What is Art?

Thinking and
Talking About Art
Form

Composition

Space

Content
 Historical Context
Thinking and
Talking About Art
(continued)
Thinking and Talking About Art > What is Art?

What is Art?
• What Does Art Do?
• How Does Art Look?
• What Does Art Mean?
• What Makes Art Beautiful?
• Who is an Artist?
Thinking and Talking About Art > What is Art?

What Does Art Do?

• Art can arouse aesthetic or moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of
communicating these feelings.

• The decorative arts add aesthetic and design values to the objects we use every
day, such as a glass or a chair.

• Art can function on a therapeutic level as well, as with art therapy.

• Since the introduction of conceptual art and postmodern theory, it has been
proven that anything can, in fact, be termed art.

• It can be said that the fine arts represent an exploration of the human condition
and the attempt at a deeper understanding of life. Bauhaus Chair
Thinking and Talking About Art > What is Art?

How Does Art Look?

• How best to define the term art is a subject of constant contention; many books
and journal articles have been published arguing over even the basics of what we
mean by the term art.

• The main recent sense of the word art is roughly as an abbreviation for creative
art or fine art.Here we mean that skill is being used to express the artist's
creativity, to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience
towards consideration of the finer things.

• Another methodology is the institutional approach to art.This approach states that

art must be examined as a sociological category, that whatever art schools and
Example of a Baroque painting by Caravaggio
museums, and artists get away with is considered art regardless of formal
definitions.

• The proceduralist approach to art often suggests that it is the process by which a
work of art is created or viewed that makes it art, not any inherent feature of an
object or how well received it is by the institutions of the art world after its
introduction to society at large.

• Formalism is a concept in art theory in which an art work's value is determined

solely by its form, or how it is made, with no regard for context.

• Since conceptual art and postmodern theory came into prominence, it has been
proven that anything can be termed art.
Thinking and Talking About Art > What is Art?

What Does Art Mean?

• The definition of art has evolved over time and varies based on context; anything
can in fact be art, and the term continues to evolve.

• The nature of art has been described by philosopher Richard Wollheim as "one of
the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture".

• Art has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of

emotions and ideas, a means for exploring and appreciating formal elements for
their own sake, and as mimesis or representation.

• Art, at its simplest, is a form of communication.It means whatever it is intended to

mean by the artist herself, and this meaning is shaped by the materials,
techniques, and forms of the art, as well as the ideas and feelings it engenders in
the viewer.
Thinking and Talking About Art > What is Art?

What Makes Art Beautiful?

• Beauty in art can be difficult to put into words due to a seeming lack of accurate
language.

• There is a basic human instinct, an internal appreciation, for harmony, balance,

and rhythm; this can be defined as beauty.

• Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and appreciation
of art, beauty, and taste; aesthetics is central to any exploration of art.

• For Immanuel Kant, the aesthetic experience of beauty is a judgment of a

subjective, but common, human truth.

• For Arthur Schopenhauer, aesthetic contemplation of beauty is the freest and Painting by Michelangelo from the Sistine
Chapel
most pure and truthful that intellect can be, and is therefore beautiful.

• An aesthetic judgment cannot be an empirical judgment but must instead be

processed on a more intuitive level.
Thinking and Talking About Art > What is Art?

Who is an Artist?
• In ancient Greece and Rome there was no word for "artist," but there were nine
muses who oversaw a different field of human creation related to music and
poetry, with no muse for visual arts.

• During the Middle Ages, the word "artista" referred to something resembling
"craftsman".

• The first division into major and minor arts dates back to the 1400s with the work
of Leon Battist Alberti.

• The European Academies of the 16th century formally solidified the gap between
the fine and the applied arts which exists in varying degrees to this day. Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans at the
MOMA
• The idea of defining art today is far more difficult than it has ever been.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Form
• Line
• Light and Value
• Color
• Texture and Pattern
• Shape and Volume
• Space
• Time and Motion
• Chance, Improvisation, and Spontaneity
• Inclusion of All Five Senses
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Line
• "Actual lines" are lines that are physically present, existing as solid connections
between one or more points.

• "Implied line" refers to the path that the viewer's eye takes as it follows shapes,
colors, and forms along any given path.

• "Straight" or "classic" lines provide stability and structure to a composition and

can be vertical, horizontal, or diagonal on a work's surface.

• "Expressive lines" refer to curved marks that increase the sense of dynamism of a
work of art.

• The "outline" or "contour" lines create a border or path around the edge of a "Oath of the Horatii" by Jaques-Louis David

shape, thereby outlining and defining it. "Cross contour lines" delineate
differences in the features of a surface.

• "Hatch lines" are a series of short lines repeated in intervals, typically in a single
direction, and are used to add shading and texture to surfaces."Cross-hatch lines"
provide additional texture and tone to the image surface and can be oriented in
any direction.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Light and Value

• In painting, which uses subtractive color, value changes are achieved by adding
black or white to a color.

• Value in art is also sometimes referred to as tint in terms of light hues, and shade
in terms of dark hues.

• Values near the lighter end of the spectrum are termed "high-keyed" while those
on the darker end or "low-keyed".

• In two-dimensional art works, the use of value can help to give a shape the
illusion of mass or volume.

• Chiaroscuro was a common technique in Baroque painting and refers to clear Value Scale

tonal contrasts exemplified by very high-keyed whites, placed directly against very
low-keyed darks.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Color
• Color theory first appeared in the 17th century, when Isaac Newton discovered
that white light could be passed through a prism and divided into the full spectrum
of colors.

• The spectrum of colors contained in white light is, in order, red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo and violet.

• Color theory divides color into the "primary colors" of red, yellow and blue, which
cannot be mixed from other pigments, and the "secondary colors" of green,
orange and violet, which result from different combinations of the primary colors.

• Primary and secondary colors are combined in various mixtures to create tertiary Color Wheel
colors.

• Complementary colors represent the most aesthetically pleasing combinations of

the various colors and are found opposite each other on the color wheel.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Texture and Pattern

• Visual texture refers to an implied sense of texture that the artist creates through
the use of various artistic elements such as line, shading and color.

• Actual texture refers to the physical rendering or the real surface qualities we can
notice by touching an object.

• Visible brushstrokes and excess use of paint will create a texture that will add to
the expressiveness of a painting, and draw attention to specific areas within it.

• A recurring pattern is known as a motif.

• It is possible for an artwork to contain numerous visual textures but still remain
smooth to the touch. "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Shape and Volume

• "Positive space" refers to the space of the defined shape, or figure.

• "Negative space" refers to the space that exists around and between one or more
shapes.

• A "plane" in art refers to any surface area within space.

• Form is a concept that is related to shape, and can be created by combining two
or more shapes, resulting in a three-dimensional shape.

• Art makes use of both actual and implied volume.

• Shape, volume, and space, whether actual or implied, are the basis of the
"Flowers in a Jug" by Hans Memling
perception of reality.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Space
• The organization of space is referred to as composition and is an essential
component to any work of art.

• The space of an artwork includes the background, foreground, and middle

ground, as well as the distance between, around, and within things.

• There are two types of space: positive space and negative space.

• "Linear perspective" has commonly been used since 15th century Europe to
define space in art and refers to an implied geometric pictorial view.

• After spending hundreds of years developing linear perspective, Western artistic

notions about the accurate depiction of space went through a radical shift at the "Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon" by Pablo Picasso

beginning of the 20th century.

• The innovation of Cubism and subsequent movements represented an important

change in the use of space within Western art, one whose impact is still being felt.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Time and Motion

• Techniques such as scale and proportion are used to create the feeling of motion
or the passing of time in static a visual piece.

• The placement of a repeated element in different area within an artwork is another

way to imply motion and the passing of time.

• Visual experiments in time and motion were first produced in the mid-19th century
and the photographer Eadweard Muybridge is well-known for his sequential shots.

• The time-based mediums of film, video, kinetic sculpture and performance art
show time and motion by their very definitions.
"Nude Descending a Staircase" by Marcel
Duchamp
Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Chance, Improvisation, and Spontaneity

• The work of the Dadaists involved chance, improvisation and spontaneity to
create art.

• Dadaists are known for their "automatic writing" or stream of consciousness

writing, which often took nonsensical forms, but presented potentially surprising
juxtapositions and unconscious creativity.

• Surrealist works, much like Dadaist works, feature an element of surprise,

unexpected juxtaposition and tapping of the unconscious mind.

• Surrealists are known for having invented ‘exquisite corpse' drawing.

• The Fluxus movement was known for its "happenings", which are performance Marcel Duchamp's "Urinal"

events or situations that were meant to be considered art.

Thinking and Talking About Art > Form

Inclusion of All Five Senses

• In contemporary art, it is quite common for work to cater to the senses of sight,
touch and hearing, while somewhat less common for art to address the sense of
smell and taste.

• "Gesamtkunstwerk", or, "total work of art", is a German word that refers to an

artwork that attempts to address all five human senses.

• Installation art is a genre of three-dimensional artwork that is designed to

transform the viewer's perception of a space.

• Virtual reality is a term that refers to computer-simulated environments.

"Embankment" by Rachel Whiteread
Thinking and Talking About Art > Composition

Composition
• Balance
• Rhythm
• Proportion and Scale
• Emphasis
• Unity and Variety
Thinking and Talking About Art > Composition

Balance
• A harmonious compositional balance involves arranging elements so that no one
part of a work overpowers or seems heavier than any other part.

• The three most common principles of compositional balance are symmetrical,

asymmetrical, and radial.

• When balanced, a composition appears stable and visually right.Just as symmetry

relates to aesthetic preference and reflects an intuitive sense for how things
"should" appear, the overall balance of a given composition contributes to outside
judgments of the work.

Compositional Balance

/
Thinking and Talking About Art > Composition

Rhythm
• Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated
succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions".

• Rhythm may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed movement through

space," and a common language of pattern unites rhythm with geometry.

• For instance, placing a red spiral at the bottom left and top right, for example, will
cause the eye to move from one spiral, to the other, and everything in between.It
is indicating movement in the piece by the repetition of elements and therefore
can make artwork seem active.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Composition

Proportion and Scale

• Hierarchical proportion is a technique used in art, mostly in sculpture and painting,
in which the artist uses unnatural proportion or scale to depict the relative
importance of the figures in the artwork.

• Mathematically, proportion is the relation between elements and a whole.In

architecture, the whole is not just a building but the set and setting of the site.

• Among the various ancient artistic traditions, the harmonic proportions, human
proportions, cosmic orientations, various aspects of sacred geometry, and small
whole-number ratios were all applied as part of the practice of architectural
design. Narmer
Thinking and Talking About Art > Composition

Emphasis
• For example, objects placed at a distances from the viewer's eye are rendered
with less details, clarity, and intensity than the closer ones.There are many
techniques that artists use to create this emphasis: including line, color, shape,
texture, form, and value.

• Although artists use these techniques to create emphasis in a composition, there

also needs to be a compositional balance in order to create an aesthetically
pleasing piece.

• There are numerous approaches or "compositional techniques" to achieving a

sense of unity within an artwork, depending on the goals of the artist.Conventional Rule of Thirds
composition can be achieved by utilizing a number of techniques: including the
rule of space, the rule of odds, and the rule of thirds.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Composition

Unity and Variety

• Harmony is achieved in composition by using similar elements throughout the
work: giving an uncomplicated look to a piece of artwork or sculpture.Variety, on
the other hand, is the quality or state of having different forms or types, notable
use of contrast, emphasis, difference in size and color.

• In the visual arts, color theory is a body of practical guidance to color mixing and
the visual impacts of specific color combination.There are also definitions (or
categories) of colors based on the color wheel: primary color, secondary color and
tertiary color.

• Color theorists have devised principles for color combination with the aim being to Chevreul's RYB Color Wheel
predict or specify positive aesthetic response or "color harmony." Color wheel
models have often been used as a basis for color combination principles or
guidelines and for defining relationships between colors.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Space

Space
• Two Dimensional Space
• Linear Perspecive and Three Dimensional Space
• Other Means of Representing Space
• Distortions of Space and Foreshortening
Thinking and Talking About Art > Space

Two Dimensional Space

• In physical terms, dimension refers to the constituent structure of all space and its
position in time.

• In art composition, drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number
of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium.

• Almost any dimensional form can be represented by some combination of the

cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone.Once these basic shapes have been assembled
into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished
form.

Mathematical Depiction of Bi-Dimensional Space

Thinking and Talking About Art > Space

Linear Perspecive and Three Dimensional Space

• Perspective images are calculated assuming a particular vanishing point.In order
for the resulting image to appear identical to the original scene, a viewer of the
perspective must view the image from the exact vantage point used in the
calculations relative to the image.

• Perspective features a horizon line directly opposite the viewer's eye, which
represents objects infinitely far away.Any perspective representation of a scene
that includes parallel lines has one or more vanishing points in a perspective
drawing.

• Foreshortening is the visual effect or optical illusion that causes an object or Perspective in Renaissance Fresco Painting
distance to appear shorter than it actually is because it is angled toward the
viewer.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Space

Other Means of Representing Space

• Movement shows actions, or alternatively, the path the viewer's eye follows
throughout an artwork and is caused by using elements under the rules of the
principles in picture to give the feeling of motion and to guide the viewer's eyes
throughout the artwork.

• The viewer therefore, contributes another aspect to art composition, as the artist
has the ability to control the viewer's eye and often composes the space in the
composition with the viewer in mind.

• The position of the viewer therefore can strongly influence the aesthetics of an
image, even if the subject is entirely imaginary and viewed "within the mind's eye." Photo Jonquil Flowers 1
Not only does it influence the elements within the picture, but it also influences the
viewer's interpretation of the subject.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Space

Distortions of Space and Foreshortening

• Perspective projection distortion is the inevitable misrepresentation of three-
dimensional space when drawn or "projected" onto a two-dimensional surface.It is
impossible to accurately depict 3D reality on a 2D plane.

• However, there are several constructs available which allow for seemingly
accurate representation.Perspective projection can be used to mirror how the eye
sees by the use of one or more vanishing points.

• Athough distortion can be irregular or follow many patterns, the most commonly
encountered distortions in composition, especially in photography, are radially
symmetric, or approximately so, arising from the symmetry of a photographic Giotto's Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ)
lens.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Content

Content
• Representational, Abstract, and Nonrepresentational Art
• Meaning in Nonrepresentational Art
• Meaning and Culture
• Iconography
Thinking and Talking About Art > Content

Representational, Abstract, and Nonrepresentational Art

• Representational art or figurative art, references objects, or events in the real
world.

• Romanticism, Impressionism, and Expressionism contributed to the emergence of

abstract art in the nineteenth century.

• Even representational work is abstracted to some degree; entirely realistic art is

elusive.

Ein Meerhafen, by Johann Anton

Eismann, seventeenth century
Thinking and Talking About Art > Content

Meaning in Nonrepresentational Art

• Nonrepresentational work refers to art that does not attempt to represent or
reference reality.

• In the late 19th century, artists began to move toward increasing abstraction as a
means of communicating subjective experience more personally and creatively.

• Artists such as Kandinsky and Mondrian viewed art as an expression of

spirituality.

Composition VII, by Wassily Kandinsky, 1913

Thinking and Talking About Art > Content

Meaning and Culture

• In the 19th century, culture came to be understood in terms of both individual
refinement and lofty national goals.

• In the 20th century anthropology emerged and produced studies of diverse

cultures, redefining culture to mean traits that are not established due to genetics.

• The arts are an important aspect of every culture and are made for a wide range
of distinctive purposes.

• Ascertaining meaning of an art object is dependent on shared cultural knowledge.

Georg Simmel, 1858-1918

Thinking and Talking About Art > Content

Iconography
• Academic studies of iconography in painting emerged in the 19th century in
France and Germany.

• Iconographical scholarship became particularly prominent in art history after 1940.

• In the 20th century, studies of iconography have become of interest to a broad

public beyond the scholarly community.

Arnolfini Portrait, by Jan van Eyck, 1434

Thinking and Talking About Art > Historical Context

Historical Context
• Context of Creation
• Intended Context of Reception
Thinking and Talking About Art > Historical Context

Context of Creation
• Art history is the academic study of objects of art in their historical development
and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, form, and style.

• Art conveys political, religious, and philosophical themes and judgments that arise
as much from the artist's environment as they do from his or her creative impulse.

• Some of the contextual forces that shape artists and their work are their teachers
and the influences of preceding styles, their patrons and their demands, their
audiences, and their general socioeconomic, political, and cultural climate.

• Patronage of the arts has been used throughout history to endorse the ambitions
and agenda of these institutions and individuals, and has been particularly The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, Sistine
Chapel ceiling
important in the creation of religious art.
Thinking and Talking About Art > Historical Context

Intended Context of Reception

• Art arises from a combination of non-motivated factors driven by the intrinsic
human impulse towards harmony and creativity, and also motivated factors, which
consciously aim to communicate specific messages to other individuals.

• Art may be used to evoke particular emotions or moods, for social inquiry and
political change, for questioning and criticizing society, or as a means of
propaganda or commercial advertisement for influencing popular conceptions.

• Religious art uses religious inspiration and themes in order to illustrate the
principles of the religion and to provide spiritual instruction to audiences.

• Patronage of the arts was typically used as a means of expressing and endorsing Sandro Botticelli, Madonna with Child, ca. 1477
political, social, and cultural agendas and of displaying personal prestige.Works of
art commissioned by wealthy patrons usually reflect their desires and aims.
Appendix
Thinking and Talking About Art

Key terms
• aesthetic Concerned with beauty, artistic impact, or appearance. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• aesthetics Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of art, taste, and the creation and appreciation of
beauty. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Analogous Having analogy; corresponding to something else; bearing some resemblance or proportion. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• assemblage A collection of things which have been gathered together or assembled. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Asymmetry Want of symmetry, or proportion between the parts of a thing, especially want of bilateral symmetry.Lacking a
common measure between two objects or quantities; Incommensurability.That which causes something to not be symmetrical.
(CC BY-SA 3.0)

• chiaroscuro An artistic technique popularized during the Renaissance, referring to the use of exaggerated light contrasts in
order to create the illusion of volume. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• complementary color a color which is regarded as the opposite of another on the color wheel, i.e. red and green, yellow and
purple, and orange and blue. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Composition In the visual arts in particular painting, graphic design, photography and sculpture composition is the placement or
arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art or a photograph, as distinct from the subject of a work.It can also
be thought of as the organization of the elements of art according to the principles of art. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Composition In the visual arts in particular painting, graphic design, photography and sculpture composition is the placement or
arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art or a photograph, as distinct from the subject of a work.It can also
be thought of as the organization of the elements of art according to the principles of art. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• cross-hatching a method of showing shading by means of multiple small lines that intersect (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• cubism An artistic movement in the early 20th Century characterized by the depiction of natural forms as geometric structures
of planes. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• culture The beliefs, values, behaviour and material objects that constitute a people's way of life. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Thinking and Talking About Art

• curvilinear Having bends; curved; formed by curved lines. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Dimension A single aspect of a given thing.A measure of spatial extent in a particular direction, such as height, width or
breadth, or depth. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• expressionism A movement in the arts in which the artist does not depict objective reality, but rather a subjective expression of
inner experience. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Fenestrations (architecture) The arrangement of windows and other openings in a building. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• fine arts The purely aesthetic arts, such as music, painting, and poetry, as opposed to industrial or functional arts such as
engineering or carpentry. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Foreshortening (art) A technique for creating the appearance that the object of
a drawing is extending into space by shortening the lines with which that object is drawn. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Foreshortening (art) A technique for creating the appearance that the object of
a drawing is extending into space by shortening the lines with which that object is drawn. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• form In art, the shape or visible structure of an artistic expression. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• frames per second The number of times an imaging device produces unique consecutive images (frames) in one
second.Abbreviation: FPS. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Golden Ratio (geometry) The irrational number (approximately 1·618), usually denoted by the Greek letter φ (phi), which is
equal to the sum of its own reciprocal and 1, or, equivalently, is such that the ratio of 1 to the number is equal to the ratio of its
reciprocal to 1. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• gradation A passing by small degrees from one tone or shade, as of color, to another. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• happening A spontaneous or improvised event, especially one that involves audience participation. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Thinking and Talking About Art

• happening A spontaneous or improvised event, especially one that involves audience participation. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• horizon line A horizontal line in perspective drawing, directly opposite the viewer's eye and often implied, that represents
objects infinitely far away and determines the angle or perspective from which the viewer sees the work (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• hue a color, or shade of color (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• human condition The characteristics, key events, and situations which compose the essentials of human existence, such as
birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict, and mortality. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• iconography The branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of
images. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• iconography The branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of
images. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• institutional approach to art This approach states that "art" must be examined as a sociological category, that whatever art
schools and museums, and artists get away with is considered art regardless of formal definitions. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• intuitive spontaneous, without requiring conscious thought; easily understood or grasped by intuition (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• line a path through two or more points (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• mimesis The representation of aspects of the real world, especially human actions, in literature and art. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• motif A recurring or dominant element in a work of art. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

• nonrepresentational Not intended to represent a physical object in reality. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Thinking and Talking About Art

• oeuvre The complete body of an artist's work. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

• patron An influential, wealthy person who supports an artist, craftsman, scholar, or aristocrat. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

• Perspective The technique of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Planar Of or pertaining to a plane.A planar projection of a three-dimensional object is its projection onto a plane.Flat, two-
dimensional.(graph theory, of a graph) Able to be embedded in the plane with no edges intersecting.A complete graph with
more than four nodes is never planar. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• plane A flat surface extending infinitely in all directions (e.g. horizontal or vertical plane). (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Pop art An art movement that emerged in the 1950s, that presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery
from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• primary color any of three colors which, when added to or subtracted from others in different amounts, can generate all other
colors (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Projection rojection (plural projections)Something which projects, protrudes, juts out, sticks out, or stands out.The face of the
cliff had many projections which are big enough for birds to nest on.The action of projecting or throwing or propelling
something.The display of an image by devices such as movie projector, video projector, overhead projector or slide
projector.(photography) The image that a translucent object casts onto another object.(geometry) An image of an object on a
surface of fewer dimensions.(mathematics) A transformation of one thing into something else, e.g. applications of functions. (CC
BY-SA 3.0)

• Radial arranged like rays that radiate from, or converge to a common centremoving along a radius(anatomy) of, or relating to
the radius bone (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Radial arranged like rays that radiate from, or converge to a common centremoving along a radius(anatomy) of, or relating to
the radius bone (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• representational In reference to art: art that imitates an object or image found in nature (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• space the distance or empty area between things (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Thinking and Talking About Art

• static Fixed in place; having no motion. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

• Symmetry symmetryExact correspondence on either side of
a dividing line, plane, center or axis.(uncountable) The satisfying arrangement of a balanced distribution of the elements of a
whole. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Symmetry symmetryExact correspondence on either side of
a dividing line, plane, center or axis.(uncountable) The satisfying arrangement of a balanced distribution of the elements of a
whole. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• tactile Tangible; perceptible to the sense of touch. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Tertiary Of third rank or order; subsequent. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• texture The feel or shape of a surface or substance; the smoothness, roughness, softness, etc.of something. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• tint A color considered with reference to other very similar colors.Red and blue are different colors, but two shades of scarlet
are different tints. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Two-Dimensional Existing in two dimensions.Not creating the illusion of depth. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• value The relative darkness or lightness of a color in a specific area of a painting, etc. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

• verisimilitude The property of seeming true, of resembling reality; resemblance to reality, realism (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Viewer Someone that views some spectacle; an onlooker or spectator (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• virtual reality A reality based in the computer. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Thinking and Talking About Art

• volume A unit of three dimensional measure of space that comprises a length, a width and a height. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• volume A unit of three dimensional measure of space that comprises a length, a width and a height. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Thinking and Talking About Art

Ecce Homo by Caravaggio, 1605

Example of a Baroque work by Caravaggio.
Thinking and Talking About Art

Chevreul's RYB Color Wheel

Chevreul's 1855 "chromatic diagram" based on the RYB color model, showing complementary colors and other relationships.
Thinking and Talking About Art

"Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon" by Pablo Picasso

"Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon" is an instance of cubist art, which has a tendency to flatten the picture plane, and its use of abstract shapes and irregular
forms suggesting multiple points of view within a single image
Thinking and Talking About Art

Foreshortening
Melozzo's usage of upward foreshortening in his frescoes at Loreto.
Thinking and Talking About Art

Ein Meerhafen, by Johann Anton Eismann, seventeenth century

This figurative or representational work from the seventeenth century depicts easily recognizable objects–ships, people and buildings.
Thinking and Talking About Art

Classical Roman Columns

The classical orders were models for Renaissance architects.
Thinking and Talking About Art

Oakland Bay Bridge

Eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge reflects asymmetrical architectural design.
Thinking and Talking About Art

Sandro Botticelli, Madonna with Child, ca. 1477

An example of religious art, commissioned by the Catholic Church during the Renaissance.
Thinking and Talking About Art

Arnolfini Portrait, by Jan van Eyck, 1434

The iconography in this work has been the subject of much debate, historically.
Thinking and Talking About Art

Composition VII, by Wassily Kandinsky, 1913

Kandinsky is recognized as the father of modern abstract art in the 20th century.
Thinking and Talking About Art

Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, 1830

This painting reflects contemporary events, commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled Charles X of France.A woman personifying
Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the flag of the French Revolution in one hand and brandishing a musket with the
other.