LESSON TWO
Understanding Art
Vocabulary reating a work of art that succeeds in expressing your ideas and
■
■
aesthetics
criteria
C feelings can be fulfilling and satisfying. Gaining an understanding
and appreciation for a work of art created by another artist can be equally
satisfying. However, both kinds of experiences require preparation, the
Discover kind of preparation this book is designed to provide.
After completing this lesson,
you will be able to:
■ Explain the distinction between
art media and art process.
The Visual Vocabulary of Art
■ Explain what art criticism and art This book will help you acquire the skills necessary to understand, judge,
history involve. and support your personal decisions about a variety of visual art forms. You
■ Discuss the benefits of including will have opportunities to engage in decision-making and problem-solving
studio experiences in a study activities as you create your art forms. However, in order to do both, you
of art. must first learn the vocabulary of art.
Artists use many different colors, values, lines, tex-
tures, shapes, forms, and space relationships to create
their artworks. These are called the elements of art,
and they are used by artists in countless combinations.
If you are to fully understand a painting, a sculpture,
or a building, you will need to recognize the elements
of art within each and discover for yourself how they
are being used (Figure 1.14). In Chapter 2 you will
learn how to do this. This knowledge will not only
add to your understanding of how others create, it will
also help you express yourself through art. A visual
vocabulary then, is essential when you are trying to
do the following:
• Gain insights into the artworks produced by
others.
• Create your own artworks with different media
and techniques.
Media and Processes
In order to create art, artists use a variety of different
materials. Almost any material can function as an art
medium, provided artists are able to mark with it, bend
it, or shape it to suit their purposes. Art media are usu-
■ FIGURE 1.14 This artist successfully combines tradi- ally distinguished by whether they can be used to
tional and contemporary features in her paintings of
beautiful women—long a popular subject in Japanese make marks on a two-dimensional surface, as in draw-
art. How many art elements can you identify in this ing or painting, or can be manipulated as a three-
painting? Is any one more important than the others? dimensional form, as in sculpture. Pencils, charcoal,
Uemura Shoen. Mother and Child. 1934. Color on silk. 170 cm 117 cm
paint, clay, stone, and metal are all common art media.
(67 46). National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan. Computers give artists many more options for creativity.
17
Almost anything can be used by artists to express
themselves in visual form (Figure 1.15).
Understanding Aesthetics
The difference between art media and art What is meant by the term aesthetics?
process is important. Art media consist of the Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy concerned
materials the artist uses to create artworks. with identifying the criteria that are used to
Art process is the action involved in making understand, judge, and defend judgments about
art. Examples of art processes include draw- works of art. An aesthetician is a scholar who
ing, painting, printmaking, modeling, weav- specializes in identifying the criteria to be used
ing, digitizing, and casting. in determining the significance of artworks.
Once you have mastered a vocabulary of Aestheticians share a concern for the study
art and gained a knowledge of the various art of art with art critics and art historians. How-
media and processes, you will be prepared to ever, art critics and art historians operate from
learn how aesthetics, art criticism, and art his- two different points of view. Art critics direct
tory can be used to gather information from their attention to a thorough examination of
and about works of art. works of art. They ask and then answer ques-
tions that enable them to gain information
from those works. With this information, they
can make intelligent judgments about the suc-
cess of artworks. Art historians, on the other
hand, seek objective facts about works of art
and the artists who created them. Their
efforts include gathering information on
major art periods and on styles of different
times and places. Historians research the lives
and works of leading artists, and chronicle the
development of art from the distant past to
the present day.
Studying Art Criticism
Have you ever been asked to express your
opinion about a work of art? Imagine that,
while visiting an art museum with a friend,
you stop to look closely at a particular paint-
■ FIGURE 1.15 This ing. Noticing your interest, your friend asks,
artist is noted for creat-
ing works of art with “Well, what do you think of it?” In situations
unusual materials. Here like this, when you are asked to provide a
he uses paint tubes and judgment about a work of art, you are cast in
paint embedded in syn-
the role of an art critic. You assume this role
thetic resin. What do
you think he was trying whenever you try to learn as much as you can
to say with this unusual from an artwork in order to determine
work? whether or not it is successful.
Arman. Tubes. 1966. Paint tubes
and paint in synthetic resin. The Art Criticism Operations
84.45 29.85 cm (33 1⁄4 113⁄4).
Hirshhorn Museum and Many people seem to think that art criti-
Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian cism is very complicated and difficult. This is
Institution, Washington, D.C.
The Joseph H. Hirshhorn
simply not true. Art criticism can be easily
Bequest, 1981 (86.145). learned and will add a great deal of interest
18 Unit One Creating and Understanding Art
and excitement to your encounters with art.
You can think of art criticism as an orderly
way of looking at and talking about art. It is a
method used to gather information from the
work of art itself.
To gain information from a work of art,
you must know two things: what to look for
and how to look for it. In Chapter 4, you will
become more familiar with the aesthetic qual-
ities you should be prepared to look for when
examining a work. Those qualities represent
the criteria, or standards of judgment, you
will need when making and supporting deci-
sions about art. You will also learn to use a
search strategy that will make the task of find-
ing those qualities in works of art much eas-
ier. The search strategy for art criticism
consists of four operations, or steps. These
operations will be introduced in Chapter 4. ■ FIGURE 1.16 Angelica Kauffmann was one of
the few artists of her era to create paintings with
The Value of Art Criticism classical and medieval subjects. Why do you think
paintings like this one made Kauffmann such a
Using the art criticism operations enables successful portrait painter?
you to examine and respond to a variety of
Angelica Kauffmann. Portrait of a Young Woman (Duchess of
visual art forms with a more critical eye. You Kurland). 1785. Oil on canvas. 76.84 63.5 cm (30 1⁄4 25).
can discover for yourself the aesthetic qualities Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California.
that elevate certain artworks above others, and Gift of Zacharie Birtschansky. © 2004 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York/VBK, Vienna.
experience the satisfaction and pleasure those
artworks can provide. At the same time, you
will find yourself less likely to accept passively
the judgments of others. Instead, you will
make and explain your own judgments. The Art History Operations
Works of art are not created in a vacuum.
Your understanding of them cannot be com-
Studying Art History plete unless you determine who made them,
Have you ever encountered a work of art as well as when, where, how, and why they
that you wanted to know more about? Use were made. A complete understanding of a
your imagination to put yourself in the follow- work requires that you learn as much as
ing scene. While helping clean out an attic, possible about the artist and the circum-
you find a picture hidden from view in a dark stances that caused that artist to paint certain
corner. By examining it closely, you see that it subjects in certain ways.
is a portrait of an elegant young woman who Most people looking at the hills surround-
returns your gaze with a smile (Figure 1.16). ing the town of Aix-en-Provence in southern
A number of questions come to mind: Who France would find them uninteresting. The
painted the picture? When and where was the artist Paul Cézanne (say-zahn), however,
work painted? Is it an important work? In situ- painted those mountains over and over again
ations like this, when you seek to learn more (Figure 1.17). Why? Because he saw some-
about a work of art and the artist who created thing in those mountains that others failed to
it, you assume the role of an art historian. see. Repeated efforts to capture what he saw
Chapter 1 Art and You 19
enabled him to arrive at a new style of paint- four operations or steps. It is important to
ing. If you look closely, you will see that keep in mind, however, that when it is
Cézanne used overlapping patches of color to applied to art history, this search strategy
give his picture a solid, three-dimensional operates from a different point of view. It is
appearance. This had never been done before. used to gather information about a work of art
While most people would attach little rather than information from the work. The
importance to a group of marching peasants four operations used in art history will be
(Figure 1.18), José Clemente Orozco (hoh-say fully explained in Chapter 5.
cleh-men-tay oh-ross-coh) recognized the sig-
nificance of such a scene taking place in Mexico The Value of Art History
in the early 1930s. For him, these people sym- Art is often considered a kind of mirror to the
bolized the courageous effort of an oppressed past, a way of gaining valuable insights into
people determined to overcome tyranny. bygone eras. After all, how could anyone fully
To fully understand and appreciate these understand the civilization of ancient Egypt
two works—or any other work—you must without studying the pyramids? Similarly, a
learn about the circumstances that influenced study of the Renaissance would be, at best,
the sight and the insight of the artists who incomplete without reference to the works of
created them. Michelangelo (my-kel-an-jay-lo), or Leonardo
A search strategy can be just as useful in da Vinci (lay-oh-nar-doh da vin-chee).
gathering art history information as it is in If we agree that an understanding of the pre-
gathering art criticism information. The sent can be enhanced by a study of the past,
search strategy for art history also consists of then a chronological examination of art makes
■ FIGURE 1.17 Cézanne concentrated on using carefully placed brushstrokes to
structure his compositions, making the scenes he painted look firm and solid. Why
do you think he chose to paint the same subjects repeatedly?
Paul Cézanne. Mountains in Provence. 1886–90. Oil on canvas. 63.5 79.4 cm (25 31 3⁄8 ); National Museum
and Gallery of Wales, Cardiff/Bridgeman Art Library.
20 Unit One Creating and Understanding Art
good sense. By starting at the beginning and It may surprise you to learn that by study-
observing the development of art from year to ing art, you prepare yourself for an active
year, decade to decade, century to century, we role in keeping your culture alive. Artists,
can see that the origins of today’s art are to be writers, and musicians cannot hope to accom-
found in the art of the past. Every period in his- plish this task alone. They require your
tory is a blend of the past and the present, and support as part of a knowledgeable and
the proportions of past and present within that appreciative audience.
mixture determine the quality of the world at As you use this book, you will discover
any given moment in time. Art history offers us that art has the power to enrich, inspire,
one way of measuring those proportions—and and enlighten. It has the power to stir the
gaining a better understanding of our time, our imagination, arouse curiosity, instill wonder
place, and ourselves. and delight—and even incite strong emo-
tional reactions. Can there be any better
Combining Art Criticism reason for studying it?
and Art History
In Chapter 5 you will learn how to combine
the art criticism operations and the art history
Studio Production
Learning in art is not limited to examining
operations to create a comprehensive search
the artworks produced by others. It also
strategy. When examining a work of art, you
involves planning, testing, modifying, and
will begin by drawing on your knowledge of
completing your own artworks with a variety
art criticism to gain information from the art-
of materials and techniques (Figure 1.19,
work. Then you will turn to art history to gain
page 22). In this book, you will find studio
information about the work and the artist who
lessons that provide these kinds of experi-
created it. Combining information from both
ences at the end of each chapter. It is hoped
art criticism and art history will enable you to
that they will serve as a springboard for fur-
make a final judgment about the artwork.
ther exploration. Remember that, if your
efforts with these studio experiences are to be
Why Study Art? successful and satisfying, you must make
In addition to the satisfaction and pleasure
it affords, a study of art will help you gain a
better understanding of yourself and those
around you. You can begin by studying works
created by artists representing cultures and
periods different from your own. By studying
the creative expressions of artists from all
backgrounds, you can become aware of the
beliefs, ideas, and feelings of people of vari-
ous ethnic origins, religions, or cultures.
■ FIGURE 1.18 This painting shows determined
peasants marching forward to participate in the
revolution under the leadership of Zapata. How
did the artist suggest the relentless forward
movement of these peasants?
José Clemente Orozco. Zapatistas. 1931. Oil on canvas.
114.3 139.7 cm. (45 55). Museum of Modern Art, New York
City, New York. Given anonymously. © Estate of José Clemente
Orozco/Licensed by VAGA, New York, New York.
Chapter 1 Art and You 21
maximum use of your imagination and enthusiasm.
These are as essential to the creative process as
paints, brushes, clay, and the skill required in manip-
ulating these and other kinds of art media.
Knowledge and skill in aesthetics, art criticism, and
art history will serve you well during efforts to create
your own art. Aesthetics and criticism will help you
measure the quality of your creations. Each studio
exercise includes a series of art criticism questions that
will help you evaluate your work.
Knowledge of art history will enable you to identify
artists who have faced—and solved—the same kind
of problems you will confront when creating art.
References to art history will also help you find ideas
for subject matter, illustrate how other artists used
and organized the elements of art, and point out the
different techniques they used to communicate their
ideas and feelings.
Careers in Art
If you enjoy studying or creating art, you will want
to become familiar with the many career opportunities
in the art field. Schools, museums, art galleries, small
businesses, and large corporations look for creative
people to fill a variety of art and art-related positions.
■ FIGURE 1.19 Lawrence received his first art lessons in An awareness of some of these opportunities may help
Harlem during the Depression. What adjectives would you use
to describe the colors and shapes in this painting? you as you think about your own career plans. For this
reason, information concerning career opportunities
Jacob Lawrence. Man with Flowers. 1954. 40 29.8 cm (15 3⁄4 11 3⁄4). Tempera
in the visual arts is provided in the Careers in Art
on gessoed masonite. Norton Museum, West Palm Beach, Florida. © 2004
C. Herscovici, Brussels/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Handbook at the back of this book.
LESSON TWO REVIEW
Reviewing Art Facts
1. Explain What is the difference
between art media and art process? Art Careers Every item we use in our everyday lives has
2. Define the term aesthetics. been touched by an artist at some point. The packages that
3. Recall What two things must a per- contain products we use were designed by artists.
son know before attempting to gather Thousands of products and services are identified by sym-
information from a work of art? bols called logos that are created by artists. These identify-
4. Explain How does the approach of an ing symbols are a part of our everyday lives.
art critic differ from the approach of Activity Logos are designed by artists called graphic
an art historian? designers. Collect examples of logos from newspapers, mag-
azines, the Internet, or other media. Create a logo that is a
visual symbol for an imaginary product. Describe your logo
to your class.
22 Unit One Visit art.glencoe.com for study tools and review activities.
