affect the artwork? Are there stylistic variances between parts?
Is the artwork viewed from one angle or position, or are dynamic viewpoints and serial vision involved? (Read more about Gordon Cullen’s concept of serial vision here ).
How does the scale and format of the artwork relate to the environment where it is positioned, used, installed or hung (i.e. harmonious with landscape typography; sensitive to adjacent structures; imposing or dwarfed by surroundings; human scale)? Is the artwork designed to be viewed from one vantage point (i.e. front facing; viewed from below; approached from a main entrance; set at human eye level) or many? Are images taken from the best angle?
Would a similar format benefit your own project? Why / why not?
Structure / layout
Has the artwork been organised using a formal system of arrangement or mathematical proportion (i.e. rule of thirds; golden ratio or spiral; grid format; geometric; dominant triangle; or circular composition) or is the arrangement less predictable (i.e. chaotic, random, accidental, fragmented, meandering, scattered; irregular or spontaneous)? How does this system of arrangement help with the communication of ideas? Can you draw a diagram to show the basic structure of the artwork?
Can you see a clear intention with alignment and positioning of parts within the artwork (i.e. edges aligned; items spaced equally; simple or complex arrangement; overlapping, clustered or concentrated objects; dispersed, separate items; repetition of forms; items extending beyond the frame; frames within frames; bordered perimeter or patterned edging; broken borders)? What effect do these visual devices have (i.e. imply hierarchy; help the viewer understand relationships between parts of artwork; create rhythm)?
Does the artwork have a primary axis of symmetry (vertical, diagonal, horizontal)? Can you locate a center of balance? Is the artwork symmetrical, asymmetrical (i.e. stable), radial, or intentionally unbalanced (i.e. to create tension or unease)?
Can you draw a diagram to illustrate emphasis and dominance (i.e. ‘blocking in’ mass, where the ‘heavier’ dominant forms appear in the composition)? Where are dominant items located within the frame?
How do your eyes move through the composition?
Could your own artwork use a similar organisational structure?
What types of linear mark-making are shown (thick; thin; short; long; soft; bold; delicate; feathery; indistinct; faint; irregular; intermittent; freehand; ruled; mechanical; expressive; loose; blurred; dashing; cross-hatching; meandering; gestural, fluid; flowing; jagged; spiky; sharp)? What atmosphere, moods, emotions or ideas do these evoke?
Are there any interrupted, suggested or implied lines (i.e. lines that can’t literally be seen, but the viewer’s brain connects the dots between separate elements)?
Repeating lines : may simulate material qualities, texture, pattern or rhythm;
Boundary lines : may segment, divide or separate different areas;
Leading lines : may manipulate the viewer’s gaze, directing vision or lead the eye to focal points ( eye tracking studies indicate that our eyes leap from one point of interest to another, rather than move smoothly or predictably along leading lines 9 . Lines may nonetheless help to establish emphasis by ‘pointing’ towards certain items );
Parallel lines : may create a sense of depth or movement through space within a landscape;
Horizontal lines : may create a sense of stability and permanence;
Vertical lines : may suggest height, reaching upwards or falling;
Intersecting perpendicular lines : may suggest rigidity, strength;
Abstract lines : may balance the composition, create contrast or emphasis;
Angular / diagonal lines : may suggest tension or unease;
Chaotic lines : may suggest a sense of agitation or panic;
Underdrawing, construction lines or contour lines : describe form ( learn more about contour lines in our article about line drawing );
Curving / organic lines : may suggest nature, peace, movement or energy.
What is the relationship between line and three-dimensional form? Are outlines used to define form and edges?
Would it be appropriate to use line in a similar way within your own artwork?
Shape and form
Can you identify a dominant visual language within the shapes and forms shown (i.e. geometric; angular; rectilinear; curvilinear; organic; natural; fragmented; distorted; free-flowing; varied; irregular; complex; minimal)? Why is this visual language appropriate?
How are the edges of forms treated (i.e. do they fade away or blur at the edges, as if melting into the page; ripped or torn; distinct and hard-edged; or, in the words of James Gurney, 9 do they ‘dissolve into sketchy lines, paint strokes or drips’)?
Are there any three-dimensional forms or relief elements within the artwork, such as carved pieces, protruding or sculptural elements? How does this affect the viewing of the work from different angles?
Is there a variety or repetition of shapes/forms? What effect does this have (i.e. repetition may reinforce ideas, balance composition and/or create harmony / visual unity; variety may create visual interest or overwhelm the viewer with chaos)?
How are shapes organised in relation to each other, or with the frame of the artwork (i.e. grouped; overlapping; repeated; echoed; fused edges; touching at tangents; contrasts in scale or size; distracting or awkward junctions)?
Are silhouettes (external edges of objects) considered?
All shapes have silhouettes, and vision research has shown that one of the first tasks of perception is to be able to sort out the silhouette shapes of each of the elements in a scene. – James Gurney, Imaginative Realism 9
Are forms designed with ergonomics and human scale in mind?
Ergonomics: an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely – Merriam-webster.com
Can you identify which forms are functional or structural , versus ornamental or decorative ?
Have any forms been disassembled, ‘cut away’ or exposed , such as a sectional drawing? What is the purpose of this (i.e. to explain construction methods; communicate information; dramatic effect)?
Would it be appropriate to use shape and form in a similar way within your own artwork?
Value / tone / light
Has a wide tonal range been used in the artwork (i.e. a broad range of darks, highlights and mid-tones) or is the tonal range limited (i.e. pale and faint; subdued; dull; brooding and dark overall; strong highlights and shadows, with little mid-tone values)? What is the effect of this?
Where are the light sources within the artwork or scene? Is there a single consistent light source or multiple sources of light (sunshine; light bulbs; torches; lamps; luminous surfaces)? What is the effect of these choices (i.e. mimics natural lighting conditions at a certain time of day or night; figures lit from the side to clarify form; contrasting background or spot-lighting used to accentuate a focal area; soft and diffused lighting used to mute contrasts and minimize harsh shadows; dappled lighting to signal sunshine broken by surrounding leaves; chiaroscuro used to exaggerate theatrical drama and impact; areas cloaked in darkness to minimize visual complexity; to enhance our understanding of narrative, mood or meaning)?
One of the most important ways in which artists can use light to achieve particular effects is in making strong contrasts between light and dark. This contrast is often described as chiaroscuro . – Matthew Treherne, Analysing Paintings, University of Leeds 3
Are representations of three-dimensional objects and figures flat or tonally modeled ? How do different tonal values change from one to the next (i.e. gentle, smooth gradations; abrupt tonal bands)?
Are there any unusual, reflective or transparent surfaces, mediums or materials which reflect or transmit light in a special way?
Has tone been used to help communicate atmospheric perspective (i.e. paler and bluer as objects get further away)?
Are gallery or environmental light sources where the artwork is displayed fixed or fluctuating? Does the work appear different when viewed at different times of day? How does this affect your interpretation of the work?
Are shadows depicted within the artwork? What is the effect of these shadows (i.e. anchors objects to the page; creates the illusion of depth and space; creates dramatic contrasts)?
Do sculptural protrusions or relief elements catch the light and/or create cast shadows or pockets of shadow upon the artwork? How does this influence the viewer’s experience?
How has tone been used to help direct the viewer’s attention to focal areas?
Would it be appropriate to use value / tone in a similar way within your own artwork? Why / why not?
Color / hue
Can you view the true color of the artwork (i.e. are you viewing a low-quality reproduction or examining the artwork in poor lighting)?
Which color schemes have been used within the artwork (i.e. harmonious; complementary; primary; monochrome; earthy; warm; cool/cold)? Has the artist used a broad or limited color palette (i.e. variety or unity)? Which colors dominate?
How would you describe the intensity of the colors (vibrant; bright; vivid; glowing; pure; saturated; strong; dull; muted; pale; subdued; bleached; diluted)?
Are colors transparent or opaque ? Can you see reflected color?
Has color contrast been used within the artwork (i.e. extreme contrasts; juxtaposition of complementary colors; garish / clashing / jarring)? Are there any abrupt color changes or unexpected uses of color?
What is the effect of these color choices (i.e. expressing symbolic or thematic ideas; descriptive or realistic depiction of local color; emphasizing focal areas; creating the illusion of aerial perspective; relationships with colors in surrounding environment; creating balance; creating rhythm/pattern/repetition; unity and variety within the artwork; lack of color places emphasis upon shape, detail and form)? What kind of atmosphere do these colors create?
It is often said that warm colors (red, orange, yellow) come forward and produce a sense of excitement (yellow is said to suggest warmth and happiness, as in the smiley face), whereas cool colors (blue, green) recede and have a calming effect. Experiments, however, have proved inconclusive; the response to color – despite clichés about seeing red or feeling blue – is highly personal, highly cultural, highly varied. – Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art 2
Would it be appropriate to use color in a similar way within your own artwork?
Texture / surface / pattern
Are there any interesting textural, tactile or surface qualities within the artwork (i.e. bumpy; grooved; indented; scratched; stressed; rough; smooth; shiny; varnished; glassy; glossy; polished; matte; sandy; grainy; gritted; leathery; spiky; silky)? How are these created (i.e. inherent qualities of materials; impasto mediums; sculptural materials; illusions or implied texture , such as cross-hatching; finely detailed and intricate areas; organic patterns such as foliage or small stones; repeating patterns ; ornamentation)?
How are textural or patterned elements positioned and what effect does this have (i.e. used intermittently to provide variety; repeating pattern creates rhythm ; patterns broken create focal points ; textured areas create visual links and unity between separate areas of the artwork; balance between detailed/textured areas and simpler areas; glossy surface creates a sense of luxury; imitation of texture conveys information about a subject, i.e. softness of fur or strands of hair)?
Would it be appropriate to use texture / surface in a similar way within your own artwork?
Industrial and architectural landscapes are particularly concerned with the arrangement of geometries and form in space… Dr. Ben Guy, Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment using CGI Digital Twins, Urban CGI 12
Is the pictorial space shallow or deep? How does the artwork create the illusion of depth (i.e. layering of foreground, middle-ground, background ; overlapping of objects; use of shadows to anchor objects; positioning of items in relationship to the horizon line; linear perspective ( learn more about one point perspective here ); tonal modeling; relationships with adjacent objects and those in close proximity – including the human form – to create a sense of scale ; spatial distortions or optical illusions; manipulating scale of objects to create ‘surrealist’ spaces where true scale is unknown)?
Has an unusual viewpoint been used (i.e. worm’s view; aerial view, looking out a window or through a doorway; a scene reflected in a mirror or shiny surface; looking through leaves; multiple viewpoints combined)? What is the effect of this viewpoint (i.e. allows certain parts of the scene to be dominant and overpowering or squashed, condensed and foreshortened ; or suggests a narrative between two separate spaces ; provides more information about a space than would normally be seen)?
Is the emphasis upon mass or void ? How densely arranged are components within the artwork or picture plane? What is the relationship between object and surrounding space (i.e. compact / crowded / busy / densely populated, with little surrounding space; spacious; careful interplay between positive and negative space; objects clustered to create areas of visual interest)? What is the effect of this (i.e. creates a sense of emptiness or isolation; business / visual clutter creates a feeling of chaos or claustrophobia)?
How does the artwork engage with real space – in and around the artwork (i.e. self-contained; closed off; eye contact with viewer; reaching outwards)? Is the viewer expected to move through the artwork? What is the relationship between interior and exterior space ? What connections or contrasts occur between inside and out? Is it comprised of a series of separate or linked spaces?
Would it be appropriate to use space in a similar way within your own artwork?
Use of media / materials
What materials and mediums has the artwork been constructed from? Have materials been concealed or presented deceptively (i.e. is there an authenticity / honesty of materials; are materials celebrated; is the structure visible or exposed )? Why were these mediums selected (weight; color; texture; size; strength; flexibility; pliability; fragility; ease of use; cost; cultural significance; durability; availability; accessibility)? Would other mediums have been appropriate?
Which skills, techniques, methods and processes were used (i.e. traditional; conventional; industrial; contemporary; innovative)? It is important to note that the examiners do not want the regurgitation of long, technical processes, but rather to see personal observations about how processes effect and influence the artwork in question. Would replicating part of the artwork help you gain a better understanding of the processes used?
Painting: gesso ground > textured mediums > underdrawing > blocking in colors > defining form > final details;
Architecture: brief > concepts > development > working drawings > foundations > structure > cladding > finishes;
How does the use of media help the artist to communicate ideas?
Are these methods useful for your own project?
Finally, remember that these questions are a guide only and are intended to make you start to think critically about the art you are studying and creating.
Further Reading
If you enjoyed this article you may also like our article about high school sketchbooks (which includes a section about sketchbook annotation). If you are looking for more assistance with how to write an art analysis essay you may like our series about writing an artist study .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] A guide for Analyzing Works of Art; Sculpture and Painting, Durantas
[2] A Short Guide to Writing About Art , Sylvan Barnet (2014) (Amazon affiliate link)
[3] Analysing Paintings , Matthew Treherne, University of Leeds
[4] Writing in Art and Art History , The University of Vermont
[5] Art History: A Preliminary Handbook , Dr. Robert J. Belton, The University of British Columbia (1996)
[6] Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary , Terry Barrett (2011) (Amazon affiliate link)
[7] How to Look at Art , Susie Hodge (2015) (Amazon affiliate link)
[8] How to Look at a Painting , Françoise Barbe-Gall (2011) (Amazon affiliate link)
[9] Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist James Gurney (2009) (Amazon affiliate link)
[10] Art History , The Writing Centre, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
[11] Universal Principles of Art: 100 Key Concepts for Understanding, Analyzing and Practicing Art , John A. Parks (2014) (Amazon affiliate link)
[12] Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment using CGI Digital Twins , Dr. Ben Guy, Urban CGI (2023)
Amiria has been an Art & Design teacher and a Curriculum Co-ordinator for seven years, responsible for the course design and assessment of student work in two high-achieving Auckland schools. She has a Bachelor of Architectural Studies, Bachelor of Architecture (First Class Honours) and a Graduate Diploma of Teaching. Amiria is a CIE Accredited Art & Design Coursework Assessor.
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Art Essay Examples
Art Essay Examples to Get You Inspired - Top 10 Samples
Published on: May 4, 2023
Last updated on: Jan 30, 2024
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Are you struggling to come up with ideas for your art essay? Or are you looking for examples to help guide you in the right direction?
Look no further, as we have got you covered!
In this blog, we provide a range of art writing examples that cover different art forms, time periods, and themes. Whether you're interested in the classics or contemporary art, we have something for everyone. These examples offer insight into how to structure your essay, analyze art pieces, and write compelling arguments.
So, let's explore our collection of art essay examples and take the first step toward becoming a better art writer!
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Good Art Essay Examples
In the following section, we will examine a selection of art essay examples that are inspiring for various academic levels.
College Art Essay Examples
Letâs take a look at college art essay examples below:
The Intersection of Art and Politics: An Analysis of Picasso's Guernica
The Role of Nature in American Art: A Comparative Study
University Art Essay Examples
University-level art essay assignments often differ in length and complexity. Here are two examples:
Gender and Identity in Contemporary Art: A Comparative Study
Art and Activism: The Role of Street Art in Political Movements
A Level Art Essay Examples
Below are some art paper examples A level. Check out:
The Use Of Color In Wassily Kandinsky's Composition Viii
The Influence of African Art on Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles D'avignon
A Level Fine Art Essay Examples
If you're a student of fine arts, these A-level fine arts examples can serve as inspiration for your own work.
The Use Of Texture In Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night
Exploring Identity Through Portraiture: A Comparative Study
Art Essay Examples IELTS
The Impact of Art on Mental Health
The Effects of Technology on Art And Creativity
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AP Art Essay Examples
A Comparison of Neoclassical and Romantic Art
An Examination Of The Effects Of Globalization On Contemporary Art
Types of Art Essay with Examples
Art essays can be categorized into different types. Let's take a brief look at these types with examples:
Art Criticism Essay : A critical essay analyzing and evaluating an artwork, its elements, and its meaning.
The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali: A Critical Analysis
Art History Essay: A comprehensive essay that examines the historical context, development, and significance of an artwork or art movement.
The Renaissance: A Rebirth of Artistic Expression
Exhibition Review: A review of an art exhibition that evaluates the quality and significance of the artwork on display.
A Review of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Exhibition
Contemporary Art Essay: An essay that explores and analyzes contemporary art and its cultural and social context.
The Intersection of Technology and Art in Contemporary Society
Modern Art Essay: An essay that examines modern art and its significance in the development of modernism.
Cubism and its Influence on Modern Art [insert pdf]
Art Theory Essay: An essay that analyzes and critiques various theories and approaches to art.
Feminist Art Theory: A Critical Analysis of its Impact on Contemporary Art [insert pdf]
Additional Art Essay Example
Letâs take a brief look at some added art essay samples:
Artwork Essay Example
Artist Essay Example
Advanced Higher Art Essay Example
Common Art Essay Prompts
Here are some common art essay topics that you may encounter during your coursework:
Describe a piece of artwork that has inspired you.
A comparative analysis of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Michelangelo's David.
Analyze the cultural significance of a particular art movement.
Discuss the relationship between art and politics.
Compare and contrast two works of art from different time periods or cultures.
The representation of identity in art
The Evolution of Artists' Paintings:
From Traditional to Contemporary Art
The representation of identity in Frida Kahlo's self-portraits.
The significance of oil on canvas in the history of art.
The significance of the Mona Lisa in the Italian Renaissance
Art Essay Topics IELTS
Here are some art essay topics for IELTS students. Take a look:
The value of art education.
The role of museums in preserving art and culture.
The impact of globalization on contemporary art.
The influence of technology on art and artists.
The significance of public art in urban environments.
Tips For Writing a Successful Art Essay
Here are some tips for writing a stand-out art essay:
Develop a clear thesis statement that guides your essay: Your thesis statement should clearly and concisely state the main argument of your essay.
Conduct thorough research and analysis of the artwork you are writing about : This includes examining the visual elements of the artwork, researching the artist, and considering the historical significance.
Use formal and precise language to discuss the artwork: Avoid using colloquial language and instead focus on using formal language to describe the artwork.
Include specific examples from the artwork to support your arguments: Use specific details from the artwork to back up your analysis.
Avoid personal bias and subjective language: Your essay should be objective and avoid using personal opinions or subjective language.
Consider the historical and cultural context of the artwork: Analyze the artwork in the context of the time period and cultural context in which they were created.
Edit and proofread your essay carefully before submitting it: Ensure your essay is well-organized, coherent, and free of grammatical errors and typos.
Use proper citation format when referencing sources: Follow the appropriate citation style guidelines and give credit to all sources used in your essay.
Be concise and focused in your writing: Stick to your main thesis statement and avoid going off-topic or including irrelevant information.
Read your essay aloud to ensure clarity and coherence: Reading your essay out loud can help you identify inconsistencies or any other mistakes.
The Bottom Line!
We hope that the art essay examples we've explored have provided you with inspiration for your own essay. Art offers endless possibilities for analysis, and your essay is a chance to showcase your unique opinions.
Use these examples as a guide to craft an essay that reflects your personality while demonstrating your knowledge of the subject.
Short on time? Let CollegeEssay.org help you! All you have to do is to ask our experts, " write college essay for me " and they'll help you secure top grades in college.
Don't wait, reach out to our art essay writing service.
Take the first step towards excellence in your art studies with our AI essay writer !
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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts
Writing Essays in Art History
Welcome to the Purdue OWL
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Art History Analysis – Formal Analysis and Stylistic Analysis
Typically in an art history class the main essay students will need to write for a final paper or for an exam is a formal or stylistic analysis.
A formal analysis is just what it sounds like – you need to analyze the form of the artwork. This includes the individual design elements – composition, color, line, texture, scale, contrast, etc. Questions to consider in a formal analysis is how do all these elements come together to create this work of art? Think of formal analysis in relation to literature – authors give descriptions of characters or places through the written word. How does an artist convey this same information?
Organize your information and focus on each feature before moving onto the text – it is not ideal to discuss color and jump from line to then in the conclusion discuss color again. First summarize the overall appearance of the work of art – is this a painting? Does the artist use only dark colors? Why heavy brushstrokes? etc and then discuss details of the object – this specific animal is gray, the sky is missing a moon, etc. Again, it is best to be organized and focused in your writing – if you discuss the animals and then the individuals and go back to the animals you run the risk of making your writing unorganized and hard to read. It is also ideal to discuss the focal of the piece – what is in the center? What stands out the most in the piece or takes up most of the composition?
A stylistic approach can be described as an indicator of unique characteristics that analyzes and uses the formal elements (2-D: Line, color, value, shape and 3-D all of those and mass).The point of style is to see all the commonalities in a person’s works, such as the use of paint and brush strokes in Van Gogh’s work. Style can distinguish an artist’s work from others and within their own timeline, geographical regions, etc.
Methods & Theories To Consider:
Expressionism
Instructuralism
Postmodernism
Social Art History
Biographical Approach
Poststructuralism
Museum Studies
Visual Cultural Studies
Stylistic Analysis Example:
The following is a brief stylistic analysis of two Greek statues, an example of how style has changed because of the “essence of the age.” Over the years, sculptures of women started off as being plain and fully clothed with no distinct features, to the beautiful Venus/Aphrodite figures most people recognize today. In the mid-seventh century to the early fifth, life-sized standing marble statues of young women, often elaborately dress in gaily painted garments were created known as korai. The earliest korai is a Naxian women to Artemis. The statue wears a tight-fitted, belted peplos, giving the body a very plain look. The earliest korai wore the simpler Dorian peplos, which was a heavy woolen garment. From about 530, most wear a thinner, more elaborate, and brightly painted Ionic linen and himation. A largely contrasting Greek statue to the korai is the Venus de Milo. The Venus from head to toe is six feet seven inches tall. Her hips suggest that she has had several children. Though her body shows to be heavy, she still seems to almost be weightless. Viewing the Venus de Milo, she changes from side to side. From her right side she seems almost like a pillar and her leg bears most of the weight. She seems be firmly planted into the earth, and since she is looking at the left, her big features such as her waist define her. The Venus de Milo had a band around her right bicep. She had earrings that were brutally stolen, ripping her ears away. Venus was noted for loving necklaces, so it is very possibly she would have had one. It is also possible she had a tiara and bracelets. Venus was normally defined as “golden,” so her hair would have been painted. Two statues in the same region, have throughout history, changed in their style.
Compare and Contrast Essay
Most introductory art history classes will ask students to write a compare and contrast essay about two pieces – examples include comparing and contrasting a medieval to a renaissance painting. It is always best to start with smaller comparisons between the two works of art such as the medium of the piece. Then the comparison can include attention to detail so use of color, subject matter, or iconography. Do the same for contrasting the two pieces – start small. After the foundation is set move on to the analysis and what these comparisons or contrasting material mean – ‘what is the bigger picture here?’ Consider why one artist would wish to show the same subject matter in a different way, how, when, etc are all questions to ask in the compare and contrast essay. If during an exam it would be best to quickly outline the points to make before tackling writing the essay.
Compare and Contrast Example:
Stele of Hammurabi from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), ca. 1792 – 1750 BCE, Basalt, height of stele approx. 7’ height of relief 28’
Stele, relief sculpture, Art as propaganda – Hammurabi shows that his law code is approved by the gods, depiction of land in background, Hammurabi on the same place of importance as the god, etc.
Top of this stele shows the relief image of Hammurabi receiving the law code from Shamash, god of justice, Code of Babylonian social law, only two figures shown, different area and time period, etc.
Stele of Naram-sin , Sippar Found at Susa c. 2220 - 2184 bce. Limestone, height 6'6"
Stele, relief sculpture, Example of propaganda because the ruler (like the Stele of Hammurabi) shows his power through divine authority, Naramsin is the main character due to his large size, depiction of land in background, etc.
Akkadian art, made of limestone, the stele commemorates a victory of Naramsin, multiple figures are shown specifically soldiers, different area and time period, etc.
Iconography
Regardless of what essay approach you take in class it is absolutely necessary to understand how to analyze the iconography of a work of art and to incorporate into your paper. Iconography is defined as subject matter, what the image means. For example, why do things such as a small dog in a painting in early Northern Renaissance paintings represent sexuality? Additionally, how can an individual perhaps identify these motifs that keep coming up?
The following is a list of symbols and their meaning in Marriage a la Mode by William Hogarth (1743) that is a series of six paintings that show the story of marriage in Hogarth’s eyes.
Man has pockets turned out symbolizing he has lost money and was recently in a fight by the state of his clothes.
Lap dog shows loyalty but sniffs at woman’s hat in the husband’s pocket showing sexual exploits.
Black dot on husband’s neck believed to be symbol of syphilis.
Mantel full of ugly Chinese porcelain statues symbolizing that the couple has no class.
Butler had to go pay bills, you can tell this by the distasteful look on his face and that his pockets are stuffed with bills and papers.
Card game just finished up, women has directions to game under foot, shows her easily cheating nature.
Paintings of saints line a wall of the background room, isolated from the living, shows the couple’s complete disregard to faith and religion.
The dangers of sexual excess are underscored in the Hograth by placing Cupid among ruins, foreshadowing the inevitable ruin of the marriage.
Eventually the series (other five paintings) shows that the woman has an affair, the men duel and die, the woman hangs herself and the father takes her ring off her finger symbolizing the one thing he could salvage from the marriage.
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On Painting: An Essay by Jim Cogswell
Paint is a living language for me, with grammars and nuances that challenge me beyond any other intellectual or creative pursuit that I have ever experienced.
For some people paint is simply a material, another medium, and a very traditional medium at that. For others it is the Bible — the Holy Writ. Or it is the Constitution. Divine what the Founding Fathers intended and strictly adhere to it, or risk anarchy. For others, it is one minor piece in a complicated art world chess game, a pawn to be moved about in a theoretical construct of art practice. Relevant or irrelevant? Dead or alive?
That is one set of questions that, naively, doesn’t trouble me.
For me, painting as a language and practice is alive and changing all the time.
I study it. I try to keep up with it. I struggle to speak it better. I am thrilled when I hear others speak it well. I love visiting countries where it is spoken. I get excited when I discover someone who is adding another layer to its tapestry of possibilities. And that is happening all the time. Right now. As we speak.
Painting is the magical conjunction of space/no space; movement in stillness. A balanced experience of absorption and self-awareness. Slow looking.
A painting is both a tangible surface and a perceptual space. Great painters create fluctuating tensions between the experience of seeing surface and depth. The task of doing that well is mammoth.
The territory is well traveled, but the possibilities endless, like this tired language of ours that still manages to produce incisive and ecstatic poetry, the limited chromatic scale that still results in new arrangements of sounds in music, bringing deep feelings into somatic awareness, putting my body in motion, bringing me to tears.
All of it is accomplished within a tight range of restrictions. The restrictions are the source of the poetry and the thrill.
There are many strategies for keeping the viewer in that delicate balance of seeing the painting as both window and surface. Emphasizing paint’s materiality is one of many strategies for calling attention to the physical surface, but that easily can degenerate into gratuitous gesture, the pseudo-heroics of the urgent mark.
A big issue is how to translate the materiality of paint into something that points beyond itself. Allowing the inspirational source itself to provide the gesture while acknowledging the illusion. The tension is the thrill.
Within a painting, color has the capacity to become a noun, one might even say a concept in itself. Color becomes magical and potent when it crosses that threshold from adjective to noun, from quality of thing to thing in itself.
All of these strategies and many more work in tandem with our desire to recognize objects or qualities of experiences, even intangible feelings, within that structure of colored marks on a surface. Those desires are closely tied to our perceptual experiences, ways that the brain is hard wired but also shaped by cultural context, historical exposure.
Looking at a painting is a magnificently dense experience for me. I never tire of it.
The Value of Art Why should we care about art?
One of the first questions raised when talking about art is simple—why should we care? Art in the contemporary era is easy to dismiss as a selfish pastime for people who have too much time on their hands. Creating art doesn't cure disease, build roads, or feed the poor. So to understand the value of art, let’s look at how art has been valued through history and consider how it is valuable today.
The value of creating
At its most basic level, the act of creating is rewarding in itself. Children draw for the joy of it before they can speak, and creating pictures, sculptures and writing is both a valuable means of communicating ideas and simply fun. Creating is instinctive in humans, for the pleasure of exercising creativity. While applied creativity is valueable in a work context, free-form creativity leads to new ideas.
Material value
Through the ages, art has often been created from valuable materials. Gold , ivory and gemstones adorn medieval crowns , and even the paints used by renaissance artists were made from rare materials like lapis lazuli , ground into pigment. These objects have creative value for their beauty and craftsmanship, but they are also intrinsically valuable because of the materials they contain.
Historical value
Artwork is a record of cultural history. Many ancient cultures are entirely lost to time except for the artworks they created, a legacy that helps us understand our human past. Even recent work can help us understand the lives and times of its creators, like the artwork of African-American artists during the Harlem Renaissance . Artwork is inextricably tied to the time and cultural context it was created in, a relationship called zeitgeist , making art a window into history.
Religious value
For religions around the world, artwork is often used to illustrate their beliefs. Depicting gods and goddesses, from Shiva to the Madonna , make the concepts of faith real to the faithful. Artwork has been believed to contain the spirits of gods or ancestors, or may be used to imbue architecture with an aura of awe and worship like the Badshahi Mosque .
Patriotic value
Art has long been a source of national pride, both as an example of the skill and dedication of a country’s artisans and as expressions of national accomplishments and history, like the Arc de Triomphe , a heroic monument honoring the soldiers who died in the Napoleonic Wars. The patriotic value of art slides into propaganda as well, used to sway the populace towards a political agenda.
Symbolic value
Art is uniquely suited to communicating ideas. Whether it’s writing or painting or sculpture, artwork can distill complex concepts into symbols that can be understood, even sometimes across language barriers and cultures. When art achieves symbolic value it can become a rallying point for a movement, like J. Howard Miller’s 1942 illustration of Rosie the Riveter, which has become an icon of feminism and women’s economic impact across the western world.
Societal value
And here’s where the rubber meets the road: when we look at our world today, we see a seemingly insurmountable wave of fear, bigotry, and hatred expressed by groups of people against anyone who is different from them. While issues of racial and gender bias, homophobia and religious intolerance run deep, and have many complex sources, much of the problem lies with a lack of empathy. When you look at another person and don't see them as human, that’s the beginning of fear, violence and war. Art is communication. And in the contemporary world, it’s often a deeply personal communication. When you create art, you share your worldview, your history, your culture and yourself with the world. Art is a window, however small, into the human struggles and stories of all people. So go see art, find art from other cultures, other religions, other orientations and perspectives. If we learn about each other, maybe we can finally see that we're all in this together. Art is a uniquely human expression of creativity. It helps us understand our past, people who are different from us, and ultimately, ourselves.
Reed Enger, "The Value of Art, Why should we care about art?," in Obelisk Art History , Published June 24, 2017; last modified November 08, 2022, http://www.arthistoryproject.com/essays/the-value-of-art/.
Defining ‘Art’
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Introduction to Art
30,000 years of human creativity
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Art Essay Examples and Topics
If you are studying art, chances are that you will have to write a lot of essays during your time in school or college. To receive an excellent grade on them, it is essential that you learn how to write an art essay. Here are the top tips for writing essays on art:
Choose a subject that is interesting to you . For example, if you are interested in graphic art, focus on it in your essay. If you are not sure of what to write about, try searching art essay topics online and choose the one you like most.
Look for sample papers on the topic . If you want to write about a particular movie, look for a film analysis example featuring it. Using this tip, you will be able to get some ideas and add more depth to your writing.
Find relevant scholarly sources . You can search Google Scholar or your school’s library for high-quality articles and books on the subject. Instead of merely citing the information from sources, try to offer some critique. Are the views shared by the author supported by other scholars? Do you agree with their evaluation and why?
Include a personal response . Many forms of art are subject to personal interpretation, and some tutors want their students’ essays to be expressive. This means that you should share your views on the topic and explain why you think the way you do. Doing so will help you to show your understanding of the topic and earn you some extra marks.
Hopefully, these tips will help you to earn an A on your art and design essays! You can explore our site for free essay samples and topics.
5505 Best Essay Examples on Art
Favorite movie: “home alone” by john hughes.
Subjects: Film Studies
Mona Lisa’s Elements and Principles of Art
Subjects: Paintings
Singing as a Hobby and Way of Self-Expression
Subjects: Music
Books Vs. Movies: Similarities and Differences Essay
Subjects: Cinema Art
The History of Elizabethan Drama Era
Subjects: Theater
Words: 1009
Psychological Disorders in “American Psycho” Movie
Words: 2806
The Analysis of the Movie “Inside Out” by Pixar
Symbolism in “get out” movie, “mona lisa smile” movie analysis.
Words: 1960
My Favorite Musical Instrument: The Guitar
Art appreciation.
Subjects: History of Art
Hidden Figures Movie
Words: 1130
Photograph Description: Nature
Subjects: Photography
The Film “Precious”: Claireece Precious Jones’ Case
Words: 2309
“Where Do Broken Hearts Go” Song by Whitney Houston
Subjects: Musical Compositions
Message in “Don’t Stop Believin'” Song by Journey
Words: 1127
Precious (2009): Patient Assessment and Treatment
Words: 1969
Benefits of Dancing Essay
Subjects: Dance
What Is Dance: Definition and Genres
The talking to the moon song by bruno mars, maurice ravel: bolero analysis of music piece – research paper.
Words: 1423
The “Avatar” (2009) Film Analysis
Words: 1163
Hirokazu Koreeda’s ‘Nobody Knows’ Movie Analysis
Words: 2217
“The Future” by Leonard Cohen
Bollywood movies: history and the ‘bollywood movement’.
Words: 1139
The Film “Black Panther” Analysis
School music festival concert.
Words: 2208
“Parasite” by Bong Joon-Ho
Words: 1179
Movie Analysis: “Slumdog Millionaire”
Ptsd in charlie of “the perks of being a wallflower”.
Words: 1110
A Musical Analysis of the song “As I Lay me Down” by Sophie B. Hawkins
Contemporary art practices essay.
Subjects: Art Movement
Words: 2962
Greek and Roman Theatre Differences
Words: 1124
“The Tragedy” by Pablo Picasso
Subjects: Artists
Pride and Prejudice: Film Interpretation
Words: 1892
“Twilight”: The First Movie in the Saga
Words: 1090
Garba Dance, Its History and Specifics: A Traditional Indian Dance
Words: 1129
Impressionism in Music and Art
Words: 2018
Analysis of “Precious Knowledge” Film
Words: 1106
Why Was the Globe Theatre Important to Shakespeare?
Words: 1089
Music and Its Impact on Our Lives
Words: 1393
Dance and Mathematics Relationship
“hotel rwanda” (2004) by terry george.
Words: 1161
“Silenced” (2011) by Hwang Dong-Hyuk
Goodfellas: cinematography analysis.
Words: 1540
Should the Government Fund the Arts?
Words: 1149
“Hound Dog” Song by Big Mama Thornton and Elvis Presley
Analyzing the songs of les miserables.
Words: 1789
Dance Elements in “Swan Lake” and “Night Journey” Ballets
The blind side essay movie review.
Words: 1631
Photos in “12 Million Black Voices” by Richard Wright
Words: 1394
Mona Lisa and the Last Supper Paintings
Words: 1674
Review and Analysis of “The Message” Movie
Words: 1167
Monet’s and van Gogh’s Paintings Comparison
Modern, modernism, and modernization.
Subjects: Visual Arts
Laocoon and His Sons Analysis: The Sculpture of Laocoön Group
Subjects: Sculpture
Arguments for Graffiti as Art
Moonlight by barry jenkins: a movie analysis.
Words: 1982
The Theories of Theatre’s Origins
Words: 1131
The “Great Pyramid of Giza” and the “Terracotta Army”
Music as a weapon during the vietnam war.
Words: 1603
“2012” Directed by Roland Emmerich
The “my neighbor totoro” film analysis.
Words: 1765
Cimabue’s and Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned Paintings
Words: 1165
The Movie “Split” Analysis
“miracle in cell no. 7”: the representation of mental illness.
Words: 1116
The Concept of Pop Music
Subjects: Music Genre
Analysis of the Shirt Scene in “The Great Gatsby” Film
Words: 1111
Analysis of Guernica: Pablo Picasso’s Guernica Critique
Words: 1091
Human Behavior and Psychology in “The Good Will Hunting” by Gus Van Sant
Words: 3891
History and Development of Dance
Words: 1231
Musical Usage of Ethos, Pathos and Logos
“apocalypto” (2006) by mel gibson.
Words: 1269
“Young Sheldon” (2017): Character Case Study
Subjects: Comedy
Ice Ages and Ice Age the Movie: The Realistic and Unrealistic Components of the Film
Subjects: Films Comparison
Words: 1581
“Shoshone Love Song” a Native American Song
The tragedy of othello: critical analysis — othello critical essay, “kingdom of heaven” film: history vs. hollywood.
Subjects: Historical Drama
Words: 2192
The “Pirates of Silicone Valley” Film Analysis
Muriel’s wedding as a representation of australian culture.
Words: 1941
In Time by Andrew Niccol Film Analysis
Words: 2154
Sometime in April: Summary and Analysis of the Movie
Words: 1521
A Rhetorical Analysis of the Titanic Film
Words: 1482
The Personality and Work of Claude Debussy
Subjects: Musicians
Words: 1104
A Biological Catastrophe: “Contagion” (2011)
The music industry.
Subjects: Music Industry
Words: 4355
Central Themes in the Movie “Water”
Words: 1724
“The Karate Kid” a Film by Harald Zwart
Words: 1212
Character Analysis of the Four Wives and the Maid Yan’er in the Film Raise the Red Lantern
Words: 1478
An Analysis on Elton John’s Candle in the Wind 1997 Song
Kurosawa’s “yojimbo” and leone’s “fistful of dollars” comparison.
Words: 3670
Hip-Hop Music
Words: 1697
Art in “Who the Fuck Is Jackson Pollock?” Documentary
“salaam bombay” (1988) by mira nair.
Words: 1121
The Animated Movie “Up” by Carl Fredricksen
Words: 1439
Wonder Movie: A Miracle of Family
Words: 1228
Sound Techniques in the Truman
Works of art.
Words: 1256
Applying a Sociological Theory to the Movie ‘The Truman Show’
“the mission” movie analysis, the play “fifth of july” by lanford wilson, “notting hill”: the movie analysis, “a subtlety” by kara walker: the art installation.
Words: 1726
The Movie “If Only” by Gil Junger and Christina Welsh
Words: 1773
My Sister’s Keeper: Ethical and Legal Issues
Words: 1186
“Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio
Words: 2036
“Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” Film Cinematography
Words: 1705
Representation of African-American Women in the Movie Foxy Brown
Summary of “inside the white cube” by brian o’doherty.
Subjects: Art Exhibitions
Various Themes in the Film “Children of Heaven”
Words: 1099
Maurice Ravel’ “Bolero”
Words: 1134
Rain Man and Psychological Concepts
Words: 1154
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo: Film Techniques and Vertigo Cinematography Analysis
Words: 1463
Erykah Badu’s “Bag Lady” Song Meaning and Context
“life is beautiful”: a lesson in the perception of life.
Words: 1446
Effect of Movies on Society and Individuals
Race and gender in “hidden figures” (2016).
Words: 1109
The Film ‘Coach Carter’
Words: 1193
A Critical Review of the Film “Blood Diamond”
Words: 1017
The Truman Show Movie
Entertainment
Environment
Information Science and Technology
Social Issues
Home Essay Samples
Essay Samples on Art
While it may seem easy to compose essays about art, it’s not really so because you have to offer background information in your introduction part and explain why some exhibition or a school of thought is important. This should go to your first paragraph because your purpose is to inspire your readers and provide enough background information. When you already have a prompt that must be followed, determine what kind of essay must be written. It can be a descriptive essay, which is great for a description of the works of art or photography. Some other cases may require working with an explanatory tone where you have to explain why an artist has chosen certain palettes or what has been an inspiration. See various free art essay examples below for inspiration. It also helps to learn how to structure your writing and implement quotes or footnotes that are used to highlight the images. Remember to focus on the ways how to cite images and multimedia elements, depending on the chosen style. Your writing should address every image that you have by checking twice with the grading rubric to ensure that you use the sources that may have already been specified.
What Does Creativity Mean to You
Creativity, an intricate tapestry of imagination and innovation, holds a unique significance for each individual. It is a concept that transcends the boundaries of convention, sparking curiosity and igniting the flames of inspiration. In this essay, we embark on a journey to unearth the meaning...
Censorship of Art and Artists: The Complex Discourse
The intersection of creativity and expression often finds itself entangled in a contentious debate: the censorship of art and artists. This complex issue has sparked discussions across societies and cultures, raising questions about freedom of speech, cultural preservation, and the power dynamics between creators and...
Why I Want to Study Architecture: the Power of Design
The world around us is a tapestry of structures, spaces, and designs that shape our lives and experiences. From towering skyscrapers to quaint houses, every architectural marvel carries a story and a vision. The allure of architecture, with its blend of artistic expression, technical precision,...
Architecture
The Impact of Technology on Art: A Modern Renaissance
Introduction The influence of technology on art is an evolving narrative that reflects the symbiotic relationship between human creativity and innovative tools. From the early use of simple tools to create cave paintings to the digital art technologies of today, the integration of technology in...
Art History
Impact of Technology
Renaissance
Exploring Feminist Literary Criticism: Unveiling Mona Lisa Smile
Introduction Self-assessment and criticism help us improve our skills and the ways in which we communicate our ideas and perspectives with others. In this feminist literary criticism essay, I will be critiquing and analysis of the movie Mona Lisa Smile. Firstly, I will explain why...
Literary Criticism
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Frida Kahlo: Exploring Her Biography Through the Film 'Frida'
In the 2002 film “Frida” directed by Julie Taymor, illustrates the life of Frida Kahlo based on the book Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera. Who is Frida Kahlo? Her biography in this essay is explored with the help of the film...
Film Analysis
Frida Kahlo
Debate Surrounding Graphic Novel and Relation to Literature
Introduction In the past years, the noise about graphic novels has been constantly increasing. A graphic novel is basically a novel in comic-strip format, a book made up of comics’ content. However, they are not the same as comics. Unlike comic books, graphic novels are...
Graphic Novel
Visual Arts
Depicting Trauma: Symbolism in Graphic Novels
Introduction I must confess that I never read a graphic novel prior to this course. I think I’ve developed and expressed my opinion of graphic novels frequently over the course of the semester, and I think I would be remiss if I did not close...
Understanding Graphic Novels: Context and Analysis for Reading
Introduction Graphic novels are stories illustrated in comic form but have the length of a novel. “The term graphic novel was invented in 1970 however, the time of its origin is not concluded yet” (“Levitz”). Graphic novels have been debated for decades since some readers...
Jhene Aiko: Exploring the Artistry and Emotions in her Music
The artist I have chosen to write about is Jhene Aiko who is categorized in the R&B and Hip-Hop genre. Jhene Aiko is a popular singer who writes her music under the influence of cannibis, under the influence of therapeutic instruments and while having a...
Famous Person
Music Industry
The Joy of Painting: Exploring the Life and Legacy of Bob Ross
Who is Bob Ross, or rather, who was he? During the 80s and 90s, he was an artist who specialized in painting, hosting an instructional painting show on PBS called The Joy of Painting. Though Bob Ross has long since passed on, one will find...
The Uniqueness of Australian Artwork: Exploring Artists' Perceptions
Australian artists provide a unique way of displaying the Australian landscape. John Olsen is one of these artists, who uses symbolism to create a sense of movement. This is conveyed through his spontaneous linear line work as seen in Onkaparinga Hill, blue wren and fox...
Artistic World of Peter Doig: an Insight Into His Life and Work
Peter Doig is a contemporary Scottish artist I found that peaked my interest from his art work to his personal life. I’d like to start off by giving a brief background of the artist seeing that a lot of his work is landscapes from where...
Contemporary Art
Being an Artist: My Passion, Place of Freedom and Courage
I remember constantly wondering if there was a way that I could make my life meaningful or if it even had meaning. I was just a thirteen year old starting to figure out her own self. My life revolved around wanting to please the people...
About Myself
Sculpture From Dura Europas: the Head of a Bearded God
One of the artworks in the Yale art gallery is the Head of a Bearded God. This sculpture of bearded man that looks old and wise. This piece has curly hair, bushy eyebrows, and very wide/big eyes. The piece is is classified as a sculpture,...
Kashimiri Papier Mache Art: a Unique Dying Art Form
Kashmir has been wrought in conflict and upheaval for decades now, but its wonderful valleys give us a unique gift of native craftsmanship – Papier Mache art. Kashmir’s rich cultural past is often overlooked due to its troublesome political past. Its handicrafts and shawls (from...
The Art of the Meddah: Exploring Turkish Forms of Storytelling
Culture is the conglomeration of the beliefs and art forms of societiesm across places, along a long-time frame. And quite evidently, the Republic of Turkey has an extremely long history and a resultantly rich diversity in its culture. Throughout its history, the Turkish land was...
The Way Technologies Transform Already Existing Art Forms
Compelling games are not the consequences of accidents, any more than are riveting novels, movies, or music. Creators for all these medias draw on well-established set of strategies and techniques to create a particular emotional experience. Musicians, for example, may create tension through reiteration and...
How Shemistry Influenced the History and Presentation of Art
Chemistry is everywhere in our life. Of course, chemistry is also closely related to art. There are many forms of art, such as oil painting, gouache, watercolor and so on. These painting forms are inseparable from products such as pigments and watercolors, which are based...
Critical Understanding of the Sculptural Art of Alexander Calder
Calder was an American sculptor from Pennsylvania. His father, Alexander Stirling Calder was a sculptor and his mother a painter. Him and his family were constantly on the move around the country throughout Calder’s childhood due to his dads work. And through this Calder was...
Discussion on the Relationship Between Intelligence and Creativity
The relationship between intelligence and creativity has been subjected to research for many years. Unfortunately, there is yet no consensus on how these constructs are related. The connection between intelligence and creativity is that they are functions of the brain that handle data to determine...
Intelligence
Do Schools Kill Creativity: the Issues of Music Education
In the TEDx video entitled, 'Do schools kill creativity?' Sir Ken Robinson discusses what he believes to be the main problem with our education system, providing a series of funny anecdotes and facts appropriate for his argument. After watching this video about 'Do schools kill...
Creative and Critical Thinking: Combining the Achievements of Thought
Creative, one word that can be interpreted in many ways whether in thoughts which is include ways of thinking and actions and also in verbal form. Critical, on the other side refers to the ability to analyse information objectively and make a reasoned judgment. It...
Critical Thinking
Culture, Art and Creativity: the Way They Are Related
Art is a reflection of your thinking, your ideas, and your surroundings, the artist adopts his or her surroundings and then by using their imagination, outside thinking and their perspective they present a new face of it in front of the world. Art and creativity...
Cultural Anthropology
Accessing the World of Theatre: Musicals and Music Theatre
Goodwin (2019) states music theatre is a type of stage performance using music from various forms such as ballets, operas, cabarets, and contemporary music. Musical theatre uses different techniques (e.g. music, dance, songs, acting as well as spoken dialogue) to tell a story to the...
Drawing for Architecture: A Key to Understanding Complex Designs
Architecture the word from Latin is called “architectura” originally from the Greek “arkhitekton”. Architectural drawing has never been taken for granted. All things we design and sketch are from our thinking to our hands. Therefore, drawings are the main development to architectural projects. When designing,...
Architecture: Bridging Vision into Reality
Architecture can be defined in various ways, but if I were to define it, I would simply use these following words, ‘Architecture is an abstract language that bridges a vision into reality.’ I think everyone would agree that architecture is best paired with great effort...
Interior Design
The Development of Nationalism & Regionalism in Australian Architecture
Introduction From the 1880s, “nationalism” and “regionalism” had been started to be two of the keywords on the Australian development of architecture. These two words point toward the nation’s sake of rejecting foreign architectural approaches and seeking of the local architectural characteristics in Australia. During...
Modern Architecture
Architecture: A Means to Improve People's Quality of Life
Introduction “Architecture is about finding imaginative, creative solutions to improving people’s quality of life.” - Alejandro Aravena Architecture was born approach back in the prehistoric age, once the first man determined to come back up with shelters made up of twigs and bones. architecture isn't...
Quality of Life
Architecture and its Role in Nation Building: A Critical Review
Brief introduction on architecture and how its spaces are perceived The universal definition of architecture as a synthesis of ‘art’ and ‘science’ is inadequate in the present democratic, globalized, and information world of the 21st century. Many modern good-looking buildings with sound structures have been...
Romanticism Paintings Analysis: The Raft of Medusa and Liberty Leading the People
I will be focusing on romanticism that is based on emotions and sublimity. I will be displaying the features of romantic art by analysing two paintings from the 19th century. These are The Raft of Medusa by Theodore Gericault (1819; Louvre Museum, Paris), oil on...
Romanticism
The Ideas Behind The Persistence of Memory and Pillars of Society
George Grosz, Pillars of Society (1926) George Grosz was born in Berlin on July 26, 1893, he studied at Dresden Art Academy and began his career as a cartoonist. He later joined a Dada movement in 1917. And he was a famous figure in Neue...
Salvador Dali
The Persistence of Memory, Starry Night and Analysis of Other Paintings
Dreams are something that everyone is or was able to have at one point in their life. Dreams are defined as, 'a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.' Many artists create their artworks from their dreams or other...
Vincent Van Gogh
The System Of Education: If I Could Change The World
If I could change the world, I would completely change the system of education. It hasn't changed for hundreds of years, and the current system was designed in the Industrial Age. This means, that children in school have to obey every order and do only...
Importance of Education
Expressive Art: Is Graffiti Art Or Vandalism
Throughout time graffiti has received both overwhelming support and intense backlash. Some view it as a form of expressive art while others consider it a complete destruction of property. However, despite the amount of differentiation, charisma and personality graffiti can bring into cities, it is...
Why Is Art Important For Human
Art is not a necessary part of survival. So why does it matter? Oftentimes art is overlooked and viewed as an unimportant skill or ability to have. However, art has many qualities that one can benefit from. It is a stress reliever that allows people...
The Doll`s House" By H. Ibsen: Nora Helmer Character Analysis
Nora Helmer is a good wife and mother. She does all she can for her family, especially her husband. Considering all the things she does, and the lengths she went to to make sure her husband could regain his health, it was not enough in...
A Doll's House
Why Is Graffiti Are Not Vandalism
Why is graffiti art not vandalism? According to the Mural Arts Philadelphia website, the village’s first legitimate effort to eradicate graffiti started with the form of the Anti-Graffiti Network in the 1980s. Some people assay that its vandalism, and some assay that its artifice. Park...
My Take On Comedy: From Tartuffe To Sylvia And Cards Against Humanity
Defining comedy is extremely difficult. When something happens that makes you laugh, whether that is in a play or in real life, it’s difficult to pin down why you laughed, to begin with. I find myself defining comedy as a series of events that went...
Attitudes Towards Consumerism in Contemporary Art
In this essay I will be using information gathered from my own personal research, studio research and relevant topics discussed throughout the lectures. Whilst also, considering social, economic, and cultural factors. I will be discussing and analyzing attitudes towards consumerism in Contemporary Art. Built from...
Consumerism
One of the Most Common Forms of Theatre
Throughout this essay the focus of various practitioners will be explored thoroughly from the paths of life they took and how they became so successful, to the impact that their work had on other practitioners and in general the industry itself. The industry of theatre...
The Practice of Art Forgery and Monet's Aesthetic Flaws
A forgery is a work that is not genuine to its proclaimed origins, however, is presented as a genuine article, and is so acting with the intention to deceive. The practice of art forgery is as well established and mature as the practice of creating...
Claude Monet
Visual Verbal Essay on Wilfred Owen and Franz Marc
This essay explores two artists, Franz Marc, Brett Whitely and two of their artworks depicting animal scenes. Franz Marc’s ‘Tiger’, ‘Blue Horse 1’ and Brett Whitley’s Giraffe and Hyena. These four artworks will be compared and contrasted using the structural and the subjective frame. In...
Wilfred Owen
The Role of Creative Industries in the United Kingdom
In this essay I will go over and talk about the creative industries and the role they play in the United Kingdom, I will look at the history and the development of the Creative Industries and their sectors. I will then look at the wider...
Great Britain
African Art: West African Sculpting
West African sculpting greatly influenced us today because lots o people still do it like when Pablo Picasso recreated the style of west African art he created it like they would some real some supernatural and exaggerated on some body parts after Pablo Picasso shared...
African Art
Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham Due to Divine Intervention
First of all, there are several juxtapositions present throughout the painting. For example, there is a dichotomous relationship between the cold sensuality in the foreground and the pastoral beauty in the background. Secondly, Caravaggio manages to convey the sensational struggle present between the unconditional loyalty...
Greetings From the 1970s Contemporary Photography
The term contemporary refers to things happening in the same period of or in the style of the present or recent times so when referring to contemporary photography that is only basic modern 21st-century pictures or videos.. Over the past years, something called 'the medium'...
Photography
Claude Monet and Modern Art Today
“Claude Monet” was a famous French painter who used to catch his everyday life's best minutes on canvas. “Claude Monet” was born on 14 November 1840 and His father was a businessman and his mother was a singer. He is one of the most praised...
The World’s Wife Borrowed From Other Texts
It is often that literature, whether being a poem or a book, often provides a voice for those who lack one. The work by Carol Ann Duffy is an accumulation of poems titled 'The World's Wife', first published in 1999 and the present works through...
Drama (Play Genre)
Typography: From Billboards to Street Signs
Typography is everywhere we look, in the books we read on the websites we visit even in everyday life, from billboards to street signs, product packaging and even on your mobile phone. It is the art and technique of designing and arranging type. Today the...
Advertising
Rebellious Aspect to Monet’s Personality
Claude Monet is an artist who continues to be adored and held in high esteem even to this day. There may be many who perhaps are not familiar with the name, yet still at least recognise one piece of his work. His paintings are a...
Edgar Degas and His Way of Critics
Mary Cassatt was born in 1844. She was born in what is now known as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and died on June 14, 1926 at her French home right outside of Paris. Mary was raised in Philadelphia where she spent her childhood with a social privilege...
Edgar Degas
Impressionism
The Principles of Art: Movement, Unity, Harmony, Variety
If you were to ask someone “what is art essay”, the majority of people in the world would think of art and immediately their mind would shoot to a painting. The truth is, art is so much more than just a painting. There are thousands...
Art Movement
Fairy Tale Black Swan Is a Story of a Ballerina
“Black Swan” is not the fairy tale of “swan lake” but a story of a ballerina, Nina. The story begins with the change of the company, the old lead dancer Beth is about to leave. The stage needs a new lead dancer who can act...
The Book Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Calico
One may call war a side effect of human civilization. Nevertheless, it is in a war that people show their best virtues: courage, loyalty, strength, perseverance, and honesty. Nothing is surprising in the fact that texts on this subject have existed since the writing appeared....
Comparing Two Great Pieces by Pablo Picasso and by Francisco Goya
Today I will be comparing and contrasting two great pieces called “GUERNICA” by Pablo Picasso and “THE THIRD OF MAY” by Francisco Goya.The “GUERNICA” by Pablo Picasso was hard to understand at first but the longer you look at it you understand it is a...
Pablo Picasso
Black Swan is About Destructive Nature of Ballet
Nina Portman is a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her obsessive former ballerina mother Erica who exerts a suffocating control over her life. When artistic director...
The Development of Islamic Art
Islamic art is created not only for the Muslim faith, but it consists of artworks such as textiles, architecture, paintings and drawings that were produced in the regions that were once ruled by Muslim empires. Artists from various disciplines take part in collaborative projects and...
History of Islam
Islamic Art
Role of Cultural and Religious Pluralism
Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their own unique cultural identities. Migration is a key process that makes significant contribution to the growth of urbanism. Often immigrants belonging to particular region, language, religion ,tribe etc tend to...
Art and Religion
Religious Pluralism
John Berger: Understanding His Artwork
John Berger is a remarkable man who enlighten us with his knowledge using one of his brilliant essays “Ways of Seeing.” Berger has concurred the ability to fully understand any artwork and to recognize what is visible before him. He clarifies that there is a...
John Berger
America’s Contemporary Multimedia Artist Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons is one of America’s most popular contemporary multimedia artists, who believes that art can change lives, give vastness and expand your parameters. Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania in 1955. He studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the...
American Culture
The Sistine Chapel Ceiling by Michelangelo
The Sistine Chapel Ceiling (Italian: Volta Della Cappella Sistina), painted by Michelangelo somewhere in the range of 1508 and 1512, is a foundation work of High Renaissance craftsmanship. The Creation of Adam' is one of the nine ceiling boards in the Sistine Chapel portraying scenes...
Michelangelo
History of Medieval And Byzantine Art Movements
A painting wealthy in color typical for St.George on a rearing white horse, shown against a rocky landscape, slaying the winged monster as it appears before him. An angel crowns St.George with a martyr’s crown, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. The tower on...
Byzantine Empire
The Power Of Photography: Capturing Emotions With Camera
Photographs help people preserve memories with its technology, but what is actually happening is much more interesting when thought about in more depth. A moment in time is captured forever, so long as the photograph is kept in good shape. It is the closest people...
Jackson Pollock as an Influential America Artist
The painter Jackson Pollock was an influential America painter and a key person to the abstract expressionist movement. He was born in Cody , Wyoming in 1912 and he was the youngest of 5 brothers. He grew up in Arizona and Chico, California he moved...
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Essay on Art
500 words essay on art.
Each morning we see the sunshine outside and relax while some draw it to feel relaxed. Thus, you see that art is everywhere and anywhere if we look closely. In other words, everything in life is artwork. The essay on art will help us go through the importance of art and its meaning for a better understanding.
What is Art?
For as long as humanity has existed, art has been part of our lives. For many years, people have been creating and enjoying art. It expresses emotions or expression of life. It is one such creation that enables interpretation of any kind.
It is a skill that applies to music, painting, poetry, dance and more. Moreover, nature is no less than art. For instance, if nature creates something unique, it is also art. Artists use their artwork for passing along their feelings.
Thus, art and artists bring value to society and have been doing so throughout history. Art gives us an innovative way to view the world or society around us. Most important thing is that it lets us interpret it on our own individual experiences and associations.
Art is similar to live which has many definitions and examples. What is constant is that art is not perfect or does not revolve around perfection. It is something that continues growing and developing to express emotions, thoughts and human capacities.
Importance of Art
Art comes in many different forms which include audios, visuals and more. Audios comprise songs, music, poems and more whereas visuals include painting, photography, movies and more.
You will notice that we consume a lot of audio art in the form of music, songs and more. It is because they help us to relax our mind. Moreover, it also has the ability to change our mood and brighten it up.
After that, it also motivates us and strengthens our emotions. Poetries are audio arts that help the author express their feelings in writings. We also have music that requires musical instruments to create a piece of art.
Other than that, visual arts help artists communicate with the viewer. It also allows the viewer to interpret the art in their own way. Thus, it invokes a variety of emotions among us. Thus, you see how essential art is for humankind.
Without art, the world would be a dull place. Take the recent pandemic, for example, it was not the sports or news which kept us entertained but the artists. Their work of arts in the form of shows, songs, music and more added meaning to our boring lives.
Therefore, art adds happiness and colours to our lives and save us from the boring monotony of daily life.
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Conclusion of the Essay on Art
All in all, art is universal and can be found everywhere. It is not only for people who exercise work art but for those who consume it. If there were no art, we wouldn’t have been able to see the beauty in things. In other words, art helps us feel relaxed and forget about our problems.
FAQ of Essay on Art
Question 1: How can art help us?
Answer 1: Art can help us in a lot of ways. It can stimulate the release of dopamine in your bodies. This will in turn lower the feelings of depression and increase the feeling of confidence. Moreover, it makes us feel better about ourselves.
Question 2: What is the importance of art?
Answer 2: Art is essential as it covers all the developmental domains in child development. Moreover, it helps in physical development and enhancing gross and motor skills. For example, playing with dough can fine-tune your muscle control in your fingers.
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The Most Important Art Essays of the Year
What were the ideas that had everyone talking?
Atmosphere from the Zombie Formalism panel.
It was an eventful year for art writing, with plenty of shifts in the landscape, as new publications opened (including this one), or popped up , or reinvented themselves . But beneath all the institutional shuffles, what were the ideas that got people excited? To try to answer that question, I polled colleagues, but the final selection below is obviously a personal one. It reflects the world around me, and is weighted towards pieces that reflect my own location and my own sense of this year’s troubled qualities . In any case, here are a few of the pieces of writing that I think are touchstones of 2014:
Holland Cotter, “ Lost in the Gallery-Industrial Complex, ” New York Times , January 17, 2014 It’s a little crazy to me that Cotter’s fretful, sweeping state-of-the-scene piece is already a year old. But it stands in here for all the angst of money in a year of record auction prices and continued angst about inequality .
Jason Farago, “ Learning to Live With MoMA ,” Frieze blog, January 17, 2014 Amid all the outcry around MoMA’s annexation of the Folk Art Museum building, Farago did the best, to my taste, of getting to the heart of what was really at stake by placing it within the longer arc of change in the museum’s identity going back to its failed encounter with Rem Koolhaas.
Christian L. Frock, “ Priced Out: New Tech Wealth and San Francisco’s Receding Art Scene ,” KQED, February 7, 2014 Frock’s multipart series (here’s the second: “ Priced Out: San Francisco’s Changing Values and Artist Exodus “) captured the voices of a Bay Area arts community trying to stay afloat in a sea of “disruptive” tech money, but testifies to a conversation artists were having seemingly everywhere artists were found (see also Jen Graves’s “ How Artists Can Fight Back Against Cities That Are Taking Advantage of Them ”).
Trevor Paglen, “ Overhead: New Photos of the NSA and Other Top Intelligence Agencies Revealed ,” Creative Time Reports, February 10, 2014 If you haven’t been paying attention to what Marisa Mazria Katz has been up to for the last two years at Creative Time Reports —essentially, supporting artists in finding new ways to cover the news—you should be. In February, the publication teamed up with The Intercept to launch this Paglen photo essay, serving up images that immediately became a kind of visual shorthand for the sinister powers of government surveillance in the age of Snowden.
Walter Robinson, “ Flippers and the Rise of Zombie Formalism ,” Artspace Magazine, April 3, 2014 If there is an essay that touched off more discussion this year, then I can’t think of what it was. The tongue-in-cheek “Zombie Formalism” label, applied either to that funky-junky art-school look or used as a diagnosis of an art world obsessed with “artificial milestones” and the “simulacrum of originality” in general, is now lodged deep in the conversation .
Eunsong Kim and Maya Isabella Mackrandilal, “ The Whitney Biennial for Angry Women ,” The New Inquiry, April 4, 2014 This unsparing, percussive manifesto denouncing the Biennial and the art establishment in general set the stage for many of the debates of the year. It was, as the authors summed it up in their conclusion, “[a] demand for the impossible: decolonization, decentering, radical thinking, radical action, radical making.”
Helen Molesworth, review of the Whitney Biennial , Artforum , May 2014 The Whitney Biennial always draws fire. But this is really less of a review than a curator’s series of frustrated questions for her peers about the profession and its fundamental aims.
Jamilla King, “ The Overwhelming Whiteness of Black Art ,” Colorlines, May 21, 2014 This is one from well outside the regular circle of art coverage—but King’s thoughtful piece about Kara Walker’s A Subtlety and the demographics of the art audience opened up a conversation that reverberated throughout the piece’s run, culminating with “We Are Here,” an event for people of color to view Walker’s work together, to experience it as the majority.
Rahel Aima, “ Christian Marclay Goes to Bollywood ,” The New Inquiry, May 21, 2014 Christian Marclay’s epoch-making The Clock toured the world telling the story of a day through film clips culled mainly from Western film. He follows it up with a supercut of Bollywood dream sequences set in Switzerland , destined to be shown in a chairlift in Gstaad, and Aima considers the cultural asymmetries and structures of power that this makes visible.
Christopher Glazek, “ Shopkeepers of the World Unite ,” Artforum , June 2014 A sympathetic and convincingly intricate account of the rise of the artists around DIS magazine, making a case for the new Post-Internet cool school while still remaining just critical enough to convince yourself that you were seeing it plain.
Molly Crabapple, illustration for Slaves of Happiness Island. Courtesy of the artist and Vice
Molly Crabapple, “ Slaves of Happiness Island ,” Vice, August 4, 2014 A neat feat of first-person journalism, this piece recounts one artist’s voyage onto the site of the soon-to-be built Guggenheim Abu Dhabi to see for herself what labor conditions looked like there. With the main and most demanding construction still to come, Crabapple talked to a worker laying the infrastructure for the new institution: “I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. My body is on the verge of giving up, but I cannot leave my job because I am responsible for my sisters.”
John Yau, “ Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons and the Culture of Hyperbole ,” Hyperallergic, August 17, 2014 Taking a long look at the deep values of today’s Koons craze, Yau finds that they amount to this: “to be out of the mainstream is in fact a mark of imperfection.”
Whitney Kimball, “ How Do People Feel About the Gramsci Monument, One Year Later? ,” Art F City, August 20, 2014 A year after artist Thomas Hirschhorn’s pop-up community center won plaudits and raised hackles at a Bronx housing project, Kimball returns to ask people in the neighborhood what good it left behind—the kind of follow-up that almost never happens. The answers she finds are probably neither positive nor negative enough to satisfy pro-or-anti-Monument camps, which is part of what makes the exercise important.
Carolina Miranda, “ Art and race at the Whitney: Rethinking the Donelle Woolford debate ,” Los Angeles Times , June 17, 2014 It’s hard to sum up what makes this article important, given everything that’s involved: the Whitney Biennial, a black artist collective’s decision to publicly leave the show in protest of perceived racism , and the artist Joe Scanlan’s work made in the persona of a fictional African-American artist, Donelle Woolford. By interviewing Jenn Kidwell, the actress involved in Scanlan’s work, Miranda added important nuance to a very difficult conversation about race, racism, and art.
Jeff Chang, “ Color Theory: Race Trouble and the Avant Garde ,” n+1 , Fall 2014 Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop author Jeff Chang’s deeply researched, penetrating beat-by-beat account of a 1979 scandal at Artists Space around the artist known as Donald and his so-called “ Nigger Drawings ” (it’s an excerpt from his new book, Who We Be ) unearths all sides of a painful chapter in recent art history. Given the year that we’ve had (see above), its lessons couldn’t feel more relevant.
Assorted essays on contemporary art and feminism , edited by Kara L. Rooney, The Brooklyn Rail , September 2014 There are individual essays here that have stuck with me as offering particularly useful ways to grasp the question of feminism in art today (Chloe Wyma’s “ Lean Back: Resisting Branded Feminism ” is one that I find myself quoting a lot). But the collection of writings in the Rail ‘s special section on the subject is also eclectic, which maybe makes it more useful as a snapshot of the unsettled nature of the present conversation.
Mira Schor, “ The Feminist Wheel ,” A Year of Positive Thinking, September 20, 2014 An exasperated rant from inside Mira Schor’s head (and Twitter feed) at The Hole’s “Future Feminism” show takes on larger significance as a reflection on the difficulty of staying true to hard-earned—and needed—feminist principles while not missing out on the “utopian ebullience” of more recent arrivals.
Roberta Smith, “ In a Mattress, a Lever of Art and Protest ,” New York Times , September 21, 2014 In protest over institutional ineptitude around sexual assault , Columbia art student Emma Sulkowicz launched Carry That Weight , vowing to carry a mattress around campus until the man she says raped her leaves. The artistic protest touched off a deafening roar of media coverage of the “hot takes” type—so there was something significant about one of the country’s most authoritative art critics stepping up to explain why this work of protest-as-performance was worth your actual considered attention.
Mostafa Heddaya, “ Delusions of Grandeur: GCC at MoMA PS1 and the New Museum ,” Hyperallergic, September 26, 2014 This is an adept polemic about the buzzy “ Gulf Futurism ” of the art group GCC —and through it, a reflection on what strategies of political art might be viable today.
Art Post-Internet , edited by Karen Archey and Robin Peckham, October 2014 If you are one of those people who this year realized that you suddenly had to have something to say about “Post-Internet” art, this sprawling pamphlet with contributions from artists, academics, curators, and writers (including me) is as fine a place to start as any. In a neat Post-Internet touch, each PDF is a “unique” edition, stamped with a number and record of your location and the weather where you were at the moment you hit download.
Andrew Berardini, “ How to Write About Contemporary Art ,” Momus, October 15, 2014 This year, Toronto-based writer Sky Goodden launched Momus.ca , an online art platform that bills itself as a “return to art criticism.” Berardini’s essay on the petty indignities and strange detours of a life of writing about art is probably my favorite piece on this list. I can’t do it justice, so just go read it.
Brian Droitcour, “ The Perils of Post-Internet Art ,” Art in America , November 2014 You know something has become a thing when it starts to draw the kind of sustained intellectual attack that Droitcour levels at the avatars of Post-Internet art, framing the whole trend as an attempt to recapture the web’s anarchic energies for the professional gallery world rather than a step into some new realm beyond it.
Philip Kennicott, “ An art loan from Bill Cosby draws the Smithsonian into a national debate ,” The Washington Post , November 20, 2014; Jillian Steinhauer, “ What Should the Smithsonian Do About Its Show of Bill Cosby’s Art Collection? ,” Hyperallergic, November 20, 2014; Kriston Capps, “ Why Is the Smithsonian Standing Behind Bill Cosby? ,” The Atlantic , November 21, 2014 The fallout from the allegations against Bill Cosby is far from over, but at year’s end, it provoked a series of excellent articles that went beyond the immediate scandal to look at the responsibilities of art institutions and the ethical traps of showcasing private collections.
Victor Merida, “ Excited Delirium: Graffiti and Miami ,” The Miami Rail , Winter 2014 Some sober, sobering reflections on graffiti art’s place in the branding of Miami, made more resonant by the tragic death of the young artist Israel “REEFA” Hernandez last year at the hands of the police.
Pac Pobric, “ Sturtevant’s Provincialism ,” Los Angeles Review of Books , December 18, 2014 There’s just something about a righteously pissed-off review, right? And while this year will be remembered as one where everyone once again proved their seriousness by lining up to take shots at Jeff Koons , here’s one that goes after a target that’s more difficult to pin down.
Mel Chin, “ Miley, Eric and Me: Basel’s Dazzle and the Dark Death Around Us ,” Creative Time Reports, December 18, 2014 I’m not sure I could believe that anything that great came of Miley Cyrus’s coronation as an art star at Art Basel in Miami Beach. But this soul-searching essay did come of it, which is definitely worth something.
Special mentions:
W.A.G.E. Wo/Manifesto This is a bullet-pointed call for change, from the group that calls for a new social contract between art institutions and artists.
Not That This! Nathaniel Donnett’s blog focusing on adding coverage of the African-American art scene in Houston not only adds a needed perspective, but does so in experimental ways; for instance, using poetry . It just won an Idea Fund grant to expand and make its coverage more regular, so keep it bookmarked.
Christian Viveros-Fauné and Blake Gopnik, “ Strictly Critical ” video series, artnet News, and Casey Jane Ellison, “ Touching the Art ,” Ovation TV Having seen many, many attempts to make art-themed videos work over the years, I know how hard it is—but this year brought two strong contenders. Viveros-Fauné and Gopnik perfected a Siskel and Ebert routine that made it seem suddenly fun and interesting to debate art, not a chore. Meanwhile, Ellison, whose Twitter bio describes herself as “artist + comic with a mole on her face,” brought her own alluringly wacky touch to bear on Ovation’s art-themed chat show.
Raphael Rubinstein, The Miraculous (Paper Monument) Here’s another outlier because it is a book and not an essay, strictly speaking, which opens up a whole other can of worms . But, in terms of things I read this year that really made me rethink how I looked at contemporary art, this one particularly affected me . So it stays on! If you still need a gift for an art lover, this is it.
National Art Critic
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Citation Help
What is a Compare and Contrast Essay?
What is a compare / contrast essay.
In Art History and Appreciation, contrast / compare essays allow us to examine the features of two or more artworks.
Comparison -- points out similarities in the two artworks
Contrast -- points out the differences in the two artworks
Why would you want to write this type of essay?
To inform your reader about characteristics of each art piece.
To show a relationship between different works of art.
To give your reader an insight into the process of artistic invention.
Use your assignment sheet from your class to find specific characteristics that your professor wants you to compare.
How is Writing a Compare / Contrast Essay in Art History Different from Other Subjects?
You should use art vocabulary to describe your subjects..
Find art terms in your textbook or an art glossary or dictionary
You should have an image of the works you are writing about in front of you while you are writing your essay.
The images should be of high enough quality that you can see the small details of the works.
You will use them when describing visual details of each art work.
Works of art are highly influenced by the culture, historical time period and movement in which they were created.
You should gather information about these BEFORE you start writing your essay.
If you describe a characteristic of one piece of art, you must describe how the OTHER piece of art treats that characteristic.
Example: You are comparing a Greek amphora with a sculpture from the Tang Dynasty in China.
If you point out that the color palette of the amphora is limited to black, white and red, you must also write about the colors used in the horse sculpture.
Organizing Your Essay
Thesis statement.
The thesis for a comparison/contrast essay will present the subjects under consideration and indicate whether the focus will be on their similarities, on their differences, or both.
Thesis example using the amphora and horse sculpture -- Differences:
While they are both made from clay, the Greek amphora and the Tang Dynasty horse served completely different functions in their respective cultures.
Thesis example -- Similarities:
Ancient Greek and Tang Dynasty ceramics have more in common than most people realize.
Thesis example -- Both:
The Greek amphora and the Tang Dynasty horse were used in different ways in different parts of the world, but they have similarities that may not be apparent to the casual viewer.
Visualizing a Compare & Contrast Essay:
Introduction (1-2 paragraphs) .
Creates interest in your essay
Introduces the two art works that you will be comparing.
States your thesis, which mentions the art works you are considering and may indicate whether the focus will be on similarities, differences, or both.
Body paragraphs
Make and explain a point about the first subject and then about the second subject
Example: While both superheroes fight crime, their motivation is vastly different. Superman is an idealist, who fights for justice …… while Batman is out for vengeance.
Conclusion (1-2 paragraphs)
Provides a satisfying finish
Leaves your reader with a strong final impression.
Downloadable Essay Guide
How to Write a Compare and Contrast Essay in Art History Downloadable version of the description on this LibGuide.
Questions to Ask Yourself After You Have Finished Your Essay
Are all the important points of comparison or contrast included and explained in enough detail?
Have you addressed all points that your professor specified in your assignment?
Do you use transitions to connect your arguments so that your essay flows into a coherent whole, rather than just a random collection of statements?
Do your arguments support your thesis statement?
Art Terminology
British National Gallery: Art Glossary Includes entries on artists, art movements, techniques, etc.
Lee College Writing Center
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Other Compare / Contrast Writing Resources
Southwestern University Guide for Writing About Art This easy to follow guide explains the basic of writing an art history paper.
Purdue Online Writing Center: writing essays in art history Describes how to write an art history Compare and Contrast paper.
Stanford University: a brief guide to writing in art history See page 24 of this document for an explanation of how to write a compare and contrast essay in art history.
Duke University: writing about paintings Downloadable handout provides an overview of areas you should cover when you write about paintings, including a list of questions your essay should answer.
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By Will Fenstermaker
June 14, 2017
There has never been a time when art critics held more power than during the second half of the twentieth century. Following the Second World War, with the relocation of the world’s artistic epicenter from Paris to New York, a different kind of war was waged in the pages of magazines across the country. As part of the larger “culture wars” of the mid-century, art critics began to take on greater influence than they’d ever held before. For a time, two critics in particular—who began as friends, and remained in the same social circles for much of their lives—set the stakes of the debates surrounding the maturation of American art that would continue for decades. The ideas about art outlined by Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg are still debated today, and the extent to which they were debated in the past has shaped entire movements of the arts. Below are ten works of criticism through which one can trace the mainstreaming of Clement Greenberg’s formalist theory, and how its dismantling led us into institutional critique and conceptual art today.
The American Action Painters
Harold Rosenberg
Harold Rosenberg, a poet who came to art through his involvement with the Artist’s Union and the WPA, was introduced to Jean-Paul Sartre as the “first American existentialist.” Soon, Rosenberg became a contributor to Sartre’s publication in France, for which he first drafted his influential essay. However, when Sartre supported Soviet aggression against Korea, Rosenberg brought his essay to Elaine de Kooning , then the editor of ARTnews , who ran “The American Action Painters” in December, 1952.
RELATED: What Did Harold Rosenberg Do? An Introduction to the Champion of “Action Painting”
Rosenberg’s essay on the emerging school of American Painters omitted particular names—because they’d have been unfamiliar to its original French audience—but it was nonetheless extraordinarily influential for the burgeoning scene of post-WWII American artists. Jackson Pollock claimed to be the influence of “action painting,” despite Rosenberg’s rumored lack of respect for the artist because Pollock wasn’t particularly well-read. Influenced by Marxist theory and French existentialism, Rosenberg conceives of a painting as an “arena,” in which the artist acts upon, wrestles, or otherwise engages with the canvas, in what ultimately amounts to an expressive record of a struggle. “What was to go on the canvas,” Rosenberg wrote, “was not a picture but an event.”
Notable Quote
Weak mysticism, the “Christian Science” side of the new movement, tends … toward easy painting—never so many unearned masterpieces! Works of this sort lack the dialectical tension of a genuine act, associated with risk and will. When a tube of paint is squeezed by the Absolute, the result can only be a Success. The painter need keep himself on hand solely to collect the benefits of an endless series of strokes of luck. His gesture completes itself without arousing either an opposing movement within itself nor the desire in the artist to make the act more fully his own. Satisfied with wonders that remain safely inside the canvas, the artist accepts the permanence of the commonplace and decorates it with his own daily annihilation. The result is an apocalyptic wallpaper.
‘American-Type’ Painting
Clement Greenberg
Throughout the preceding decade, Clement Greenberg, also a former poet, had established a reputation as a leftist critic through his writings with The Partisan Review —a publication run by the John Reed Club, a New York City-centered organization affiliated with the American Communist Party—and his time as an art critic with The Nation . In 1955, The Partisan Review published Greenberg’s “‘American-Type’ Painting,” in which the critic defined the now-ubiquitous term “abstract expressionism.”
RELATED: What Did Clement Greenberg Do? A Primer on the Powerful AbEx Theorist’s Key Ideas
In contrast to Rosenberg’s conception of painting as a performative act, Greenberg’s theory, influenced by Clive Bell and T. S. Eliot, was essentially a formal one—in fact, it eventually evolved into what would be called “formalism.” Greenberg argued that the evolution of painting was one of historical determinacy—that ever since the Renaissance, pictures moved toward flatness, and the painted line moved away from representation. Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso were two of the landmarks of this view. Pollock, who exhibited his drip paintings in 1951, freeing the line from figuration, was for Greenberg the pinnacle of American Modernism, the most important artist since Picasso. (Pollock’s paintings exhibited in 1954, with which he returned to semi-representational form, were regarded by Greenberg as a regression. This lead him to adopt Barnett Newman as his new poster-boy, despite the artist’s possessing vastly different ideas on the nature of painting. For one, Greenberg mostly ignored the Biblical titles of Newman’s paintings.)
Greenberg’s formalist theories were immensely influential over the subsequent decades. Artforum in particular grew into a locus for formalist discourse, which had the early effect of providing an aesthetic toolkit divorced from politic. Certain curators of the Museum of Modern Art, particularly William Rubin, Kirk Varnedoe, and to an extent Alfred Barr are credited for steering the museum in an essentially formalist direction. Some painters, such as Frank Stella , Helen Frankenthaler , and Kenneth Noland, had even been accused of illustrating Greenberg’s theories (and those of Michael Fried, a prominent Greenbergian disciple) in attempt to embody the theory, which was restrictive in its failure to account for narrative content, figuration, identity, politics, and more. In addition, Greenberg’s theories proved well-suited for a burgeoning art market, which found connoisseurship an easy sell. (As the writer Mary McCarthy said, “You can’t hang an event on your wall.”) In fact, the dominance of the term “abstract expressionism” over “action painting,” which seemed more applicable to Pollock and Willem de Kooning than any other members of the New York School, is emblematic of the influence of formalist discourse.
The justification for the term, “abstract expressionist,” lies in the fact that most of the painters covered by it took their lead from German, Russian, or Jewish expressionism in breaking away from late Cubist abstract art. But they all started from French painting, for their fundamental sense of style from it, and still maintain some sort of continuity with it. Not least of all, they got from it their most vivid notion of an ambitious, major art, and of the general direction in which it had to go in their time.
Barbara Rose
Like many critics in the 1950s and 60s, Barbara Rose had clearly staked her allegiance to one camp or the other. She was, firmly, a formalist, and along with Fried and Rosalind Krauss is largely credited with expanding the theory beyond abstract expressionist painting. By 1965, however, Rose recognized a limitation of the theory as outlined by Greenberg—that it was reductionist and only capable of account for a certain style of painting, and not much at all in other mediums.
RELATED: The Intellectual Origins Of Minimalism
In “ABC Art,” published in Art in America where Rose was a contributing editor, Rose opens up formalism to encompass sculpture, which Greenberg was largely unable to account for. The simple idea that art moves toward flatness and abstraction leads, for Rose, into Minimalism, and “ABC Art” is often considered the first landmark essay on Minimalist art. By linking the Minimalist sculptures of artists like Donald Judd to the Russian supremacist paintings of Kasimir Malevich and readymades of Duchamp, she extends the determinist history that formalism relies on into sculpture and movements beyond abstract expressionism.
I do not agree with critic Michael Fried’s view that Duchamp, at any rate, was a failed Cubist. Rather, the inevitability of a logical evolution toward a reductive art was obvious to them already. For Malevich, the poetic Slav, this realization forced a turning inward toward an inspirational mysticism, whereas for Duchamp, the rational Frenchman, it meant a fatigue so enervating that finally the wish to paint at all was killed. Both the yearnings of Malevich’s Slavic soul and the deductions of Duchamp’s rationalist mind led both men ultimately to reject and exclude from their work many of the most cherished premises of Western art in favor of an art stripped to its bare, irreducible minimum.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Philip Leider
Despite the rhetorical tendency to suggest the social upheaval of the '60s ended with the actual decade, 1970 remained a year of unrest. And Artforum was still the locus of formalist criticism, which was proving increasingly unable to account for art that contributed to larger cultural movements, like Civil Rights, women’s liberation, anti-war protests, and more. (Tellingly, The Partisan Review , which birthed formalism, had by then distanced itself from its communist associations and, as an editorial body, was supportive of American Interventionism in Vietnam. Greenberg was a vocal hawk.) Subtitled “Art and Politics in Nevada, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Utah,” the editor’s note to the September 1970 issue of Artforum , written by Philip Leider, ostensibly recounts a road trip undertaken with Richard Serra and Abbie Hoffman to see Michael Heizer’s Double Negative in the Nevada desert.
RELATED: A City of Art in the Desert: Behind Michael Heizer’s Monumental Visions for Nevada
However, the essay is also an account of an onsetting disillusion with formalism, which Leider found left him woefully unequipped to process the protests that had erupted surrounding an exhibition of prints by Paul Wunderlich at the Phoenix Gallery in Berkeley. Wunderlich’s depictions of nude women were shown concurrently to an exhibition of drawings sold to raise money for Vietnamese orphans. The juxtaposition of a canonical, patriarchal form of representation and liberal posturing, to which the protestors objected, showcased the limitations of a methodology that placed the aesthetic elements of a picture plane far above the actual world in which it existed. Less than a year later, Leider stepped down as editor-in-chief and Artforum began to lose its emphasis on late Modernism.
I thought the women were probably with me—if they were, I was with them. I thought the women were picketing the show because it was reactionary art. To the women, [Piet] Mondrian must be a great revolutionary artist. Abstract art broke all of those chains thirty years ago! What is a Movement gallery showing dumb stuff like this for? But if it were just a matter of reactionary art , why would the women picket it? Why not? Women care as much about art as men do—maybe more. The question is, why weren’t the men right there with them?
Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?
Linda Nochlin
While Artforum , in its early history, had established a reputation as a generator for formalist theory, ARTnews had followed a decidedly more Rosenberg-ian course, emphasizing art as a practice for investigating the world. The January 1971 issue of the magazine was dedicated to “Women’s Liberation, Woman Artists, and Art History” and included an iconoclastic essay by Linda Nochlin titled “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”
RELATED: An Introduction to Feminist Art
Nochlin notes that it’s tempting to answer the question “why have there been no great women artists?” by listing examples of those overlooked by critical and institutional organizations (a labor that Nochlin admits has great merit). However, she notes, “by attempting to answer it, they tacitly reinforce its negative implications,” namely that women are intrinsically less capable of achieving artistic merit than men. Instead, Nochlin’s essay functions as a critique of art institutions, beginning with European salons, which were structured in such a way as to deter women from rising to the highest echelons. Nochlin’s essay is considered the beginning of modern feminist art history and a textbook example of institutional critique.
There are no women equivalents for Michelangelo or Rembrandt, Delacroix or Cézanne, Picasso or Matisse, or even in very recent times, for de Kooning or Warhol, any more than there are black American equivalents for the same. If there actually were large numbers of “hidden” great women artists, or if there really should be different standards for women’s art as opposed to men’s—and one can’t have it both ways—then what are feminists fighting for? If women have in fact achieved the same status as men in the arts, then the status quo is fine as it is. But in actuality, as we all know, things as they are and as they have been, in the arts as in a hundred other areas, are stultifying, oppressive, and discouraging to all those, women among them, who did not have the good fortune to be born white, preferably middle class and above all, male. The fault lies not in our stars, our hormones, our menstrual cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but in our institutions and our education.
Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief
Thomas McEvilley
One of the many extrapolations of Nochlin’s essay is that contemporary museum institutions continue to reflect the gendered and racist biases of preceding centuries by reinforcing the supremacy of specific master artists. In a 1984 Artforum review, Thomas McEvilley, a classicist new to the world of contemporary art, made the case that the Museum of Modern Art in New York served as an exclusionary temple to certain high-minded Modernists—namely, Picasso, Matisse, and Pollock—who, in fact, took many of their innovations from native cultures.
RELATED: MoMA Curator Laura Hoptman on How to Tell a Good Painting From a “Bogus” Painting
In 1984, MoMA organized a blockbuster exhibition. Curated by William Rubin and Kirk Varnedoe, both of whom were avowed formalists, “‘Primitivism’ in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern” collected works by European painters like Paul Gaugin and Picasso with cultural artifacts from Zaire, arctic communities, and elsewhere. McEvilley takes aim at the “the absolutist view of formalist Modernism” in which MoMA is rooted. He argues that the removal tribal artifacts from their contexts (for example, many were ritual items intended for ceremonies, not display) and placement of them, unattributed, near works by European artists, censors the cultural contributions of non-Western civilizations in deference to an idealized European genius.
The fact that the primitive “looks like” the Modern is interpreted as validating the Modern by showing that its values are universal, while at the same time projecting it—and with it MoMA—into the future as a permanent canon. A counter view is possible: that primitivism on the contrary invalidates Modernism by showing it to be derivative and subject to external causation. At one level this show undertakes precisely to coopt that question by answering it before it has really been asked, and by burying it under a mass of information.
Please Wait By the Coatroom
Not content to let MoMA and the last vestiges of formalism off the hook yet, John Yau wrote in 1988 an essay on Wifredo Lam, a Cuban painter who lived and worked in Paris among Picasso, Matisse, Georges Braque, and others. Noting Lam’s many influences—his Afro-Cuban mother, Chinese father, and Yoruba godmother—Yau laments the placement of Lam’s The Jungle near the coatroom in the Museum of Modern Art, as opposed to within the Modernist galleries several floors above. The painting was accompanied by a brief entry written by former curator William Rubin, who, Yau argues, adopted Greenberg’s theories because they endowed him with “a connoisseur’s lens with which one can scan all art.”
RELATED: From Cuba With Love: Artist Bill Claps on the Island’s DIY Art Scene
Here, as with with McEvilley’s essay, Yau illustrates how formalism, as adapted by museum institutions, became a (perhaps unintentional) method for reinforcing the exclusionary framework that Nochlin argued excluded women and black artists for centuries.
Rubin sees in Lam only what is in his own eyes: colorless or white artists. For Lam to have achieved the status of unique individual, he would have had to successfully adapt to the conditions of imprisonment (the aesthetic standards of a fixed tradition) Rubin and others both construct and watch over. To enter this prison, which takes the alluring form of museums, art history textbooks, galleries, and magazines, an individual must suppress his cultural differences and become a colorless ghost. The bind every hybrid American artist finds themselves in is this: should they try and deal with the constantly changing polymorphous conditions effecting identity, tradition, and reality? Or should they assimilate into the mainstream art world by focusing on approved-of aesthetic issues? Lam’s response to this bind sets an important precedent. Instead of assimilating, Lam infiltrates the syntactical rules of “the exploiters” with his own specific language. He becomes, as he says, “a Trojan horse.”
Black Culture and Postmodernism
Cornel West
The opening up of cultural discourse did not mean that it immediately made room for voices of all dimensions. Cornel West notes as much in his 1989 essay “Black Culture and Postmodernism,” in which he argues that postmodernism, much like Modernism before it, remains primarily ahistorical, which makes it difficult for “oppressed peoples to exercise their opposition to hierarchies of power.” West’s position is that the proliferation of theory and criticism that accompanied the rise of postmodernism provided mechanisms by which black culture could “be conversant with and, to a degree, participants in the debate.” Without their voices, postmodernism would remain yet another exclusionary movements.
RELATED: Kerry James Marshall on Painting Blackness as a Noun Vs. Verb
As the consumption cycle of advanced multinational corporate capitalism was sped up in order to sustain the production of luxury goods, cultural production became more and more mass-commodity production. The stress here is not simply on the new and fashionable but also on the exotic and primitive. Black cultural products have historically served as a major source for European and Euro-American exotic interests—interests that issue from a healthy critique of the mechanistic, puritanical, utilitarian, and productivity aspects of modern life.
Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power
Anna C. Chave
In recent years, formalist analysis has been deployed as a single tool within a more varied approach to art. Its methodology—that of analyzing a picture as an isolated phenomena—remains prevalent, and has its uses. Yet, many of the works and movements that rose to prominence under formalist critics and curators, in no small part because of their institutional acceptance, have since become part of the rearguard rather than the vanguard.
In a 1990 essay for Arts Magazine , Anna Chave analyzes how Minimalist sculpture possesses a “domineering, sometimes brutal rhetoric” that was aligned with “both the American military in Vietnam, and the police at home in the streets and on university campuses across the country.” In particular, Chave is concerned with the way Minimalist sculptures define themselves through a process of negation. Of particular relevance to Chave’s argument are the massive steel sculptures by Minimalist artist Richard Serra.
Tilted Arc was installed in Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan in 1981. Chave describes the work as a “mammoth, perilously tilted steel arc [that] formed a divisive barrier too tall to see over, and a protracted trip to walk around.” She writes, “it is more often the case with Serra that his work doesn’t simply exemplify aggression or domination, but acts it out.” Tilted Arc was so controversial upon its erecting that the General Services Administration, which commissioned the work, held hearings in response to petitions demanding the work be removed. Worth quoting at length, Chave writes:
A predictable defense of Serra’s work was mounted by critics, curators, dealers, collectors, and some fellow artists…. The principle arguments mustered on Serra’s behalf were old ones concerning the nature and function of the avant-garde…. What Rubin and Serra’s other supporters declined to ask is whether the sculptor really is, in the most meaningful sense of the term, an avant-garde artist. Being avant-garde implies being ahead of, outside, or against the dominant culture; proffering a vision that implicitly stands (at least when it is conceived) as a critique of entrenched forms and structures…. But Serra’s work is securely embedded within the system: when the brouhaha over Arc was at its height, he was enjoying a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art…. [The defense’s] arguments locate Serra not with the vanguard but with the standing army or “status quo.” … More thoughtful, sensible, and eloquent testimony at the hearing came instead from some of the uncouth:
My name is Danny Katz and I work in this building as a clerk. My friend Vito told me this morning that I am a philistine. Despite that I am getting up to speak…. I don’t think this issue should be elevated into a dispute between the forces of ignorance and art, or art versus government. I really blame government less because it has long ago outgrown its human dimension. But from the artists I expected a lot more. I didn’t expect to hear them rely on the tired and dangerous reasoning that the government has made a deal, so let the rabble live with the steel because it’s a deal. That kind of mentality leads to wars. We had a deal with Vietnam. I didn’t expect to hear the arrogant position that art justifies interference with the simple joys of human activity in a plaza. It’s not a great plaza by international standards, but it is a small refuge and place of revival for people who ride to work in steel containers, work in sealed rooms, and breathe recirculated air all day. Is the purpose of art in public places to seal off a route of escape, to stress the absence of joy and hope? I can’t believe this was the artistic intention, yet to my sadness this for me has become the dominant effect of the work, and it’s all the fault of its position and location. I can accept anything in art, but I can’t accept physical assault and complete destruction of pathetic human activity. No work of art created with a contempt for ordinary humanity and without respect for the common element of human experience can be great. It will always lack dimension.
The terms Katz associated with Serra’s project include arrogance and contempt, assault, and destruction; he saw the Minimalist idiom, in other words, as continuous with the master discourse of our imperious and violent technocracy.
The End of Art
Arthur Danto
Like Greenberg, Arthur Danto was an art critic for The Nation . However, Danto was overtly critical of Greenberg’s ideology and the influence he wielded over Modern and contemporary art. Nor was he a follower of Harold Rosenberg, though they shared influences, among them the phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Danto’s chief contribution to contemporary art was his advancing of Pop Artists, particularly Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein .
In “The End of Art” Danto argues that society at large determines and accepts art, which no longer progresses linearly, categorized by movements. Instead, viewers each possess a theory or two, which they use to interpret works, and art institutions are largely tasked with developing, testing, and modifying various interpretive methods. In this way, art differs little from philosophy. After decades of infighting regarding the proper way to interpret works of art, Danto essentially sanctioned each approach and the institutions that gave rise to them. He came to call this “pluralism.”
RELATED: What Was the Pictures Generation?
Similarly, in “Painting, Politics, and Post-Historical Art,” Danto makes the case for an armistice between formalism and the various theories that arose in opposition, noting that postmodern critics like Douglas Crimp in the 1980s, who positioned themselves against formalism, nonetheless adopted the same constrictive air, minus the revolutionary beginnings.
Modernist critical practice was out of phase with what was happening in the art world itself in the late 60s and through the 1970s. It remained the basis for most critical practice, especially on the part of the curatoriat, and the art-history professoriat as well, to the degree that it descended to criticism. It became the language of the museum panel, the catalog essay, the article in the art periodical. It was a daunting paradigm, and it was the counterpart in discourse to the “broadening of taste” which reduced art of all cultures and times to its formalist skeleton, and thus, as I phrased it, transformed every museum into a Museum of Modern Art, whatever that museum’s contents. It was the stable of the docent’s gallery talk and the art appreciation course—and it was replaced, not totally but massively, by the postmodernist discourse that was imported from Paris in the late 70s, in the texts of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jacques Lacan, and of the French feminists Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray. That is the discourse [Douglas] Crimp internalizes, and it came to be lingua artspeak everywhere. Like modernist discourse, it applied to everything, so that there was room for deconstructive and “archeological” discussion of art of every period.
Editor’s Note: This list was drawn in part from a 2014 seminar taught by Debra Bricker Balken in the MFA program in Art Writing at the School of Visual Arts titled Critical Strategies: Late Modernism/Postmodernism. Additional sources can be found here , here , here (paywall), and here . Also relevant are reviews of the 2008 exhibition at the Jewish Museum, “Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940–1976,” notably those by Roberta Smith , Peter Schjeldahl , and Martha Schwendener .
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What is this Guide Helpful for?
Every work of art is a complex system and a pattern of intentions. Learning to observe and analyze artworks’ most distinctive features is a task that requires time but primarily training. Even the eye must be trained to art -whether paintings, photography, architecture, drawing, sculptures, or mixed-media installations. The eyes, as when one passes from darkness to light, need time to adapt to the visual and sensory stimuli of artworks.
This brief compendium aims to provide helpful tools and suggestions to analyze art. It can be useful to guide students who are facing a critical analysis of a particular artwork, as in the case of a paper assigned to high school art students. But it can also be helpful when the assignment concerns the creation of practical work, as it helps to reflect on the artistic practice of experienced artists and inspire their own work. However, that’s not all. These concise prompts can also assist those interested in taking a closer look at the art exhibited by museums, galleries, and cultural institutions. They are general suggestions that can be applied to art objects of any era or style since they are those suggested by the history of art criticism.
Knowing exactly what an artist wanted to communicate through his or her artwork is an impossible task, but not even relevant in critical analysis. What matters is to personally interpret and understand it, always wondering what ideas its features suggest. The viewer’s attention can fall on different aspects of a painting, and different observers can even give contradictory interpretations of the same artwork. Yet the starting point is the same setlist of questions . Here are the most common and effective ones.
How to Write a Successful Art Analysis
Composition and formal analysis: what can i see.
The first question to ask in front of an artwork is: what do I see? What is it made of? And how is it realized? Let’s limit ourselves to an objective, accurate pure description of the object; from this preliminary formal analysis, other questions (and answers!) will arise.
You can ask yourself what kind of object it is, what genre ; if it represents something figuratively or abstractly, observing its overall style.
You can investigate the composition and the form : shape (e.g. geometric, curvilinear, angular, decorative, tridimensional, human), size (is it small or large size? is it a choice forced by the limits of the display or not?), orientation (horizontally or vertically oriented)
the use of the space : the system of arrangement (is it symmetrical? Is there a focal point or emphasis on specific parts ?), perspective (linear perspective, aerial perspective, atmospheric perspective), space viewpoint, sense of full and voids, and rhythm.
You can observe its colors : palette and hues (cool, warm), intensity (bright, pure, dull, glossy, or grainy…), transparency or opacity, value, colors effects, and choices (e.g. complementary colors)
Observe the texture (is it flat or tactile? Has it other surface qualities?)
or the type of lines (horizontal, vertical, implied lines, chaotic, underdrawing, contour, or leading lines)
After completing this observation, it is important to ask yourself what are the effects of these chromatic, compositional, and formal choices. Are they the result of randomness, limitations of the site, display, or material? Or perhaps they are meant to convey a specific idea or overall mood? Does the artwork support your insights?
Media and Materials: How the Artist Create?
First of all, the medium must be investigated. What are these objects? Architecture, drawing, film, installation, painting, performing art, photography, printmaking, sculpture, sound art, textiles, and more.
What materials and tools did the artists use to create their work? Oil paint, acrylic paint, charcoal, pastel, tempera, fresco, marble, bronze, but also concrete, glass, stone, wood, ceramics, lithography…The list of materials is potentially endless, especially in contemporary arts, but it is also among the easiest information to find! A valid catalog or museum label will always list materials and techniques used by artists.
What techniques, methods, and processes are used by the artist? The same goes for materials, techniques are numerous and often related to the overall feeling or style that the artist has set out to achieve. In a critical analysis, it is important to reflect on what this technique entails. Do not overdo with a verbose technical explanation.
Why did the artist choose to make the work this way and with such features (materials and techniques)? Are they traditional, academic techniques and materials or, on the contrary, innovative and experimental? What idea does the artist communicate with the choice of these media ? Try to reflect, for example, on their preciousness, or cultural significance, or even durability, fragility, heaviness, or lightness.
Context, Biography, Purpose: What’s Outside the Artwork?
Through formal analysis, it is possible to obtain a precise description of the artistic object. However, artworks are also documents, which attest to facts that happen or have happened outside the frame! The artwork relates to themes, stories, specific ideas, which belong to the artist and to the society in which he or she is immersed. To analyze art in a relevant way, we also must consider the context .
What are the intentions of the artist to create this work? The purpose? Art may be commissioned, commemorative, educational, of practical use, for the public or for private individuals, realized to communicate something. Let’s ask ourselves why the artist created it, and why at that particular time.
The artist’s life also cannot be overlooked. We always look at the work in the light of his biography: in what moment of life was it made? Where was the artist? What other artworks had he/she done in close temporal proximity? Biographical sources are invaluable.
In what context (historical, social, political, cultural) was the artwork made? Artwork supports (or may even deliberately oppose) the climate in which it is immersed. Find out about the political, natural, historical event; the economic, religious, cultural situation of its period.
Of paramount importance is the cultural atmosphere. What artistic movements , currents, fashions, and styles were prevalent at the time? This allows us to make comparisons with other objects, to question the taste of the time. In other words, to open the horizons of our analysis.
Subject and Meaning: What does it Want to Communicate?
We observed artwork as an object, with visible material and formal characteristics; then we understood that it can be influenced by the context and intentions of the artist. Finally, it is essential to investigate what it wants to communicate. The content of the work passes through the subject matter, its stories, implicit or explicit symbolism.
You can preliminarily ask what genre of artwork it is, which is very helpful with paintings. Is it a realistic painting of a landscape, abstract, religious, historical-mythical, a portrait, a still life, or much else?
You can ask questions about the title if it is present. Or perhaps question its absence.
You can observe the figures. Ask yourself about their identity, age, rank, connections with the artist, or cultural relevance. Observe what their expression or pose communicates.
You can also observe the objects, places, or scenes that take place in the work. How are they depicted (realistic, abstract, impressionistic, expressionistic, primitive); what story do they tell?
Are there concepts that perhaps are conveyed implicitly, through symbols, allegories, signs, textual or iconographic elements? Do they have a precise meaning inserted there?
You can try to describe the overall feeling of the artwork, whether it is positive or negative, but also go deeper: does it communicate calmness, melancholy, tension, energy, or anger, shock? Try to listen to your own emotional reaction as well.
Subjective Interpretation: What does it Communicate to Me?
And finally, the crucial question, what did this work spark in me ?
We can talk about aesthetic taste and feeling, but not only. A critical judgment also involves the degree of effectiveness of the work. Has the artist succeeded, through his formal, technical, stylistic choices, in communicating a specific idea? What did the critics think at the time and ask yourself what you think today? Are there any temporal or personal biases that may affect your judgment? Significative artworks are capable of speaking, of telling a story in every era. Whether nice or bad.
A Brief History of Art Criticism
The stimulus questions collected here are the result of the experience of different methods of analysis developed by art critics throughout history. Art criticism has developed different analytical methodologies, placing the focus of research on different aspects of art. We can trace three major macro-trends and all of them can be used to develop a personal critical method:
The Formal Art Analysis
Formal art analysis is conducted primarily by connoisseurs, experts in attributing paintings or sculptures to the hand of specific artists. Formal analysis adheres strictly to the object-artwork by providing a pure description of it. It focuses on its visual, most distinctive features: on the subject, composition, material, technique, and other elements. Famous formalists and purovisibilists were Giovanni Morelli, Bernard Berenson, Roberto Longhi, Roger Fry, and Heinrich Wölfflin, who elaborated different categories of formal principles.
The Iconological Method
In the iconological method, the content of the work, its meaning, and cultural implications begin to take on relevancy. Aby Warburg and later the Warburg Institute opened up to the analysis of art as an interdisciplinary subject, questioning the correlations between art, philosophy, culture. The fortune of the iconological method, however, is due to Erwin Panofsky, who observed the artwork integrally, through three levels of interpretation. A first, formal, superficial level; the second level of observation of the iconographic elements, and a third called iconological, in which the analysis finally becomes deep, trying to grasp the meaning of the elements.
Social Art History and Beyond
Then, in the 1950s, a third trend began, which placed the focus primarily on the social context of the artwork. With Arnold Hauser, Francis Klingender, and Frederick Antal, the social history of art was born. Social art historians conceive the work of art as a structural system that conveys specific ideologies, whose aspects related to the time period of the artists must also be investigated. Analyses on commissioning, institutionalization, production mechanisms, and the role and function of the artist in society began to spread. It also opens art criticism to researches on taste, fruition, and the study of art in psychoanalytic, pedagogical, anthropological terms.
10 Art Analysis Tips
We defined the questions you need to ask yourself to write a meaningful artwork analysis. Then, we identified the main approaches used by art historians while criticizing art: formal analysis, iconographic interpretation, and study of the social context. However, art interpretation is always open to new stimuli and insights, and it is a work of continuous training.
Here are 10 aspects to keep in mind when observing a good artwork (or a bad one!):
Any feeling towards a work of art is legitimate -whether it is a painting, picture, sculpture, or contemporary installation. What do you like or dislike about it? You could write about the shapes and colors, how the artist used them, their technique. You can analyze the museum setting or its original location; the ideas, or the cultural context to which the artist belongs. You can think about the feelings or memories it evokes. The important thing is that your judgment is justified with relevant arguments that strictly relate to the artwork and its elements.
Analyzing does not mean describing. A precise description of the work and its distinctive features is essential, but we must go beyond that. Consider also what is outside the frame.
Strive to use an inquiry-based approach. Ask yourself questions, start with objective observation and then go deeper. Wonder what features suggest. Notice a color…well, why that color, and why there?
Observe a wide range of visual elements. Artworks are complex systems, so try to look at them in all their components. Not just color, shapes, or technique, but also rhythm, compositional devices, emphasis, style, texture…and much more!
To get a visual analysis as accurate as possible, it might be very useful to have a comprehensive glossary . Here is MoMA’s one: https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/learn/courses/Vocabulary_for_Discussing_Art.pdf and Artlex: https://www.artlex.com/art-terms/
Less is more . Do you want to write about an entire artistic movement or a particularly prolific artist? Focus on the most significant works, the ones you can really say something personal and effective about. Similarly, choose only relevant and productive information; it should aid better understanding of the objects, not take the reader away from it.
Support what you write with images! Accompany your text with sketches or high-quality photographs. Choose black and white pictures if you want to highlight forms or lights, details or evidence inside the artwork to support your personal interpretations, objects placed in the art room if you analyze also curatorial choices.
See as much live artwork as possible. Whenever you can, attend temporary exhibitions, museums, galleries… the richer your visual background will be, the more attentive and receptive your eye will be! Connections and comparisons are what make an art criticism truly rich and open-minding.
Be inspired by the words of artists, art experts, and creatives . Listen as a beloved artwork relates to their art practice or personal artistic vision, to build your personal one. Here are other helpful links: https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/154?=MOOC
And finally, trust your intuition! As you noticed in this decalogue, numerous aspects require study and rational analysis but don’t forget to formalize your instinctive impressions as well. Art is made for that, too.
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Art-based Artefact FULL Essay & Sketchbook Example
Jennifer Leigh | 28th September 2019
Many students are warned before taking on an EPQ, that artefact projects are substantially harder and score substantially lower than full essay projects. The key difficulty with artefact EPQs is making them research-based and the biggest task I had to overcome was insuring my artefact complimented my research, rather than the other way around. I was the only student in my year group to attempt an artefact EPQ and there was very little help as to the structure my EPQ should take.
During Sixth Form, I completed an art-based artefact EPQ on the significance of light and colour in Impressionist art. This EPQ followed obtaining full marks in my Art GCSE, so I chose to take a very similar process in creating my EPQ project and sketchbook.
In the end, I obtained 48/50 in my EPQ in June 2019 (AQA EPQ A* boundary = 45/50).
Looking for top EPQ tips? Check out my EPQ advice article here! This article features my EPQ essay and sketchbook in full that helped me achieve my A*. All the art below was submitted collectively as my artefact, with mini essays, artist studies and my final pieces being documented in an A3 sketchbook.
My EPQ essay (ft. photos of artefact)
Is use of light and colour the sole feature that defines the impressionist art era, or are there more significant motives behind the movement.
Impressionism can be described as “a style or movement in painting originating in France in the 1860s, characterised by a concern with depicting the visual impression of the movement, especially in terms of the shifting effect of light and colour”. Today, the Impressionists are some of the most popular artists whose artworks are readily seen by the public, namely due to the expressive use of colour and unique depictions of interesting compositions of light. However, this project aims to explore whether use of light and colour really is the defining feature of Impressionist art, or whether there are other reasons why this movement of art is so unique from other movements. Furthermore, I also explored whether some of the most famous “Impressionist” artists today can be defined as “true Impressionists”, based on their techniques and motives.
Initially, I researched Claude Monet, as he is frequented described by art historians as “epitomis[ing] most closely the values of Impressionism”1. Monet frequently used varied colour palettes in his paintings, such as in “The Cliff Walk at Pourville” (1882) and “Red Boats, Argenteuil” (1875), which helped create a powerful mood and atmosphere for the viewer. For example, in “Le Grand Canal” (1908), he primarily used more muted, cool colours to emphasise the bright morning, which focuses the viewer on the reflections and varied hues of the water. Studying the painting up close, one can see how the hints of pinks and yellows contrasts with the muted colours, creating a sense of calmness and tranquility. In series works such as his Haystacks, Monet painted many similar, simplistic scenes so that “nothing distracts the attention from his harmonies of colour and atmosphere”2. Taking a random selection of paintings from this collection, such as “Haystacks, Hazy Sunshine” (1891) and “Haystacks at the End of Summer, Morning” (1891), it is clear to the viewer that the real interest is in Monet’s manipulations of light through the medium of colour.
However, use of light and colour is not the only technique that Monet demonstrated that is considered typically Impressionist: Monet also frequently varied his style of brushstrokes, working very loosely and liberally in paintings such as in his Waterlilies series. This technique, combined with frequently working in plein air, led to many of Monet’s paintings creating a feel of a “moment in time” for the viewer. Indeed, many of the revolutionary techniques Monet demonstrated had the same key purpose: to create a sense of a moment or impression of a scene for the viewer, rather than a full, still representation of a period of time.
Considering Monet as a “true Impressionist”, I then began to compare his techniques and works to those of other artists during a similar period of art history. I initially researched Edgar Degas, who separated himself from most Impressionists by outwardly describing himself as a Realist, rather than an Impressionist, with a “lack of interest in plein-air painting, his abiding passion for the art of the great masters, and his experimentation in different media, including photography” 3 . However, it is clear by studying his works that Degas aimed to create an impression of a person’s life rather than Monet, who aimed to create an impression of a scene. One way that he demonstrated this was how Degas “began experimenting with off-centre compositions, and figures cut in half by the picture frame” 1 , which can be considered a way that Degas allowed the viewer to glimpse “an unexpected slice of Parisian life”. This is comparable to how Monet used sketchy strokes and varied colours in his paintings; both artists used these contrasting techniques to give the viewer an impression of the scene in front of them, whether it was a landscape or a group of people.
Some critics have argued that “Degas never allowed himself to be called an Impressionist, and, affirming the supremacy of drawing over colour, was often highly critical of his colleagues [the Impressionist artists he frequently exhibited with at the Salon des Refusés]” 4 yet, despite this, he did show very similar motifs to other Impressionists like Monet. Indeed, a majority of written sources on Degas were in books containing a wide range of other Impressionist artists, implying that many art historians do draw great similarities between Degas’ and other Impressionists’ work. Studying Degas’ sketches and paintings as a modern viewer, it is clear that the theme of capturing a moment for the viewer was a theme of Impressionism that Degas consistently demonstrated, along with other Impressionists.
Another artist prominent at the time of the Impressionists was Paul Cézanne, whom I also researched as part of my project. Like other Impressionists, Cézanne presented his work at the 1870 Salon de Réfuses, however he drifted away from the Impressionist movement and focused on creating more carefully structured compositions, with a unique crystal-life appearance. In paintings such as Tall Trees at the Jas de Bouffan (1883), Cézanne used “constructive” strokes, consisting of flat strokes of a consistent scale, shape and direction, “giving the picture an overall coherence … through slow methodical brushwork” 5 . Art historians can infer that rather than attempting to create atmospheric conditions, he sought to create spectrums of colour that more realistically replicated the conditions of the day.
Some critics argue that Cézanne was key to the Impressionist movement, while others, such as Hajo Düchting, claim “once the heyday of Impressionism dawned, Cézanne had already put both Paris and Impressionism far behind him” 6 . In this case, it is important to note that Düchting is writing with the purpose to persuade the reader that Cézanne was a truly unique and revolutionary artist of his time, so the author avoids crediting the origins of Cézanne’s style to any artist or movement, such as the Impressionists, throughout the book. Despite potential bias in his work, it is difficult to ignore Düchting’s argument that Cézanne was unlike the Impressionists; indeed, even sources specifically covering Impressionist artists describe Cézanne as relinquishing Impressionism, “insufficient for [his] purpose and inadequate to [his] aims” 4 .
Many of the sources I did study as part of my research gave a general overview of Impressionism, such as “Great Artists of the Western World: Impressionism”, considering how many artists of the same period of history used Impressionist techniques; this suggests that the authors may be biased in looking at Cézanne and Degas from a purely Impressionist viewpoint, rather than considering techniques which made both artists stand out from classic Impressionists like Monet. Despite this, visiting galleries and exhibitions such as “Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell” (National Art Gallery) and “Corteau Impressionists: From Manet to Cézanne” (National Art Gallery) offered the opportunity for first hand research in seeing these artists’ work up close, supporting evidence from these texts regarding to what extent Degas and Cézanne really were “Impressionists”. The Corteau Impressionists exhibition at the National Art Gallery 5 featured a range of artists from a similar period of art history, such as Manet, Renoir and Seurat. However, the paintings themselves and their descriptions were clear evidence of how differently these artists worked; for example, Seurat was described as being “dissatisfied with Impressionists’ intuitive responses to light and colour” and thoroughly discarded their style of thinking, despite being exhibited as one of them in this exhibition, suggesting that not all those artists considered “Impressionists” by the public can truly be considered one by art historians. Generally, the Impressionist exhibitions proved more useful sources than the texts, which were prone to producing bias to make the artist seem more original in their techniques (and therefore less “typically Impressionist”), while seeing the paintings and annotations up close allowed for a more critical judgement of the methods used.
Using the research I had gathered from these three key artists, I began to develop an idea for a final piece which incorporated what I felt were the key features of Impressionism. I focused on a series of works, taking inspiration from how both Monet and Degas created multiple, similar paintings which showed subtle changes in composition and/or atmosphere. I chose to focus on landscapes, picking compositions from my garden in order to give me the change to work en plein air, trying to pick images which worked together in a series, yet also showed some compositional interest, taking inspiration from Degas. Eventually I chose a set of two compositions that complemented each other with similar viewpoints. Throughout the painting process, I focused on capturing all the colours reflected in the light of the scenes, while preserving the spontaneous, loose feel of the Impressionist artists, taking note of what I’d learnt in my research. This can particularly be reflected in the portrayal of the trees, where I used broad brushstrokes to capture the constant movement of the leaves. I also used subtle variations of colour to reflect the slight changes in light and impression for the viewer: while the first painting has a strong, warm tint to reflect the calm twilight, the second painting consists of slightly cooler tones to suggest the vibrant daytime. This was an ode to Monet’s many series works, containing multiple similar scenes with strong variations in light and atmosphere. Overall, these paintings reflected and supported what I’d learnt during my research regarding the techniques and aims of Monet and Degas.
In conclusion, there is clear evidence for colour being a key feature in Impressionist art, yet this cannot be prioritised over the real motive behind the artist’s work: the reason for “Impressionist” art being given its name is due to whether or not the aim of the piece is to suggest a moment in time, inflicting some sort of emotion or atmosphere for the viewer. Despite this, it is accurate to suggest that “the Impressionist group in France falls into several sections” 4 . Monet and Degas both shared the same intention to capture an impression of a scene, despite doing this through different techniques; in comparison, Cézanne shared similar technical qualities in his painting style to Monet, yet his overall aim leant towards capturing a representation of a longer period of time. In this way, it is clear Monet and Degas demonstrate their Impressionist qualities to a much greater extent than Cézanne, which can be noted in viewing their work. In this way, the significance of colour in Impressionism is limited to simply being a means through which artists, such as Monet, can create these atmospheric effects and feelings for the viewer.
Anon. (1987). Great Artists of the Western World. London: Marshall Cavendish.
Mannering. (1998). The Masterworks of Monet. Bristol: Parragon.
Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell. The National Gallery, London. (Exhibition February 2018)
Francia, d. (1961). Movements in Modern Art: Impressionism. Vienna: Brüder Rosenbaum.
Courtauld Impressionists: From Manet to Cézanne. The National Gallery, London. (Exhibition November 2018)
Duchting. (1996). Cézanne. Taschen America Llc.
Sagner-Duchting. (1992). Claude Monet. Taschen America Llc.
Reyburn. (1997). The Art of the Impressionists. Grange Books Ltd.
Gariff. (2008). World’s Most Influential Painters and the Artists They Inspired: Stories and Hidden Connections Between Great Works of Western Art.
Home — Essay Samples — Life — Personal Beliefs — My Journey In The World of Art: Narrative
My Journey in The World of Art: Narrative
Categories: Personal Beliefs Personal Experience
About this sample
Words: 907 |
Published: Mar 18, 2021
Words: 907 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read
Works Cited
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. Harper Perennial.
Dissanayake, E. (2007). Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why. University of Washington Press.
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. Basic Books.
Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5(9), 444-454.
Howett, C., & Pegler, M. (2015). The Fundamentals of Creative Advertising. AVA Publishing.
Lindauer, M. S. (Ed.). (2007). Aesthetics and the Art of Musical Composition in the German Enlightenment: Selected Writings of Johann Georg Sulzer and Heinrich Christoph Koch. Cambridge University Press.
Richards, R. (2007). Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature: Psychological, Social, and Spiritual Perspectives. American Psychological Association.
Sawyer, R. K. (2006). Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. Oxford University Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (2003). Wisdom, Intelligence, and Creativity Synthesized. Cambridge University Press.
Winner, E. (2000). The origins and ends of giftedness. American Psychologist, 55(1), 159-169.
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Are You an Artist?
Louise Bourgeois loved to work, and she loved to talk. She especially loved to talk about her work. In the 2008 documentary “Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine,” directed by Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach—you can watch the whole thing on YouTube, isn’t that great?—she answers questions as she chisels and draws and violently wrings scraps of material as a butcher might wring a chicken’s neck. “It is really the anger that makes me work,” she says. She has just been discussing her governess, the despised Sadie, an Englishwoman who carried on an affair with Bourgeois’s father for ten years while she lived in the family home. “All my work of the last fifty years, all my subjects, have found their inspiration in my childhood,” Bourgeois adds. She is an old woman when she says this—wrinkled, commanding, vital—and also, it seems, forever a little girl peeping through the keyhole at Sadie and Papa, shocked and betrayed. In another video , one that has found new life bopping around TikTok and Instagram, Bourgeois sits at a small table in her Chelsea town house before a blank piece of paper. “This drawing that I am going to do now obviously stems from a fear,” she says. Anger, fear—these are the powerful horses that Bourgeois harnessed to make her art, and she rode them until she died, in 2010, at the age of ninety-eight.
How do artists sustain themselves year after year, through good times and bad? What special fuel do they use to stoke their inner hearths? This is the subject of “ The Long Run: A Creative Inquiry ” (Graywolf), a new book by the writer Stacey D’Erasmo. Originally, D’Erasmo tells us, her approach to the project was detached, “a little academic.” She was getting older (she is now sixty-two) and thought that she would publish an anthology of interviews with veteran artists who could give a view of the road ahead. Then she had a crisis, or a series of them, both personal and professional. “Relationships broke, friendships broke, promises broke,” she writes. “Many facets of my identity shattered.” She was denied tenure at Columbia, where she had taught for a decade, and suddenly found herself out of a job. After a lifetime spent loving women and joyously enrolled in the queer world, she coupled off with a man. Worst of all, she found that, for the first time in her working life, she was totally unable to write. “How do we keep doing this—making art?” she asks in her book’s first sentence. She really wants to know.
Well, define your “we.” The one that D’Erasmo has gathered here is a cohort of eight artists who have little in common aside from living long, creatively productive lives. There is the dancer Valda Setterfield, who performed with Merce Cunningham and went on to enjoy a decades-long collaboration with her husband, the choreographer David Gordon; the writer Samuel R. Delany , who has published more than forty books and seems to write as he breathes; and also the pioneering landscape architect Darrel Morrison, who takes the natural world for his material. The actress Blair Brown has struggled, as many actresses do, with an industry that tends to see young women as the sum of their bodies’ parts and to stop seeing older ones at all, while the abstract painter Amy Sillman experienced a creative breakthrough in her late fifties. The composer and conductor Tania Léon was born in Cuba but made her career in exile, while the musician Steve Earle, a veteran of drugs, divorce, and death, seems to be on his fourth or fifth life, trucking on with his guitar.
So D’Erasmo was gutsy. She hopped among genres; she didn’t stick to what she knew, and she is up front about that. When, for example, she feels intimidated by Léon’s music, she comes right out and says so. “I am not a gardener,” she confesses in her chapter on Morrison—but, in a way, she is. Like Morrison, who pioneered the concept of “sweeps,” in which a variety of native plants are grouped “in swaths and clusters and handfuls” to create something at once organic and spectacular, D’Erasmo plants her subjects together in unexpected arrangements, throwing in some favorite seeds of her own—a reference to Colette or Roberto Bolaño here, a look at Ruth Asawa ’s sculptures there—and then steps back to see what patterns emerge.
One big thing that D’Erasmo discovers her subjects have in common is their flexibility, the ability to change along with circumstances. “A vibrant long run might be sustained not by armoring oneself inside an even bigger and more expensive fixed narrative, but by morphing through a varied series of them over many years,” she writes in her chapter on Brown. “Against the monument, the mobile. Against the hammer, the leap.” She means that it’s O.K. that Brown has never become a megastar in the Marvel universe or whatever—that, although she has played many wonderful, meaty roles over the course of her career, sometimes her phone just doesn’t ring. Acting is different from painting or writing or composing. You can’t do it alone; you have to work with what you’re given. Brown is now seventy-eight, and hasn’t had a television or film role since a four-season arc on “ Orange Is the New Black ” ended, in 2019. Still, she seems happy. Not long ago, she turned down a yes-dear role as someone’s wife on an HBO show because it felt too limiting. She has, D’Erasmo thinks admiringly, an “inner freedom.”
In her chapter on Sillman, D’Erasmo doubles down on the flexibility point. Artistic survival, she says, is fundamentally Darwinian; long-term success requires adapting to the environment at hand. For D’Erasmo, that means the American university, where so many artists and writers today make their living. D’Erasmo reserves a righteous anger for the precarity of academia, which she experienced firsthand, and for its increasingly corporate, donor-flattering imperatives. But she also seems to genuinely like her students, as do many of her subjects. Delany, who projects a prickly, detached persona when asked to discuss his own work, tears up while speaking about teaching. Sillman does him one better; when she was on the faculty at Bard, she says, she considered not only her teaching work but indeed her job as a department co-chair as part of her actual art practice. This sounds both noble and nuts—did Wallace Stevens think of insurance law as part of his poetry? But it makes a kind of sense. You’re gonna have to serve somebody, Bob Dylan sang, and that is what D’Erasmo thinks, too. “Michelangelo had to be able to deal with the pope (which often did not go well),” she writes. “Artists and writers working now have to be able to deal with the dean (which also often does not go well).” Michelangelo may have had it worse. Imagine the dean telling you that you have to paint the ceiling.
At the same time, artists need steel at their core, some essential private self to return to after the department meetings are over and class has let out. You make your living where you can, while, in D’Erasmo’s phrase, cultivating “the deep stamina of the double agent,” working, first and last, for yourself. Doubleness intrigues her. Two of her subjects, Morrison and Delany, came out as gay after marriages to women (Delany’s wife, the wonderful poet Marilyn Hacker, came out, too), and D’Erasmo thinks that this personal liberation also liberated their work. Morrison began thinking in terms of music and color: “It was as if, freed from a certain vector of secrecy, his capacity for synesthesia opened up.” This is a Romantic idea—art as a kind of triumph of the true self over the homogenizing pressures of social convention—and it is as appealing now as it was two hundred years ago.
But what if the self doesn’t just burst shining through the clouds—what if it actually changes? When D’Erasmo was in her forties, she discovered that she was attracted to men. This led to the paradoxical shock of finding herself once again closeted, afraid that admitting her private feelings would constitute a “betrayal” of the community that had meant so much to her. But the self may be more malleable than we think, and so is community. For years, D’Erasmo belonged to a chosen family of mostly queer New York writers and performers. When she describes this time in her life, the page glows. Its dissolution was like a weather event, not attributable to any single cause, and it left a lonely void. There is a lot of writing here about breakups, both platonic and romantic. You get the sense that D’Erasmo hopes art itself can be a kind of lover to her, one that never has to leave.
The question of stamina comes up in another recent book on artists, “ The Work of Art ,” by Adam Moss. Like D’Erasmo, Moss wants to understand what makes artists tick, and he goes about it in a pragmatic, proudly anti-Romantic way. “My curiosity is earthbound,” he tells us. “No meaning, no magic.” His subtitle, “How Something Comes from Nothing,” announces where his emphasis is. He treats art works as a mechanically minded kid might treat a dismantled tape deck, poking and prodding at their insides to figure out how all those jangled parts make a whole.
D’Erasmo’s book is a companionable hundred and fifty-seven pages; it’s best read in a sitting or two. Moss’s runs to more than four hundred pages and is designed to be absorbed in bursts of pleasure. His sample size is bigger, too. The substance of his book is forty-three richly illustrated interviews—case studies, he calls them—that he conducted with artists of all kinds, among them the architect Elizabeth Diller , the dancer Twyla Tharp, the writers Sheila Heti , Tony Kushner , and Gay Talese, the poets Louise Glück and Marie Howe, the filmmaker Sofia Coppola , the showrunners David Mandel and David Simon, and the artists Susan Meiselas , Cheryl Pope, Kara Walker, and Amy Sillman (the only overlap with D’Erasmo), in which they each describe how a single work of theirs came to be. Moss has fun stretching his definition of art as far as it can go. A piece of meat, he thinks, can be one, when it is the centerpiece of a dish cooked by the chefs Jody Williams and Rita Sodi at their Manhattan restaurant Via Carota . So can a newspaper’s front page, like the one that the Times ran, in May, 2020, to commemorate those who died from COVID .
Moss is not known as an artist but as an editor, most recently of New York magazine. But, he admits at the start of his book, he is an artist—a painter. “I feel ridiculous saying that,” he says, and you can understand why. He has not been painting for a long time—only since leaving New York , which he did in 2019. “I got frustrated easily and gave up easily,” he tells us, of his early attempts. Nevertheless, he persisted, and it is that quality that earns him the right to the title. Of all the traits that he came to see as uniting the artists he spoke with—discipline, focus, curiosity, patience—the most important, he says, is endurance. “Each of the subjects was a dog with a bone,” he writes. Beneath that relentlessness, he sees something else: faith, “the bedrock confidence that you can actually do what you are trying to do.”
It is faith, in fact, that may be the irreducible unit of creation, the atom of the artistic self. D’Erasmo writes that when Sillman was in her thirties, her mother suggested she go to law school. “What’s the worst case scenario?” Sillman thought. “I’m not a famous artist. So what? Does that mean that they can tell me I’m not an artist? No, they cannot tell me that.” Louise Bourgeois made work for years without showing it. My favorite formulation of the condition comes from Saul Bellow, in a metaphor of profane audacity: “You pour the oil on your own head.” And then you keep pouring it, over and over again. You shampoo.
Maybe the practical and the mystical sides of art-making aren’t at such odds. I was amazed to learn, in “The Work of Art,” that Kara Walker’s astonishing sculpture “A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby,” a massive sphinx figure that was installed, in 2014, at the old Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg, had its origins in a PowerPoint presentation that Walker made to the arts organization that was sponsoring the work. It’s hard to get less Romantic than Microsoft Office. (Meanwhile, the revelation that the sculpture should be made from sugar came to Walker not in some quiet moment of private contemplation but while reading on the Q train.) And it is comforting to hear the poet Louise Glück tell Moss that she regularly gets frustrated “when I have no idea what to do next.” “What do you do in that moment to help yourself?” Moss asks. “I just wait,” Glück says. At the end of the waiting, something happens. Working prepares these artists for the discovery, and discovery sustains their work.
When D’Erasmo was going through her big midlife sexuality crisis, she realized that she had a choice. She could try to stay the same for the sake of her sense of herself—not unimportant—or she could follow her “desire path,” a term in landscape architecture that describes an unplanned route that people make for themselves to take them where they want to go. That is what she ended up doing, because that is what artists do. “In the lives of the people I interviewed, and in my own life, will is certainly a factor,” she writes. “However, of equal if not greater importance is willingness.” Moss says that he wanted to examine moments of creation in order to render them “less and yet more miraculous at the same time.” Talk about contradiction. When you read these books, you may feel that the art you are confronting becomes at once more and less knowable. It’s a good, life-giving feeling—that you can look as long and hard as you want, and still some mystery remains. ♦
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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays
Leonardo da vinci (1452–1519).
A Bear Walking
Leonardo da Vinci
The Head of a Woman in Profile Facing Left
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
The Head of the Virgin in Three-Quarter View Facing Right
Allegory on the Fidelity of the Lizard (recto); Design for a Stage Setting (verso)
The Head of a Grotesque Man in Profile Facing Right
After Leonardo da Vinci
Head of a Man in Profile Facing to the Left
Compositional Sketches for the Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, with and without the Infant St. John the Baptist; Diagram of a Perspectival Projection (recto); Slight Doodles (verso)
Studies for Hercules Holding a Club Seen in Frontal View, Male Nude Unsheathing a Sword, and the Movements of Water (Recto); Study for Hercules Holding a Club Seen in Rear View (Verso)
Carmen Bambach Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
October 2002
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435–1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. He was constantly observing, experimenting, and inventing, and drawing was, for him, a tool for recording his investigation of nature. Although completed works by Leonardo are few, he left a large body of drawings (almost 2,500) that record his ideas, most still gathered into notebooks. He was principally active in Florence (1472–ca. 1482, 1500–1508) and Milan (ca. 1482–99, 1508–13), but spent the last years of his life in Rome (1513–16) and France (1516/17–1519), where he died. His genius as an artist and inventor continues to inspire artists and scientists alike centuries after his death.
Drawings Outside of Italy, Leonardo’s work can be studied most readily in drawings. He recorded his constant flow of ideas for paintings on paper. In his Studies for the Nativity ( 17.142.1 ), he studied different poses and gestures of the mother and her infant , probably in preparation for the main panel in his famous altarpiece known as the Virgin of the Rocks (Musée du Louvre, Paris). Similarly, in a sheet of designs for a stage setting ( 17.142.2 ), prepared for a staging of a masque (or musical comedy) in Milan in 1496, he made notes on the actors’ positions on stage alongside his sketches, translating images and ideas from his imagination onto paper. Leonardo also drew what he observed from the world around him, including human anatomy , animal and plant life, the motion of water, and the flight of birds. He also investigated the mechanisms of machines used in his day, inventing many devices like a modern-day engineer. His drawing techniques range from rather rapid pen sketches, in The Head of a Man in Profile Facing to The Left ( 10.45.1) , to carefully finished drawings in red and black chalks, as in The Head of the Virgin ( 51.90 ). These works also demonstrate his fascination with physiognomy, and contrasts between youth and old age, beauty and ugliness.
The Last Supper (ca. 1492/94–1498) Leonardo’s Last Supper , on the end wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, is one of the most renowned paintings of the High Renaissance. Recently restored, The Last Supper had already begun to flake during the artist’s lifetime due to his failed attempt to paint on the walls in layers (not unlike the technique of tempera on panel), rather than in a true fresco technique . Even in its current state, it is a masterpiece of dramatic narrative and subtle pictorial illusionism.
Leonardo chose to capture the moment just after Christ tells his apostles that one of them will betray him, and at the institution of the Eucharist. The effect of his statement causes a visible response, in the form of a wave of emotion among the apostles. These reactions are quite specific to each apostle, expressing what Leonardo called the “motions of the mind.” Despite the dramatic reaction of the apostles, Leonardo imposes a sense of order on the scene. Christ’s head is at the center of the composition, framed by a halo-like architectural opening. His head is also the vanishing point toward which all lines of the perspectival projection of the architectural setting converge. The apostles are arranged around him in four groups of three united by their posture and gesture. Judas, who was traditionally placed on the opposite side of the table, is here set apart from the other apostles by his shadowed face.
Mona Lisa (ca. 1503–6 and later) Leonardo may also be credited with the most famous portrait of all time, that of Lisa, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and known as the Mona Lisa (Musée du Louvre, Paris). An aura of mystery surrounds this painting, which is veiled in a soft light, creating an atmosphere of enchantment. There are no hard lines or contours here (a technique of painting known as sfumato— fumo in Italian means “smoke”), only seamless transitions between light and dark. Perhaps the most striking feature of the painting is the sitter’s ambiguous half smile. She looks directly at the viewer, but her arms, torso, and head each twist subtly in a different direction, conveying an arrested sense of movement. Leonardo explores the possibilities of oil paint in the soft folds of the drapery, texture of skin, and contrasting light and dark (chiaroscuro). The deeply receding background, with its winding rivers and rock formations, is an example of Leonardo’s personal view of the natural world: one in which everything is liquid, in flux, and filled with movement and energy.
Bambach, Carmen. “Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/leon/hd_leon.htm (October 2002)
Further Reading
Bambach, Carmen C., ed. Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman . Exhibition catalogue.. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
Additional Essays by Carmen Bambach
Bambach, Carmen. “ Anatomy in the Renaissance .” (October 2002)
Bambach, Carmen. “ Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function .” (October 2002)
Related Essays
Anatomy in the Renaissance
Architecture in Renaissance Italy
Portraiture in Renaissance and Baroque Europe
The Rediscovery of Classical Antiquity
Renaissance Drawings: Material and Function
Antonello da Messina (ca. 1430–1479)
Arms and Armor in Renaissance Europe
The Crucifixion and Passion of Christ in Italian Painting
Drawing in the Middle Ages
Dutch and Flemish Artists in Rome, 1500–1600
Early Netherlandish Painting
Filippino Lippi (ca. 1457–1504)
Northern Italian Renaissance Painting
The Papacy and the Vatican Palace
Patronage at the Later Valois Courts (1461–1589)
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641): Paintings
Rembrandt (1606–1669): Paintings
Sixteenth-Century Painting in Emilia-Romagna
Sixteenth-Century Painting in Lombardy
Sixteenth-Century Painting in Venice and the Veneto
Unfinished Works in European Art, ca. 1500–1900
Venetian Color and Florentine Design
List of Rulers
List of Rulers of Europe
Central Europe (including Germany), 1400–1600 A.D.
Florence and Central Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
France, 1400–1600 A.D.
Rome and Southern Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
Venice and Northern Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
15th Century A.D.
Biblical Scene
Central Italy
High Renaissance
The Last Supper
Madonna and Child
New Testament
Religious Art
Renaissance Art
Scientific Instrument
Virgin Mary
Wall Painting
Artist or Maker
Boltraffio, Giovanni Antonio
Parmigianino
Hyperallergic
Sensitive to Art & its Discontents
Japanese-American Internment’s Afterlife in Contemporary Art
After Executive Order 9066 was issued in 1942, the United States government incarcerated roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps through the end of World War II. Machiko Harada’s Re/imagine Peace project explored the practices of Japanese and Japanese-American artists who grapple with the painful legacy and relevance of internment today.
The New Mexico-based Japanese curator’s interest in the afterlife of internment in art germinated when she moved to Santa Fe, one of many Southwestern sites of former camps, coming to fruition in her essays and moving online exhibition .
During a conversation with Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian, Harada speaks to the intergenerational dimension of the work of several Japanese diasporic artists. She elaborates on the familial stories of artists including Carrie Yamaoka , Aisuke Kondo, and TT Takemoto related to internment, punctuating her essays with striking imagery whose historic and personal roots run deep. The original live conversation is unavailable due to technical issues, so we invite you to view a re-recorded conversation.
Reimagine Peace, No Matter How Long the Path
Japanese Diasporic Artists Take On Intergenerational Trauma
Japanese-American Artists Revisit the Painful Legacy of WWII
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50 Years Ago, the World Trade Center Was Home to the Art Crime of the Century
By Colum McCann
Mr. McCann is the author of “Let the Great World Spin,” which takes a fictional look at Philippe Petit’s walk, and the forthcoming “Twist.”
Fifty years ago on Wednesday, the French high-wire artist Philippe Petit carried his life a quarter of a mile through the New York City sky on a tightrope. When asked why, he said it was simply because the World Trade Center towers were there.
“If I see two towers, I have to walk,” he told The New York Times. Later he added, “Anything that is giant and man-made strikes me in an awesome way and calls me.”
The human need that Mr. Petit met with his walk is still with us. We are living in high-wire times, with anxiety and fracture all around us, and it is the job of the artist to show that we can, in fact, get from one side to the other.
When I think of the Frenchman, he remains high in the air, a distant flyman walking across a three-quarter-inch steel wire in an act so outrageous that it still shakes my soul out. His imaginative act catches in my throat and reveals a truth that is often obscured or degraded: that we can confront, and even triumph over, the seemingly impossible. His walk provides a pulse of relief as an antidote to despair. He didn’t defy gravity; he aligned himself with it, and in so doing he allowed us to defy our own possible falling down.
Mr. Petit’s walk was a long-planned act of subterfuge. He had seen sketches of the towers in a magazine while sitting in a dentist’s office in Paris at age 18. Six years later he did several reconnaissance missions to check out the towers as they were under construction. He honed his tightrope skills at home in a French meadow, asking friends to shake the wire to see if they could knock him off. The night before his self-described coup, he and his team smuggled the wire in and rigged it from one tower to the other, using a bow and arrow to shoot a fishing line across the distance, followed eventually by the cable, which was winched and tightened. It was an audacious act of nighttime engineering, half jury-rigged, half daring genius.
He began at the south tower at about 7:20 in the morning. He stood 1,350 feet above the ground. The city had only just begun waking beneath him, a gorgeous catastrophe of sight and sound. He stepped out in his buffalo-hide shoes, carrying a 42-pound balancing bar. He lay down on the wire. He saluted the birds. At least six times, he negotiated the 131 feet between the two towers. The city was stunned. The early morning radio D.J.s were in awe. The cops were apoplectic and tried to coax him in from either side.
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Writing about art is basically a process of interpretation, and a common assignment in beginning as well as advanced art history courses is to write a response or analytical essay pertaining to a specific work, either a painting or sculpture. This usually suggests that you begin your essay with a straightforward description of the work followed ...
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Victor Merida, " Excited Delirium: Graffiti and Miami ," The Miami Rail, Winter 2014. Some sober, sobering reflections on graffiti art's place in the branding of Miami, made more resonant by ...
LibGuides: ARTS
Visualizing a Compare & Contrast Essay: Introduction (1-2 paragraphs) Creates interest in your essay; Introduces the two art works that you will be comparing. States your thesis, which mentions the art works you are considering and may indicate whether the focus will be on similarities, differences, or both. Body paragraphs
The 10 Essays That Changed Art Criticism Forever
Donald Judd, Galvanized Iron 17 January , 1973. Like many critics in the 1950s and 60s, Barbara Rose had clearly staked her allegiance to one camp or the other. She was, firmly, a formalist, and along with Fried and Rosalind Krauss is largely credited with expanding the theory beyond abstract expressionist painting.
How to Analyze Art
Formal art analysis is conducted primarily by connoisseurs, experts in attributing paintings or sculptures to the hand of specific artists. Formal analysis adheres strictly to the object-artwork by providing a pure description of it. It focuses on its visual, most distinctive features: on the subject, composition, material, technique, and other ...
My A* EPQ [Art-based Artefact FULL Essay & Sketchbook Example|| Pastel
Gariff. (2008). World's Most Influential Painters and the Artists They Inspired: Stories and Hidden Connections Between Great Works of Western Art. During Sixth Form, I completed an art-based artefact EPQ on the significance of light and colour in Impressionist art. This EPQ followed obtaining full marks in my Art GCSE, so I chose to take a ...
My Journey in The World of Art: Narrative
Published: Mar 18, 2021. This narrative essay is about my journey in the world of art. I always had enjoyed art and still have involved in art throughout my whole life. The first time I came across with art was when I was five. With random colours and brush, I created an artwork with whatever I fill like to do.
Are You an Artist?
Alexandra Schwartz reviews "The Long Run," by the writer Stacey D'Erasmo, and "The Work of Art," by Adam Moss, both of which explore the question of what makes an artist.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him.
Artist's Lordstown photos are a call to action
"Artists function best at keeping history alive," said Frazier. "This (Lordstown) exhibit is a monument, a testament and a memorial to Lordstown, to UAW Local 1112 and to the United Auto Workers ...
Why Do Artists Paint the Sky?
The sky as a diary. Other artists catalog the sky's constant fluctuations. Several small sunsets, portrayed in geometric gradations by the late Light and Space painter Norman Zammit, appear in "A Particular Kind of Heaven."Their stark lines evoke recent explorations elsewhere by Brooklyn-based artist Rob Pruitt.In works like A Month of Sunsets (November 2023) (2023), Pruitt captures the ...
In Hawaii, Weaving New Life Into a Nearly Vanished Art Form
Weaving was originally practiced within families, providing "baskets, mats and all the things they needed," said Marques Marzan, a fiber artist and the museum's cultural adviser. Floor mats ...
Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now
Through April 6. Aicon, 35 Great Jones Street, Manhattan; 212-725-6092, aicon.art. Like Prymachenko, Khadim Ali also imagines creatures, although from a different time and place. The artist, who ...
Japanese-American Internment's Afterlife in Contemporary Art
As a Hyperallergic Fellow, Machiko Harada mined the work and history of internment in sensitive essays and an online exhibition, which shed light on the artists grappling with its legacy. After ...
Opinion
In hindsight, the so-called art crime of the century has become a tribute to the lives of the 2,753 who were killed in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and whose stories, too, will always live on.
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That same year, he executed his first independent works in watercolor and ventured into oil painting; he also enjoyed his first earnings as an artist: his uncle, the art dealer Cornelis Marinus van Gogh, commissioned two sets of drawings of Hague townscapes for which Van Gogh chose to depict such everyday sites as views of the railway station ...
Step 1: Identify, Describe, and Analyze the Visual Material. Begin by clearly identifying the visual material you will analyze. This could be a painting, photograph, sculpture, advertisement, or any other visual artwork. Provide essential information such as the title, artist, date, and medium.
This is one of the best ways for students to learn. Instructors who assign formal analyses want you to look—and look carefully. Think of the object as a series of decisions that an artist made. Your job is to figure out and describe, explain, and interpret those decisions and why the artist may have made them.
Pre-Raphaelite Artists. The Pre-Raphaelites artists opted to go back to the aspects of art that involved copious details, complex compositions of Italian and Flemish art, in addition to the use of intense colors. A.A. Bronson's Through the Looking Glass: His Personal Identity as a Canadian Artist.
In securing commissions, the artist was assisted by the Mennonite art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh, whose cousin Saskia married Rembrandt in 1634. The Mennonites advocated personal interpretation of scripture, which probably influenced Rembrandt's subjective and often moving treatment of biblical subjects. ... Additional Essays by Walter ...
Here are seven significant examples of art essays written by some of most influential intellectuals such as Walter Benjamin and Susan Sontag.
In 1874, a group of artists called the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. organized an exhibition in Paris that launched the movement called Impressionism. ... Edmond Duranty, for example, in his 1876 essay La Nouvelle Peinture (The New Painting), wrote of their depiction of contemporary subject matter in a suitably ...
Art Essay Topics IELTS. Here are some art essay topics for IELTS students. Take a look: The value of art education. The role of museums in preserving art and culture. The impact of globalization on contemporary art. The influence of technology on art and artists. The significance of public art in urban environments.
An art essay is a literary composition that analyzes different aspects of artwork, including paintings, sculpture, poems, architecture, and music. These essays look at the visual elements of different artworks. An art essay, for example, might look at the optical elements and creative approaches utilized in particular works of art.
Art History Analysis - Formal Analysis and Stylistic Analysis. Typically in an art history class the main essay students will need to write for a final paper or for an exam is a formal or stylistic analysis. A formal analysis is just what it sounds like - you need to analyze the form of the artwork. This includes the individual design ...
Painting is the magical conjunction of space/ no space; movement in stillness. A balanced experience of absorption and self-awareness. Slow looking. A painting is both a tangible surface and a perceptual space. Great painters create fluctuating tensions between the experience of seeing surface and depth. The task of doing that well is mammoth.
The value of creating. At its most basic level, the act of creating is rewarding in itself. Children draw for the joy of it before they can speak, and creating pictures, sculptures and writing is both a valuable means of communicating ideas and simply fun. Creating is instinctive in humans, for the pleasure of exercising creativity.
Here are the top tips for writing essays on art: Choose a subject that is interesting to you. For example, if you are interested in graphic art, focus on it in your essay. If you are not sure of what to write about, try searching art essay topics online and choose the one you like most. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our ...
Visual Verbal Essay on Wilfred Owen and Franz Marc. This essay explores two artists, Franz Marc, Brett Whitely and two of their artworks depicting animal scenes. Franz Marc's 'Tiger', 'Blue Horse 1' and Brett Whitley's Giraffe and Hyena.
Answer 2: Art is essential as it covers all the developmental domains in child development. Moreover, it helps in physical development and enhancing gross and motor skills. For example, playing with dough can fine-tune your muscle control in your fingers. Share with friends. Previous.
Writing about art is basically a process of interpretation, and a common assignment in beginning as well as advanced art history courses is to write a response or analytical essay pertaining to a specific work, either a painting or sculpture. This usually suggests that you begin your essay with a straightforward description of the work followed ...
Victor Merida, " Excited Delirium: Graffiti and Miami ," The Miami Rail, Winter 2014. Some sober, sobering reflections on graffiti art's place in the branding of Miami, made more resonant by ...
Visualizing a Compare & Contrast Essay: Introduction (1-2 paragraphs) Creates interest in your essay; Introduces the two art works that you will be comparing. States your thesis, which mentions the art works you are considering and may indicate whether the focus will be on similarities, differences, or both. Body paragraphs
Donald Judd, Galvanized Iron 17 January , 1973. Like many critics in the 1950s and 60s, Barbara Rose had clearly staked her allegiance to one camp or the other. She was, firmly, a formalist, and along with Fried and Rosalind Krauss is largely credited with expanding the theory beyond abstract expressionist painting.
Formal art analysis is conducted primarily by connoisseurs, experts in attributing paintings or sculptures to the hand of specific artists. Formal analysis adheres strictly to the object-artwork by providing a pure description of it. It focuses on its visual, most distinctive features: on the subject, composition, material, technique, and other ...
Gariff. (2008). World's Most Influential Painters and the Artists They Inspired: Stories and Hidden Connections Between Great Works of Western Art. During Sixth Form, I completed an art-based artefact EPQ on the significance of light and colour in Impressionist art. This EPQ followed obtaining full marks in my Art GCSE, so I chose to take a ...
Published: Mar 18, 2021. This narrative essay is about my journey in the world of art. I always had enjoyed art and still have involved in art throughout my whole life. The first time I came across with art was when I was five. With random colours and brush, I created an artwork with whatever I fill like to do.
Alexandra Schwartz reviews "The Long Run," by the writer Stacey D'Erasmo, and "The Work of Art," by Adam Moss, both of which explore the question of what makes an artist.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him.
"Artists function best at keeping history alive," said Frazier. "This (Lordstown) exhibit is a monument, a testament and a memorial to Lordstown, to UAW Local 1112 and to the United Auto Workers ...
The sky as a diary. Other artists catalog the sky's constant fluctuations. Several small sunsets, portrayed in geometric gradations by the late Light and Space painter Norman Zammit, appear in "A Particular Kind of Heaven."Their stark lines evoke recent explorations elsewhere by Brooklyn-based artist Rob Pruitt.In works like A Month of Sunsets (November 2023) (2023), Pruitt captures the ...
Weaving was originally practiced within families, providing "baskets, mats and all the things they needed," said Marques Marzan, a fiber artist and the museum's cultural adviser. Floor mats ...
Through April 6. Aicon, 35 Great Jones Street, Manhattan; 212-725-6092, aicon.art. Like Prymachenko, Khadim Ali also imagines creatures, although from a different time and place. The artist, who ...
As a Hyperallergic Fellow, Machiko Harada mined the work and history of internment in sensitive essays and an online exhibition, which shed light on the artists grappling with its legacy. After ...
In hindsight, the so-called art crime of the century has become a tribute to the lives of the 2,753 who were killed in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and whose stories, too, will always live on.