Visual Literacy: Vocabulary and Elements of Art Focus

Purpose of Visual Literacy

• Visual literacy involves developing a vocabulary to describe the appearances of art and putting words to visual perception.
• This process allows individuals to:
  • Think more clearly about what they are seeing.
  • Communicate personal vision and observations to others.
  • Provide accurate critiques by breaking down the positive and negative aspects of an artwork.

Representational and Non-Representational Art

• Representational Art: This acts as an umbrella term for any work that refers to a real-world figure or object.

  • Two distinct images by Picasso illustrate the range of this category: one is naturalistic/realistic, while the other is more abstract. Both are representational because the viewer can identify the subject as a person.

• Subheadings of Representation:

  • Photorealistic: Images that are realistic and feel specifically related to photography. Richard eses is an example, using oil paint with such skill and technique that it mimics a photograph’s clarity. Unlike human vision, which has a specific focal point and less clear peripheral vision, these images maintain photographic clarity across the entire canvas.
  • Naturalistic: These images feel lifelike and true to the world without specifically mimicking a photograph.
    • The painting of elanora and her son by bronzino is naturalistic in its skin tones, believable fabrics, and bodily proportions.
    • A marble bust of carala is naturalistic in form (showing the furrow of the brow and consternation in the eyes) but not naturalistic in color because it is unpainted marble.
  • Illusionistic or Trompe L’oeil: Literally meaning "to fool the eye" in French. These representational works attempt to fool the viewer into interacting with the image. William Harnett wants the viewer to feel they could touch the fur on a rabbit or take a hat off a hook.
  • Idealized: Images that conform to a culture's highest standard of beauty.
    • Ancient Greeks idealized the male figure with symmetry, specific proportions, muscular detail, and a particular stature.
    • Cabanel's Birth of Venus depicts an idealized female figure with a voluptuous form and a creamy, even complexion.
    • Idealization is relative; standards change over time and across cultures. In Western culture over the last $100$ years, the ideal female figure has shifted from voluptuous to slender.
  • Stylized: Representational work that conforms to a preset convention or system of depiction common to a group or culture rather than just an individual’s style.
    • Egyptian works conformed to a specific look for approximately $3,000$ years, characterized by a rigid stance and a mix of naturalism and stylized form (e.g., shoulder curves and facial features that stop short of being fully believable).
    • Japanese woodblock prints maintain a unified, flat, and "shapy" quality in their layering across different artists.

The Continuum of Abstraction and Non-Objective Art

• Abstraction: This involves real-world forms that have been distorted. The degree of abstraction can vary until it borders on non-representation.

• Non-Representational or Non-Objective Art: Works that do not relate to real-world forms.

  • Monrean (Mondrian) moved from naturalism to minimal means, reducing his palette to black, white, red, yellow, and blue, using only vertical and horizontal lines. Although these are non-representational to viewers, monrean viewed them as related to the architecture or aerial cityscapes of the world.
  • Impressionism: A form of abstraction where images "pixelate" when viewed up close, revealing painterly brushstrokes and flicks of paint, but come into focus from a distance.
  • Mari Soul: Uses a level of abstraction in sculpture, combining naturalistic faces with distorted, rectilinear body shapes.
  • Frank Arbok: His work is textured and "scabby," with paint building up to $1/2$ inch off the canvas, pushing the boundary toward non-representation.
  • Kandinsky: Credited with the first non-representational paintings in the early $1900s$. He compared non-representational art to instrumental music, suggesting that if music can move the listener through coalescing sounds without a narrative, painting can do the same through shapes, colors, and lines.

The Visual Element of Line

• Line is the foundational element in art. Lines in the environment include tree branches, power lines, and telephone poles.

• Relationship progression: Lines $\rightarrow$ Shapes $\rightarrow$ Form and Space.

• Descriptive Terms for Line:

  • Geometric vs. Organic.
  • Rectilinear vs. Curvilinear.
  • A geometric/rectilinear chair contrasts with an organic/curvilinear chair that has a "lyrical curve."

• Contour Line: Describes the three-dimensional boundary of a form, implying volume rather than a flat outline.

  • Example: A contour line across a horse's shoulder creates the belief that the shoulder is in front of the torso.
  • Landscapes can have contour lines; the Great Wall of China and christone Jean Claude's Running fence (an artwork made of fabric curtains in California) describe the rolls and valleys of the terrain.

• Directional Lines: Linear forms that lead the viewer's eye through a composition.

  • Cardier bran uses railings and pathways to create a "loop" or circuit for the eye, preventing it from leaving the page.

• Implied Lines: Lines not physically present but created through lines of sight or the linking of similar forms.

  • Similarity: Linking three yellow hats with black stripes.
  • Gaze: In renois’s Boating Party, the composition is driven by who is looking at whom, creating a complex storyline and movement through the frame.

Shape, Edge, and Compositional Dynamics

• Hard-edged vs. Soft-edged Shapes:

  • Mark Rothco: Non-objective rectilinear forms with soft edges that bleed into each other, creating an emotive, misty, or sacred feel.
  • ad Reinhart: Similar rectilinear forms but with hard edges, creating an intellectual, matter-of-fact presence.
  • kyats (A Day in Paris; rain in 1877): Uses hard-edged shapes to create a tactile, naturalistic presence.
  • George Sarat (Sunday on the grand shot): A pointillistic work made entirely of tiny dots with no hard edges, creating a feeling of nostalgia and fugitive memory.

• Static vs. Dynamic Elements:

  • Static: Horizontals and verticals provide stability. Edward Hopper’s work is often static.
  • Dynamic: Curves and diagonals suggest movement.
    • Carvaggio’s Crucifixion of St. Peter uses an "X" composition with diagonals to create a sense of action.
    • Architecture can be dynamic, such as Frank G's building that appears to dance, or most softy's stacked rectilinear forms.

Figure and Ground Relationships

• Figure (Positive Form): The form that is present/interpreted as the subject.
• Ground (Negative Space): The open space or background.
• Positive and negative rely on each other for definition and can be reversible.
  • Example: Silhouettes facing each other vs. a central white vase.
  • MC eer (MC Escher): Uses figure-ground reversal where a black duck becomes the ground for a white duck, and vice-versa.

Analysis: Napoleon Enthroned by Ang (angra)

• Lines: Two staffs create a "V" shape in the center.
• Curves: Arched throne, circular crown, lace collar, and mantle.
• Implied Lines: The connection between the staff top and a small hand closes the "V" into a triangle.
• Edge: Overall hard-edged, but the edges soften in the background to create a sense of space.

Creating the Illusion of Form and Space

• Contrast of Value: Using light and dark (shading) to suggest light hitting a 3D form and casting shadows.
• Contrast of Color: Hans Hoffman uses vivid yellow to hover in front of cool blue-green backgrounds.
• Overlap: Chima bu’s Madonna Enthroned shows angels blocking each other to suggest depth.
• Contrast of Scale: Larger figures appear closer than smaller figures (e.g., ballerina dancers).
• Location and Placement: Objects lower in the field of vision/on the page generally appear closer.
• Point of View: dega crops images to make the viewer feel placed within the scene (e.g., sitting at a nearby table).
• Foreshortening: A long figure shown from a shortened perspective to create depth.
  • man a's dead to Ador: A man estimated at $5'10"$ to $6$ feet tall is shortened from a head-down view.
  • carvaggio’s Supper at EMAs: Shows at least $6$ feet of depth through the projection of an arm.
• Atmospheric Perspective: Close objects are defined and saturated; distant objects are desaturated and hazy.
• Linear Perspective: Parallel lines converge as they move away at a vanishing point.
  • Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper: The vanishing point is at Christ's head, serving as a halo.
  • Variations: One-point, two-point, and three-or-more-point perspective.
• Ambiguous Space: Intentional play where depth and flatness are confused.
  • Terry Winters uses color and value overlap that doesn't allow for a clear "walkable" map of space.
  • Matisse uses intense red saturates to flatten an image despite using overlap and scale cues.

Analysis: Fifth of May by Goya

• Value and Color: Highlights in the foreground vs. dark background; saturated foreground vs. desaturated background.
• Placement and Scale: Figures lower on the page feel closer; use of scale contrast.
• Atmospheric/Linear cues: Includes atmospheric perspective in the background and minor linear perspective on architecture and a central light box.
• Foreshortening: Present in the figures lying on the ground.