WHAT IS ART?

•FORM?•CONTENT?•STYLE?•MEDIUM?

IS IT

LINE

SHAPE

COMPOSITION

MASS

SPACE An element of art, space refers to distances or areas around, between or within components of a piece. Space can be positive (white or light) or negative (black or dark), open or closed, shallow or deep and two-dimensional or three-dimensional. Sometimes space isn't actually within a piece, but the illusion of it is.

&

COLOR

HUEVALUE

SATURATION

Maybe Art is a point of view- the angle from which we see the world.

Perspective is an attempt to reproduce objects on a flat surface as they appear to the eye.

Form refers to the visible elements of a piece, independent of their meaning. For example, in Leonardo's Mona Lisa, the formal elements are color, dimension, lines, mass, shape, etc., while the feelings of mystery and intrigue the piece evokes are informal products of the viewer's imagination.

Form is an element of art. At its most basic, a form is a three-dimensional geometrical figure (i.e.: sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, etc.), as opposed to a shape, which is two-dimensional, or flat.

But what does it mean?

•Subject matter•Context (social, political, and economic)•Intention (artist)•Reception or interpretation (of and by the viewer)•Iconography and symbolism

Meaning is a question of CONTENT, which includes:

DOES IT ALL COME DOWN TO

STYLE ?

REPUBLICAN IMPERIAL

Aulus Metellus Augustus

ILLUSIONISM

IDEALISM

REPRESENTATION STYLES

Title: Flower Piece with Curtain

Artist: Adriaen van der Spelt and Frans van Mieris

Date: 1658

Medium: Oil on Panel

Size: 18¼ X 25¼" (46.5 X 64 cm)

Title: The Medici Venus

Date: Roman Copy of a 1st-Century BCE Greek statue

Museum: Villa Medici, Florence, Italy

Medium: Marble

Size: height 5' (1.53 m) without base

Title: Charles V Triumphing over Fury, without Armor

Artist: Leone Leoni

Date: c. 1549-1555

Museum: Museo Nacional del Prado

Medium: Bronze

Size: height to top of head 5'8" (1.74 m)

“I know I cannot paint a flower. I cannot paint the sun on the desert on a bright sunny morning but maybe in terms of paint color I can convey to you my experience of the flower or the experience that makes the flower significant to me at that particular time.”

Georgia O’Keefe November 1, 1930

The ESSENCE that is Abstraction

Title:

Artist:

Date:

Title: Cubi XIX

Artist: David Smith

Date: 1964

Medium: Stainless steel

Size: 9' 5/8" X 1' 9 ¾" X 1' 8" (2.88 x .55 X .51 m)

The opposite realism: Nonrepresentational

or Nonobjective Art

• No reference to objects from the physical world

• Only pure elements of design… lines, shapes, forms, space, texture, color.

What does it mean?

NONREPRESENTATIONAL ABSTRACT

DIFFERENCES IN NON-FIGURAL STYLES

Title: The Great Sphinx

Artist: N/A

Date: Dynasty 4, c. 2613-2494 BCE

Source/Museum: Giza, Egypt

Medium: Sandstone

Size: height approx. 65’

Public and Propagandistic Art

Title: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Artist: Maya Ying Lin

Date: 1982

Source: The Mall, Washington, D.C.

Medium: Black granite

Size: length 500' (152 m)

In the end,does art, or the meaning of art, always comes down to a confrontation between an object and a viewer.?

SO,

WHAT

IS

ART???

I look forward to hearing your opinions!