Foundations Studio ArtBarbara Gronefeld, St. Cecilia Academy, Visual Arts Program

What is aesthetics? Aesthetics is the study of the nature of beauty and art.

What is beautiful?

Is this piece of art beautiful? Why or why not?

Hill, South Truro, Edward Hooper

                                                                                                      

  

Taste is a personal matter. The clothing you like may differ from the clothing that your parents like. This doesn’t make anyone wrong or right. It is simply differences in taste.

When we talk about art, we refer to different “aesthetic views” to talk about these differences in taste. An aesthetic view is an idea or school of thought on what is most important in a work of art.

What do you think is most important in creating a good work of art?

Making it look real, or lifelike?

Successfully using the elements and principles of art?

Having an important idea to communicate?

Subject:

When the most important goal in creating an artwork is to make it look very real and convincing, we call that having a subject view. A work’s subject is an image viewers can easily identify.

Now look at the following painting:

Edward Hopper, Haskell's House,1924, watercolor,34.3 x 49.5 cm, Gift of Herbert A. Goldstone. © 1998 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Composition:

A second aesthetic view of art is the composition view. In this view, the most important factor in an artwork is its composition. The composition is the way the principles are used to organize the elements of art.

Now look at the following painting:

Wassily Kandinsky's Composition VII, 1913. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Painted in 1913 when Kandinsky lived in Munich, Germany.

Content:

A third aesthetic view is the content view. Content in an artwork refers to the message, idea, or feeling expressed by a work of art. If you believe that expression is most important in an artwork, then you are taking the content view.

Franz Marc The Tower

of Blue Horses 1913, (missing since 1945)

Elements of Art: the basic components, or building blocks artists use to express their ideas

Shape and Form, Value, Color (Hue, Intensity and Value with Color and Non-Color), Unity, Line, Axis Line, Texture, Space

Shape is one of the elements of art. When lines meet, shapes are formed.

Shapes are flat. Some shapes are geometric, such as squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, and ovals. Other shapes are organic or irregular.

Shape

Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano, 1438-1440

Value: the term refers to the term lightness or darkness this can also include color as well

Lange's 1936, Migrant Mother, Florence Owens Thompson

Color: hue, intensity and value

Hue, the name of the color

Intensity, quality or purity of a color

Value, the color’s lightness of darkness

Color Wheel in Art

Hue, the name of the color

Texture

TextureA rough texture attracts the viewer’s eye more easily than a smooth, even surface does.

Albrecht Durer, Melancholia I, Engraving

Line

One type of line is used to show the edges of an object

Line can suggest movement

Joan Miro, Le Lezard aux Plumes d'Or, Lithograph

Principles of Art

Balance is one of the principles of art which describes how artists to create visual weight.

Artists think about how to make their works balanced by using elements such as line, shape and color. There are several ways to balance an artwork:

Principle of Art : Balance

Asymmetrical (informal) balance means each side of an imaginary line are different yet equal.

Radial balance means lines or shapes grow from a center point.

Symmetrical (formal) balance means both sides of an imaginary line are the same.

Principles of Art

Emphasis, Harmony,

Variety Gradation Movement Rhythm Proportion Unity

Emphasis

M.C. Escher, Three Spheres II, Lithograph, 1946

Harmony

Helen Frankenthaler, Poured Acrylic on Canvas

Variety: Pablo Picasso, Mixed Media

                                         

                   

Gradation

The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599-1600). Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.

Movement

Jackson Pollack, No. 5, 1948, Enamel on Canvas

Proportion

"The Steerage" 1907 photograph by Alfred Stieglitz.

                           

Unity

Grave of Michelangelo in Santa Croce in Firenze.

Rhythm

Pablo Picasso, Femme_aux_Bras_Croisés, Oil on Canvas