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Caballes, Keisser Lois
Art is too
Supan, Patricia
important not
to share ART CRITICISM
the analysis and evaluation of works of art
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Art Critic
•Art critic’s task is to unveil the process or processes
employed and undergone by the artist to give the
viewer a meaningful visual-aural experience.
•The art critic helps the viewer dig and decode the
world of the artist and translate it to their language.
The aim of criticism is simple-to understand, in this
case, the art-its cause and effects.
•It can be done in four ways: Description, Analysis,
Interpretation and Judgement.
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Descriptive
•It answers the question, “What do you see?”.
•This involves viewing a work of art and taking a
visual inventory of this part, noting what is
immediately visible.
•An artwork should be described as if you were talking
to someone who couldn’t see it.
Prado Museum in Spain exhibits 3D paintings for
the blind
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Analysis
• What types of shapes are used in this
artwork (i.e. rounded, curved, straight-
edged or geometric shapes)?
VINCENT VAN GOGH: STARRY NIGHT
(https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starry- •Is there a mixture of different types of
night.html) shapes or are all the shapes similar?
Art criticism
•Are some parts of the composition full of
shapes and some parts empty, or are the
shapes spread evenly across the artwork?
Trump Menstrual Blood painting by Sarah Levy.
(https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/26395/1/want-
to-buy-a-period-blood-painting-of-donald-trump)
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Analysis
•Are some shapes repeated or echoed in other
parts of the artwork?
•Does the whole composition look full of energy
and movement, or does it look still and peaceful?
Edvard Munch"The Scream“
Art Criticism
• How did the artist create this
movement/stillness?
•What is the center of interest in the composition?
•How does the artist draw your attention to it?
•Determination of subject matter through naming
iconographic elements, e.g., historical event,
allegory, mythology, etc.
•Selection of most distinctive features or
characteristics whether line, shape, color, texture,
etc.
The Staircase by Fernand Leger
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• Analysis of the principles of design or
composition, e.g., stable, repetitious, rhythmic,
unified, symmetrical, harmonious, geometric,
varied, chaotic, horizontal or vertically oriented,
etc.
• Analysis of use of light and role of color, e.g.,
Willem Haenraets-Seaport Town I contrasty, shadowy, illogical, warm, cool,
https://www.artbol.com/painting-artist/willem-haenraets/8
Art Criticism
symbolic, etc.
• Treatment of space and landscape, both real and
illusionary (including use of perspective), e.g.,
compact, deep, shallow, naturalistic, random
• Portrayal of movement and how it is achieved
• Effect of particular medium(s) used
Your perceptions of balance, proportion and scale
(relationships of each part of the composition to
the whole and to each other part) and your
emotional
reaction to object or monument
Three Musicians, 1921 by Pablo Picasso
(https://www.pablopicasso.org/three-musicians.jsp)
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What story is taking place? What is
the setting, or the time and place
depicted?
.
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Interpretation
What is the mood of the work? How
do you know?
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When you interpret a work of art, you
discover the meaning within the work by
What is this work of art about? focusing on content and expressive qualities.
Interpret and assign meaning to the work of
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What do you think the artist was
art. By focusing on the following questions:
trying to communicate through the
creation of this work of art?
Puppet Master by
Elmer Borlongan
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Judgement
• The task of evaluating a work of art requires
a combination of objective information and
subjective opinion.
•Similarly, one cannot use the same standards
when evaluating the true-to-life qualities of a
realist portrait compared with an
expressionist portrait.
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These are the things to consider when
evaluating an art work:
.
When was the Painting Created?
• Knowing the date of the work helps us to gauge how it
was made, and the degree of difficulty involved.
•For instance, landscapes produced before the popularity of
photography (c.1860), or the appearance of collapsible tin
paint tubes (1841), had a greater level of difficulty. Oil
painting produced before the Renaissance, or after the
Renaissance by artists of modest means, will not contain
the fabulous but astronomically expensive natural blue
pigment Ultramarine, made from ground up mineral Lapis
Lazuli.
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Lapiz Lazuli
• Lapis Lazuli is a blue
gemstone, was used to decorate
the tombs of Egyptian mummies,
cover the gates of Babylonian
cities, adorn the rings, bracelets
and necklaces of Roman nobility
and starred in exhibitions of
ancient artifacts in museums
around the world. It was
powderized to create blue
pigments.
Is the painting abstract or
representational
• A painting can be wholly :
Abstract
Organically abstract , or
Semi-abstract , or
Representational
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Is the painting abstract or
representational
• Obviously an abstract work has quite
different aims to that of a
representational work, and must be
judged according to different criteria. For
example, a wholly abstract picture makes
no attempt to divert the viewer with any
naturalism and thus depends entirely for
its effect on its formal qualities (line,
shape, colour and so on).
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Is the painting abstract or
representational
• A painting can be wholly :
Abstract
Organically abstract , or
Semi-abstract , or
Representational
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Saatchi Art by Dmytro Panchenko and Contemporary
Representational Art by Candice Bohannon
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What type of painting is It?
• Paintings come in different types or
categories (known as painting genres). The
established genres are: Landscape,
Portraiture, Genre-Paintings (everyday
scenes), History, and Still Life.
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Types of Painting
(2) Portraiture - What is
(1) History Painting -
the meaning of (3) Genre Painting- (4) Landscape (5) Still Life- a work of
with religious art that shows
portraiture? refers to paintings Painting-
paintings being inanimate objects
perhaps an
The process of painting a which depict scenes Sunlight and
picture or taking a
Shadow: The from the natural or
independent
photograph of a person is
of everyday life.
category man-made world.
called portraiture.
Courtyard of a House in Delft Newbury Marshes by French artist Paul
Last supper- Benjamin (1658)
west
Portrait of an old woman- By Pieter de Hooch by Martin Johnson Cézanne, which he
Hans Memling, (circa Heade
1470) created c. 1893.
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Where was the picture
painted?
• Knowing where and under what
circumstances a painting is created
can often improve our appreciation
and understanding of the work
concerned. Surroundings can have a
major impact on an artist's mood,
and therefore on his painting.
•An artist’s environment has a big
impact on the outcome of an
artwork.
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At what point was the artist in his
career? What was his background?
• Knowing whether a painting was created early or late
in a painter's life can often assist our appreciation of
the work. Artists typically improve their painting
technique with time, achieve a high point sometime in
mid-career, and then fade in later years. Some artists,
however, have died at the height of their powers. Such
artists include:
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The Examples
Raphael (1483- Caravaggio (1571- Jan Vermeer (1632- Thomas Girtin Richard Parkes
1520) 1610) 75) (1775-1802) Bonington (1802-
28)
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The Examples
Van Gogh (1853-90) Aubrey Beardsley Isaac Levitan (1860- Henri de Toulouse- Amedeo Modigliani
(1872-98),. 1900) Lautrec (1864-1901) (1884-1920).
Where was the intended location of
the painting?
Obviously a painting designed to occupy
a large space on the wall of a 16th
century Spanish monastery dining hall
(monumental, inspirational religious
picture) is going to be radically different
from one intended for the study of a
prosperous textile merchant in 17th
century Amsterdam (small-scale,
polished portrait, interior or still life).
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Where was the intended location of
the painting?
Likewise, a painting designed for the reception
area of a hi-tech software in California (large
modern abstract picture, possibly geometric or
expressionist) is likely to be different from one
installed in the boardroom of a private bank in
the City of London (traditional 19th century
landscape). Of course, these suggestions are no
more than stereotypical possibilities, but they
serve to illustrate the role and characteristics of
site-specific works of art.
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21 Five Other Key Considerations When
Evaluating The Quality In Works Of
Art
1. Proportion
2. Originality
3. .Perspective .
Art criticism
4. Intention History
5. Significance
•.
