Why Is It Important to Conduct an Art Analysis

Existence able to clarify an artwork is essential for developing as an artist and to fully appreciate what the nifty artists create. If you lot don't understand what is going on in a master artwork, how could y'all expect to larn how to paint it for yourself?

In this post, I discuss how to analyze art using a serial of questions which you can ask yourself. My goal is to accept some of the mystery out of why the great paintings work. I suggest subsequently reading this post you lot try to analyze a painting for yourself using these questions.

Yous may detect that one time you develop a better understanding of what is going on in a bang-up painting, you lot may gain a ameliorate appreciation of art. It is the same equally listening to a world-class violinist perform a concert past Beethoven. If your ears are non trained, you volition struggle to appreciate the significance of what they are playing.

What Do You Encounter In Terms Of The Visual Elements?

The start thing you should do when analyzing an artwork is to interruption it downwardly in terms of the visual elements. What do you come across in terms of lines, shapes, colors and textures?

By doing this, yous will be able to objectively analyze what you lot are seeing.

In the painting below by Childe Hassam, I have indicated how I see the painting in terms of the visual elements. Instead of seeing a lady sitting in a chair looking at the ocean view, I see...

• Clusters of round shapes for the plants and flowers;
• Rigid shapes for the chair;
• Suggestive lines on the ground to motion you around the painting;
• Lines on the dress to give a sense of form;
• Varied colors and lines to create the illusion of plants and vines; and
• Repetitive dashes of color in the clouds and ocean.

Childe Hassam, The Ocean, 1892

What Are The Master Focal Points And Any Other Key Features?

Have a remember about what areas the artist wants you to look at. What areas are being emphasized and what areas are left vague? Where are your eyes drawn towards in the painting? So, get a pace further and analyze how the artist is emphasizing these areas.

In the painting beneath I meet 3 main focal points; the busy jetty, the boats in the water and the tower in the background. My optics seem to transition betwixt these three points.

Claude Monet draws your attention towards these areas using value dissimilarity and an increased level of item compared to the residuum of the painting.

Claude Monet, The Thames Below Westminster, 1871

What Path Exercise Your Eyes Take Around The Painting?

Look at the artwork and allow your eyes naturally follow through the painting. This can be difficult to do when you are trying to analyze a painting. Try to relax and don't overthink information technology.

The path your eyes take reveals a lot of information about how the artwork is put together. In the painting beneath I indicate the path my optics accept through the painting.

Get-go, I am drawn into the painting with the night reflections in the water. So this leads into the lighter orange and white reflections of the buildings. Then I notice the main buildings and what appears to exist a farm on the left. Then into the clouds and around to the peak heart of the painting. Then I follow the clouds back down into the h2o and forth the reflections. Then I make it at the bottom left of the painting.

Isaac Levitan, Lake, Russian federation, 1900

How Is Everything Connected?

About paintings seem to be comprised of:

• Elements which are connected and flow nicely together; and
• Powerful statements which abruptly stop this catamenia.

For example, moving picture yous are painting a rough seascape. Your strokes follow the turbulent move of the water. But and then there is an precipitous stop as the water crashes against the rocks. This abrupt stop goes confronting the flow of the water and creates a powerful argument in the painting.

In Claude Monet's painting below, blues of the sky connect with dejection of the water. The soft edges also connect the distant land with the sky and the water.

Where the water meets the shore in the foreground, notice how there are dashes of light blue in the dark purple shore, and dashes of nighttime purple in the lite blue water. As well, detect the horizontal brushwork used for both areas. This all helps connect these two areas.

The fluent connexion comes to a terminate at the land on the left of the painting. Here the horizontal strokes are met past vertical strokes, and the blues and purples are met by greens, reds and oranges.

Claude Monet, The Cliff Near Dieppe, 1882

What Is The Dominant Color Harmony?

You will be able to simplify nigh paintings downwardly to a adequately basic colour scheme. Here are some color-specific questions to ask yourself:

• What are the main light sources and how have they influenced the colors used?
• What is the dominant colour temperature of the painting? Does it appear to accept been painted nether a warm, cool or neutral lite?
• What colors are pushed forwards and what colors are held back? For example, maybe the reds and oranges are strong and saturated, whilst the dejection and greens are dull and weak.
• How would you describe the employ of color saturation, value and hue?

Here is my color assay of the below painting past Edgar Payne:

• There is a stiff complementary contrast between purples and yellows.
• The yellow sky indicates that this is painted nether a warm light.
• There appears to be a theme of warm lights and cool shadows.
• Most of the colors in the painting have a weak saturation.
• The painting tin be broken into two distinct value groups - the dark foreground and the loftier key groundwork.
• The painting can also be broken into three hue groups - the oranges in the foreground, the purples and dejection in the background and the yellows of the heaven.

Edgar Payne, Canyon Mission Viejo, Capistrano

Is At that place A Stiff Notan Structure?

Notan refers to the balance of light and dark elements in a painting. I wrote about notan in detail here.

If yous are analyzing a painting in life, then you demand to rely on your ability to interpret color into value to encounter the underlying notan construction. But if yous are looking at a photo of a painting, you tin "cheat" by converting the photo to grayscale to conspicuously see the notan structure.

Observing the underlying notan design of a painting can reveal some interesting patterns and pattern features which may non be obvious on first glance. For example, it might reveal that a painting which appears to exist extremely busy and active, really has a very unproblematic notan construction, like in the painting below past Giovanni Boldini:

Giovanni Boldini, Girl With Black Cat, 1885

Some paintings are built on a strong notan design, whilst other paintings rely more than on the other elements similar color and brushwork. Many paintings by the impressionists accept weak notan designs only make up for it with a complex harmony of colors.

Childe Hassam, Poppies, Isles Of Shoals, 1891

Did The Artist Take Advantage Of Visible Brushwork?

If possible, wait closely at the painting to see the artist'southward brushwork. Observe the thickness of the paint, the variety of the strokes and the general direction of the strokes.

Here are some questions to aid you analyze the brushwork:

• Is at that place a common theme with the brushwork? For example, did the artist use thick and assuming strokes for the lights and thin and weak strokes for the darks?
• Did the artist apply distinct strokes or blended strokes?
• How did the artist pigment the effectively details?
• Did the artist use big or small-scale brushes?

If you lot want to meet virtuoso brushwork in activeness, so cheque out the paintings of Joaquín Sorolla.

Joaquín Sorolla, On The Rocks At Javea, 1905

What Is The Artist Trying To Say?

This is a very loftier-level analysis of the painting. Have a step back and think nearly what the artist is actually trying to say. What was the creative person thinking when they painted it?

Sometimes it might merely be to communicate the beauty of the landscape the artist saw. Or information technology might be something deeper.

In my painting beneath, I wanted to capture the depth of the mural and the stunning dejection of the distant mountain.

What Would You lot Practice Differently?

Information technology is easy to look at a corking painting through rose-colored spectacles. Take them off for a moment and effort to find mistakes or things you would do improve. This is not designed to exist a negative process. It is just designed to get yous to think differently nigh the painting.

It is always of import to question what yous see. That is how yous learn. Even if you cannot possibly practice ameliorate than the painting which is in forepart of you, there is no harm in pondering over it.

Other Questions Nearly Art

• What are the secondary colors?
• What are the major shapes?
• Are in that location any implied lines?
• Are there any leading lines?
• How does it make you experience?
• What is the rhythm of the artwork?
• What is the strongest form of contrast in the artwork? For example, light-green against carmine; thick against thin; organic against geometric; lines confronting shapes; dark against low-cal.
• Is there whatsoever directional brushwork? Think Vincent van Gogh.
• What is thebig idea?
• What is the dominant value range?
• Are there whatsoever light/night/colorful accents?
• What leads you into the artwork?
• What is the gesture of the artwork? Or in other words, if y'all could indicate the gesture of the artwork with a single line, what would it look similar?
• Have whatsoever areas been simplified in terms of detail?
• Is there a sense of depth and atmosphere (atmospheric perspective)?
• What techniques were used?
• What materials were used?
• Are the calibration and linear perspective authentic?
• Is the artworkloose and relaxed ortight and refined.
• Is there whatsoever broken colour? Think Claude Monet.
• What colors were used on the artist'due south palette?
• What is the style (impressionism, realism, etc)?
• Was the artist inspired by anything?
• Did the artist create any preliminary sketches or studies?
• Who/where is the subject?
• Did the artist use the subject in other artworks?

Endeavor Information technology For Yourself

I suggest you use these questions to analyze ane of your favorite paintings. These questions might help you gain a ameliorate appreciation of what is going on.

(If you desire to acquire more than about landscape painting, make certain to grab my gratuitous Mural Painting Starter Kit).

Thanks for Reading!

Thank you for taking the time to read this mail. I appreciate it! Feel free to share with friends. If you want more painting tips, check out my Painting Academy course.

Happy painting!

Dan Scott

Draw Pigment University

parkerourst1999.blogspot.com

Source: https://drawpaintacademy.com/analyze-art/

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