Introductory Notes:
Introduction: What Is Art?
Humanities Primer (pp.xxii-xxxi):
FORMALISM: Judge a work on
its own merit, ignoring the artist and culture that produced it.
CONTEXTUALISM: focus outside
the work—society, the artist, why it was painted, etc. (Compare the paintings in the text)
An INTEGRATED APPROACH
combines both of the two and it probably the best.
Popular Perspectives:
Psychological, Feminist,
Religious, Economic, and Historical
VOCABULARY:
Audience: For whom is the
work intended?
COMPOSITION:
The
arrangement of elements within a work.
CONTENT:
The subject matter
CONTEXT: the setting in which
the art arose—time, place, cultural conditions, etc.
CONVENTIONS: established
rules of the work, in form and content
GENRE: The kind of work:
play, poem, opera, painting, song, etc.
MEDIUM: The material from
which the art is made—marbel, bronze, oil paint,
water color, etc.
STYLE: The artistic school
one follows: romantic, surrealistic, realistic, etc.
TECHNIQUE: An artist’s style
of dancing, painting, singing, etc.
THEME: The dominant idea of
the work—it is clearly expressed? Fair? Accurate?
LITERARY ANALYSIS:
PROSE: Follows rules of
grammar.
POETRY: The artist makes his
own rules.
Tragedy: a person is punished
for arrogance.
Comedy: Usually a happy ending
EPIC is a long poem telling
the story of a place or people
LYRIC poem shows emotion not
story.
PLOT is how a story is put
together.
CHARACTERS are the people
involved.
SETTING is the background
FINE ARTS ANALYSIS:
REPRESENTATIONAL ART shows a
true image of what is seen, as in the work of Jacques-Louis David.
ABSTRACT ART may use color
and line for its own sake, as in “Compositon 8” by Wassally Kandinsky.
Perspective is the ability to
create a sense of depth in a painting, As in “The
Disputation of St Stephen” by Carpaccio (1514).
LINE is the mark made with a
painter, straight, curved, wide, narrow, as in Picasso’s “Don Quixote and Sancho.”
Color can be quiet and
subdued, as in Georgia O’Keefe’s “Cow’s Skull with Calico Roses,” Or bright and
passionate, as in Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.”
MUSIC ANALYSIS:
All music is either SACRED
(Religious)
As in
Handel’s “Messiah” or SECULAR (Not religious.), as in popular songs.
A TONE is a sound with a
definite PITCH. A series of these is a
SCALE.
A Melody is a succession of
tones set in an established rhythm, as in Tchaikovsky’s “
HARMONY is a simultaneous
series of tones, often in counterpoint to the melody, as in “When The Saints Go Marching In.”
Your textbook concludes with
a discussion of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” an important
Composition which combined
classical and popular music to create an image of