Introduction: What is Art History?

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IntroductionWhat is Art History?

• Prepared by
• Ma. Anna Corina G. Kagaoan
• Instructor
• College of Arts and Sciences

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What is Art History?

• A story of art that stretches back to the
  earliest forms of visual expression by humans.
• Art can be in the form of an object or a
  building. It can consist of a monumental mural
  glorifying a wealthy Renaissance pope or a Stone
  Age cave painting that was likely never even
  viewed as art by its makers.
• Art historians examine works of art from many
  different angleshistorical and cultural contexts
  in which art comes into being, artistic or period
  styles, the manipulation of materials, the
  subject matter with its overt or hidden meanings.

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Art in Context

• The core of art history is the investigation of
  art in its context.
• Anyone can appreciate art for its context. The
  impression on a particular work of art will be
  highly enhanced or affected by the context for
  which it was made.
• Case of Jack Tworkov, an Abstract Expressionist.

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Style

• The most concrete and intangible of all of the
  components of an artwork.
• It is the signature look of an artists work. It
  enables us to distinguish works of different
  artists from one another.
• The distinctive mode of expression that results
  from an individuals manipulation of the elements
  and principles of art and design.
• Artists styles might be consistent over time,
  changing in an internally consistent manner, or
  move in radically different directions.

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Jack Tworkov
Fig. 1-1. Untitled, 1931
Fig. 1-2. Watergame, 1955
Fig. 1-3. L-SF-ES-3, 1979

• His early work exhibits a certain realism or
  naturalism along with a fluid hand (Fig. 1-1).
• In the mid-1940s and 1950s, he was working in the
  abstract expressionist idiom, combining broad
  gestural brushstrokes with a mixed palette (Fig.
  1-2).
• When he moved toward geometric abstraction, he
  relied on mathematical relationships to organize
  his pictorial space (Fig. 1-3).

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Style

• Artists can be said to work more broadly in a
  linear style, a painterly style, a realistic
  style, or an abstract style.
• Use of the word style describes the relationship
  between the artists concepts and approach to the
  medium. Style also refers to a recurrence of
  artistic or pictorial similarities among artists
  working within a group or during a specific
  historical timeframe.
• One of the best ways to illustrate stylistic
  differences is to choose a group of works with a
  common theme.

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Approaches to Style

• Representational or figurative. Art that
  portrays, however altered or distorted, things
  perceived in the visible world.
• Realistic. Portraying people and things as they
  are seen by the eye or really thought to be,
  without idealization or distortion.
• Expressionistic. Works are emotional, often
  combining distortions of color or shape or line
  to more accurately communicate the inner life or
  personal vision of the artist.
• Abstract. Characterized by a simplified or
  distorted rendering of an object that references
  the essential nature of that object.
• Nonobjective. Makes no reference to visible
  reality.

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Basic Components of a Work of Art

• Subject Matter.
• Form.
• Content.
• Iconography.

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Subject Matter

• The story that the work is telling, or the scene
  that it depicts, or the figures or objects it
  represents in visual terms.
• It is the what of a work of art.
• It can include portraits, landscapes, still life
  paintings of flowers or fruits, historical
  events, biblical or mythological stories, the
  human figure, and more.
• Abstract paintings or sculptures do not have
  subjects, or stories per se. Their content is
  described in terms of their elements, design
  principles, the artistic process, and composition.

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Form

• It is the how of a work of art.
• The all-encompassing framework or artistic
  expression.
• It is the general structure and overall
  organization of a composition.
• It signifies the totality of technical means and
  materials employed by the artist, as well as all
  of the visual strategies and pictorial devices
  used to express and communicate.
• It is the work of art as a whole.

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Content

• Comes close to being the why of a work of art in
  that it includes what we might consider the
  reasons behind its appearance.
• It implies subject matter but is a much bigger
  concept.
• It contains the idea, the cultural and artistic
  contexts and the meaning of a work of art.
• Symbols are a key component, even if they are
  unapparent to many or most viewers. Symbols are
  images that stand for ideas underlying that which
  is actually seen.

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Iconography

• The study of the themes and symbols in the visual
  artsthe figures and images that lend works their
  underlying meanings.
• Awareness of the symbolism enriches the viewing
  experience.
• It contains the idea, the cultural and artistic
  contexts and the meaning of a work of art.
• Symbols are a key component, even if they are
  unapparent to many or most viewers. Symbols are
  images that stand for ideas underlying that which
  is actually seen.

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Basic Ingredients of Art

• Visual Elements.
• Principles of Design.
• Medium.

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Visual Elements

• Line. Serves as an essential building block of
  art, but can serve as the content itself of a
  work of art, or be manipulated to evoke an
  emotional or intellectual response from a viewer.
• Shapes. Distinct areas within a composition that
  have boundaries separating them from what
  surrounds them in two-dimensional art. In
  sculpture and other three-dimensional forms of
  art, it is the essential visual element.
• Value. Refers to the blacks and whites in a work
  of art, as well as the contrasts between lights
  and shades.
• Texture. Used to heighten the sense of realism in
  a work. It can also create psychological links to
  our sense of touch smooth textures attract while
  rough textures repel.
• Motion. Occurs through timethe 4th dimensionas
  well as space. May be implied or suggested in
  static works or built into works.

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Visual Elements

• Color. Helps define images or areas in a work of
  art. It can be used to replicate that which is
  seen by the human eye or to suggest the artists
  emotional response to a subject. The wavelength
  of light determines its color, or hue.

• The visible spectrum consists of the colors red,
  orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet,
  which can be wrapped around in a wheel (Fig.
  1-4).
• Colors on the green-blue side are considered cool
  in temperature, while colors on the
  yellow-orange-red side are considered warm. Warm
  colors advance toward the picture plane while
  cool colors recede.
• Saturation is the colors pureness. Pure hues
  have greatest intensity or brightness. This
  decreases when black, gray, or white is added.
• Shades of a given hue are created by adding black
  while tints by adding white.

Fig. 1-4. Color Wheel
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Visual Elements

• Space or illusion of depth. An age-old challenge
  for artists to be created. Some painters have
  recreated, on a two-dimensional surface, vistas
  that appear to recede from the picture plane many
  miles into the distance.
• In sculpture or architecture, we refer to objects
  that either exist in space or encompass it. A
  sculpture-in-the-round or free-standing in one
  that you can walk round and view from different
  angles, it is three-dimensional. A relief
  sculpture is two-dimensional and describes the
  carving on a slab of stone or wood. For this, the
  space they depict is highlighted.
• Artists of the Renaissance were the first to
  canonize perspective techniques in theory and
  practice. Foremost is Leonardo da Vincis Madonna
  of the Rocks.

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Madonna of the Rocks

• Overlapping. An illusion that one object is
  placed in front of more distant objects,
  obscuring part or all of the distant objects. In
  Fig. 1-5, the figure in red is perceived to be
  kneeling behind the baby in the right foreground.
• Atmospheric perspective. Illusion of depth is
  enhanced by texture gradient, brightness
  gradient, color saturation and the manipulation
  of warm and cool colors.
• Texture gradient relies on the fact that closer
  objects are perceived as having rougher or more
  detailed surfaces. Less texture for distant
  objects.

Fig. 1-5. Madonna of the Rocks
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Madonna of the Rocks

• Brightness gradient effect makes use of lesser
  intensity in distant objects. Less saturated hues
  for distant colors.
• Chiaroscuro. Technique perfected by da Vinci
  employing contrasts of light and shadow through
  subtle gradations of tone. Makes it appear
  three-dimensional.
• Relative size. Farther objects appear smaller.
• Linear perspective. Line in a composition
  converge at one, two, or three vanishing points
  on an imaginary horizon line (a line at eye level
  to the viewer). Parallel lines appear to converge
  as they move into the distance away from a fixed
  pointlike looking at railroad tracks.

Fig. 1-5. Madonna of the Rocks
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Principles of Design

• The visual strategies used by artists, in
  conjunction with the elements of art, for
  expressive purposes. They include
• Unity. Has the effect of gathering parts of a
  composition into a harmonious whole.
• Variety. Adds visual interest to a composition.
  It is the counterpart of unity.
• Emphasis and focal point. Draws and holds the
  viewers eye on certain parts of a work.
• Balance. Brings visual stability to a work of
  art.
• Rhythm. Conveys a sense of orderly progression
  among the parts of the work. Predictable rhythm
  can have a calming effect while sudden changes
  can be disconcerting.
• Scale. The works size in relation to the
  viewers. Within the work, it refers to the size
  relationships of images and objects.
• Proportions. How parts relate to the whole work.

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Medium

• The materials used in the art making process and
  this list can be as long as ones imagination.
• Usually in two-dimensional media or
  three-dimensional mediums. Artists have found
  ways to suggest the fourth dimension of time or
  have done so literally by creating compositions
  that change before the viewers eyes as time
  passes.
• Artistic techniques are methods or vehicles by
  which media are controlled and applied.