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ART
Prof. Ma. del Rosario Ferrero
Describing
art
To talk about paintings, and art in general, you need the vocabulary to describe, analyze, and interpret what you're seeing.
Describing
art
COLOR
Think about your overall impression of the colors used in the painting, how they look and feel, how the colors work together (or not), how they fit with the subject of the painting, and how the artist has mixed them (or not).
* Natural, clear, distinctive, lively, subtle, sympathetic
* Artificial, depressing, unfriendly, violent
* Bright, brilliant, deep, harmonious, intense, rich, saturated, strong, vibrant, vivid
* Dull, flat, insipid, pale, mellow, weak
* Cool, cold, warm, hot, light, dark
WORDS
COMPOSITION
Look at how the elements in the painting are arranged, the underlying structure (shapes) and relationships between the different parts, and how your eye moves around the composition.
COMPOSITION
* Landscape format, portrait format, square format, circular, triangular
Horizontal, vertical, diagonal, angled, background, middle ground
* Centered, asymmetrical, symmetrical, balanced, unbalanced, off-center
*Overlapping, chaotic
spacious, empty
* Free, fragmented
* Negative space, positive space
WORDS
It's often hard or impossible to see texture in a photo of a painting
TEXTURE
* Flat, polished, smooth, coarse
* Hairy, sticky
* Soft, hard
* Shiny, glossy, reflective
* Semigloss, satin, silk, matte
WORDS
What is the mood or atmosphere of the painting? What emotions do you experience looking at it?
Mood or Atmosphere
* Calm, content, peaceful, relaxed, tranquil
* Cheerful, happy, joyful, romantic
* Depressed, gloomy, miserable, sad, somber, tearful, unhappy
* Aggressive, angry, chilling, dark, distressing, frightening, violent
* Energetic, exciting, stimulating, thought-provoking
* Boring, dull, lifeless, insipid
WORDS
The Starry Night - Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh
This painting, which is possibly the most famous painting by Vincent van Gogh, is in the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889, having mentioned the morning star in a letter to his brother Theo written around the 2nd of June 1889
"This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big."
letter
The morning star (actually the planet Venus, not a star) is generally taken to be the large white one painted just left of the center of the painting.
"Water Lilies" - Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet, "Water Lilies," c. 19140-17, oil on canvas. Size 65 3/8 x 56 inches (166.1 x 142.2 cm). In the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Monet is perhaps the most famous of the Impressionists, especially for his paintings of the reflections in the lily pond at his Giverny garden. This particular painting shows a tiny bit of cloud in the top right-hand corner, and the mottled blues of the sky as reflected in the water.
If you study photos of Monet's garden, such as this one of Monet's lily pond and this one of lily flowers, and compare them to this painting, you'll get a feeling for how Monet reduced detail in his art, including only the essence of the scene, or the impression of the reflection, water, and lily flower
"Living Paintbrush" - Yves Klein
Yves Klein
This painting by the French artist Yves Klein (1928-1962) is one of the series he did use "living paintbrushes." He covered nude women models with his signature blue paint (International Klein Blue, IKB) and then in a piece of performance art in front of an audience "painted" with them on large sheets of paper by directing them verbally.
The title "ANT154" is derived from a comment made by an art critic, Pierre Restany, describing the paintings produced as "anthropometries of the blue period." Klein used the acronym ANT as a series title.