Elements of Art or Elements of Design - The basic components used by the artist

when producing works of art. Those elements are color, value, line, shape, form,
texture, and space. The elements of art are among the literal qualities found in any
artwork.

COLOR
Produced by light of various wavelengths, and when light strikes an object and reflects
back to the eyes.

An element of art with three properties: (1) hue or tint, the color name, e.g., red, yellow,
blue, etc.: (2) intensity, the purity and strength of a color, e.g., bright red or dull red; and
(3) value, the lightness or darkness of a color.

When the spectrum is organized as a color wheel, the colors are divided into groups
called primary, secondary and intermediate (or tertiary) colors; analogous and
complementary, and also as warm and cool colors.

Colors can be objectively described as saturated, clear, cool, warm, deep, subdued,
grayed, tawny, mat, glossy, monochrome, multicolored, particolored, variegated, or
polychromed.

Some words used to describe colors are more subjective (subject to personal opinion or
taste), such as: exciting, sweet, saccharine, brash, garish, ugly, beautiful, cute,
fashionable, pretty, and sublime.

Sometimes people speak of colors when they are actually refering to pigments, what
they are made of (various natural or synthetic substances), their relative permanence,
etc.

Photographers measure color temperature in degrees kelvin (K).

VALUE
An element of art that refers to luminance or luminosity — the lightness or darkness of a
color. This is important in any polychromatic image, but it can be more apparent when
an image is monochromatic, as in many drawings, woodcuts, lithographs, and
photographs. This is commonly the case in much sculpture and architecture too.

Below: a value scale employing a smoothly nuanced gradation of values.

Below: a value scale — or gray scale — in eight stepped grades of value

And another stepped scale produced by hatching and cross-hatching.

Below: another value scale — or gray scale — in which stepped grades of values are
labeled for their percentages of black, and values used to give planar shapes greater
solidity and depth.

A full range of values can also be produced by a variety of other means. These include
hatching and stipple techniques, as well as with textures and patterns of other sorts.

The following illustration diagrams colors of various values. Value changes from pure
hues are called shades and tints. On the right, pure hues are marked by dots. Notice
how their values — their positions beside the gray scale — are varied.
Changes in value, whether sudden or gradual, can add greatly to the visual impact of art
forms. Changes in value can also be used to help the artist express an idea.

LINE
Line - A mark with length and direction(-s). An element of art which refers to the
continuous mark made on some surface by a moving point. Types of line include:
vertical, horizontal, diagonal, straight or ruled, curved, bent, angular, thin, thick or wide,
interrupted (dotted, dashed, broken, etc.), blurred or fuzzy, controlled, freehand, parallel,
hatching, meandering, and spiraling. Often it defines a space, and may create an outline
or contour, define a silhouette; create patterns, or movement, and the illusion of mass or
volume. It may be two-dimensional (as with pencil on paper) three-dimensional (as with
wire) or implied (the edge of a shape or form).

Examples:

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669), Two Studies

of a Bird of Paradise, pen and sepia ink and wash, white
highlights, 0.181 x 0.155 m, Louvre. See nature.

James Thurber (American, 1894-1961), All Right, Have It Your

Way — You Heard a Seal Bark, c. 1937, pen and ink on paper.
See contour line drawing.

 Richard Long (English,1945-), A Line Made by Walking, 1967, photograph

and pencil on board, image: 37.5 x 32.4 cm, Tate Gallery, London. Long
created this earth work by walking back and forth along the same line in a
grassy field in Somerset, England, wearing away a thin path, which lasted
until the grass grew back again. Long took this photo of his work in order
to document it.
Quotes:
• "It is to be observed that straight lines vary only in length, and therefore are least ornamental.
That curv'd lines as they can be varied in their degrees of curvature as well as in their length,
begin on that account to be ornamental. That straight and curv'd lines joined, being a compound
line, vary more than curves alone, and so become somewhat more ornamental. That the waving
line, or line of beauty, varying still more, being composed of two curves contrasted, becomes still
more ornamental and pleasing . . . and that the serpentine line, or line of grace, by its waving and
winding at the same time different ways, leads the eye in a pleasing manner along the continuity
of its variety."
William Hogarth (1697-1764), English painter. The Analysis of Beauty.

• "Art, like morality, consists in drawing a line somewhere."

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English author.

• "As in the fourteen lines of a sonnet, a few strokes of the pencil can hold immensity."
Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970), English. The Magic of a Line.

Gustav Klimt,
(Austrian, 1862-1918),
Tree of Life, Stoclet Frieze,
1905-1911,
oil and gold leaf on canvas.

Linear - A painting technique in which importance is placed on contours or outlines.

Examples of paintings done in this manner:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Sofa, oil on cardboard, 24 3/4 x 31

7/8 inches (62.9 x 81 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. See
Post-Impressionism.

Paul Klee (German, 1879-1940, born and died in Switzerland),

The Mocker Mocked (Oder der verspottete Spötter), 1930, oil
on canvas, 17 x 20 5/8 inches (43.2 x 52.4 cm), Museum of
Modern Art, NY. See Bauhaus.
  

Stuart Davis (American, 1892-1964), New York-

Paris no.2, 1931, oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 40 1/4
inches, Portland Art Museum, ME. See New
Deal art.

Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1977), Little Big

Painting, 1965, oil on canvas, 68 x 80 inches (172.7 x
203.2 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. This
painting humorously toys with the idea of making the
brushstroke visible: depicting a giant linear brushstroke,
using the style of mass-produced cartoons. See Pop Art.

Linear perspective
A system of drawing or painting in which the artist attempts to
create the illusion of spatial depth on a two-dimensional surface.
It works by following consistent geometric rules for rendering
objects as they appear to the human eye. For instance, we see
parallel lines as converging in the distance, although in reality
they do not. Stated another way, the lines of buildings and other
objects in a picture are slanted inward making them appear to
extend back into space. If lengthened these lines will meet at a
point along an imaginary horizontal line representing the eye
level. Each such imaginary line is called an orthogonal. The point
at which such lines meet is called a vanishing point.

The invention of linear perspective dates to the early 1400s, with

Filippo Brunelleschi's experiments in perspective painting and Leon Battista Alberti's
treatise on perspective theory.

Examples of pictures employing linear perspective:

 Paolo Uccello (born Paolo di Dono) (Italian, 1397-1475), Perspective Study of
a Chalice, pen and ink on paper, 29 x 24.5 cm, Gabinetto dei Disegni, Uffizi,
Florence. See Renaissance and wireframe.

Albrecht Altdorfer (German, c. 1480-1538), The Entrance Hall

of the Regensburg Synagogue, 1519, etching, 6 1/4 x 4 3/8
inches (15.9 x 11.1 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. See
Northern Renaissance

Fra Giovanni da Verona (Italian), three panels of wood intarsia, 1520:

Each conveys the appearance of open cupboard doors — a trompe l'oeil
effect resulting from the use of linear perspective. The first panel: a
Campanus sphere, a mazzocchio, and various instruments of the
geometer.

The second panel: a complex polyhedron

which can be constructed by erecting a pyramid of equilateral triangles
on each face of an icosidodecahedron.

The third: the Campanus sphere

again, along with an icosahedron and
a truncated icosahedron.
 Hieronymus Rodler (German, d. 1539), Zu eynem Gewelb/so du off
die art haben willt . . . (A vault the way you'd like it),1531, woodcut, 8
1/2 x 5 5/8 inches, from Hieronymus Rodler, Eyn schön nützlich
Büchlin vnd Vnderweisung der Kunst des Messens mit dem Zirckel.
Siemeren, 1531, leaf D2, Getty Research Institute, Malibu, CA.

Tommaso Laureti (Italian, 1530-1602), Design for a portion of an

illusionistic ceiling, 1583, engraving, 8 3/8 x 12 5/8 inches, From
Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Le due regole della prospettiva
pratica, Rome, 1583, p. 88, Getty Research Institute, Malibu, CA.

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890), A Corridor in the Asylum,

late May or June, 1889, black chalk and gouache on pink Ingres
paper, 25 5/8 x 19 5/16 inches (65.1 x 49.1 cm), Metropolitan
Museum of Art, NY. See Post-Impressionism

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965), The

Road West, 1938, depicted: United States of
America, gelatin silver print, 17.3 x 24 cm (6 13/16
x 9 7/16 inches), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.
See photography.
 Maurits Cornelis Escher (Dutch, 1898-1972), Belvedere, 1958,
lithograph, 8 1/4 x 11 5/8 inches (462 x 295 mm), National
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. This belvedere has three
stories, but its drawing results in an optical illusion. Escher has
employed a hybrid of linear perspective that produces a
mixture of two possibilities. Note how the pillars connect the
second to the third story.

Robert Longo (American, contemporary),

Tongue to the Heart, 1984, acrylic and oil on
wood panel, cast plaster, hammered lead on
wood, Durotran, and acrylic on canvas, 136 x
216 x 25 inches, Eli Broad Foundation.

Irregular applications of linear perspective have resulted in various optical illusions and
anamorphosis.

optical illusion - An image that deceives a person, leading to a misinterpretation of its

meaning. Optical illusions can be found in nature as well as in art. Their strengths rely upon
various assumptions in which humans perceive optical phenomena.

There are several classic optical illusions. One is an alternating figure variously called a magic
cube or a Necker cube (Louis Necker, a Swiss crystallographer, first published his analysis of this
design in 1832): the wireframe cube below. Which of its sides is nearest to you? Is it the one
made solidly green on the cube to the left or is it the green side on the cube to the right, or is
there no nearest side at all?

More people interpret a magic cube as the one on the left than the one on the right. The
most likely reason seems to be that people see boxes more often from above than from
below.
Here is an "impossible" version pictured with a high degree of
realism. The two points where the linear edges must overlap have
been purposely confused. The resulting figure produces an even
more jarring figure-ground dilemma, likely to be interpretted as
humorous or upsetting.

Here's another classic, known as the Muller-Lyer illusion. Which

of the horizontal lines is longer?

Measure them. You may be surprised to learn that they are the same length. Our tendency to
misjudge the length of such lines (as with our tendency to be confused by magic cubes) stems from
experiences which have "taught" us to use certain shapes and angles to tell us about size and
placement. Such experiences established the conventions of linear perspective.

How many black dots can you count?

The illusory black dots you see are afterimages. This gridded
figure is known as a "Hermann grid," named after its
designer. L. Hermann visualized it in 1870, while reading a
book about sound.

Here is a very active

radial design that
relies upon
afterimages.

Other optical illusions rely upon our experience of stereoscopic vision -- 3-D movies for instance.
More examples:

Germany, Young Woman / Old Woman, 1888, postcard.

This is the earliest known form of an image that has been
reworked many times since. Deriving meaning from this
ambiguous or alternating figure depends on which picture
elements the eye perceives most strongly -- one at a time --
not simultaneously.

Ill-Fated Lovers, c. 1890-1920.

Here is another ambiguous or
alternating figure.

Marcel Duchamp (French-American, 1887-1968), Rotorelief

(Optical Discs), 1935-1953, two editions, two circular discs
magnetized 1 inch and 2 inch dark borders, drawings on 6
discs, both sides 7 7/8 inch diameter, casing 14 3/4 x 14 3/4
inches. When viewed (preferably with one eye) at a rotating
speed of 40-60 rpm, the disks present an optical illusion of
depth, and in a few cases, of three-dimensional objects: a
fishbowl a light bulb, and a balloon. Also see Dada.
 Maurits Cornelis Escher (Dutch, 1898-1972), Balcony, 1945,
lithograph, 11 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches (29.7 x 23.4 cm), National
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. In the center of this picture of a
hillside town, Escher said he tried to break up the paper's flatness
by "pretend[ing] to give it a blow with my fist at the back, but . . .
the paper remains flat, and I have only created the illusion of an
illusion."

Maurits Cornelis Escher, Up and Down, 1947, lithograph, 19 3/4 x 8 1/8

inches (50.3 x 20.5 cm).

Maurits Cornelis Escher, Relativity, 1953,

lithograph, 11 1/8 x 11 5/8 inches (282 x 294 mm),
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Here
three worlds, each with their own gravitational
forces exist simultaneously, operating
perpendicularly to one other.

Maurits Cornelis Escher, Belvedere, 1958, lithograph, 8 1/4 x 11

5/8 inches (462 x 295 mm), National Gallery of Art, Washington,
DC. This belvedere has three stories, but its drawing results in an
optical illusion. Escher has employed a hybrid of linear
perspective that produces a mixture of two possibilities. Note
how the pillars connect the second to the third story.
Three designs that rely on afterimages to produce illusions of movement:

Turning cylinders.

A rotary motion.

A push-and-pull in troughs.

anamorphosis and anamorphic art -

An image that appears distorted, because it is constructed on an elongated grid,

rendering it unintelligible until it is viewed from a specific, extremely oblique point of
view or reflected in a curved mirror, or with some other optical device. "Anamorphosis"
is a Greek word meaning transformation, or more literally "formed again." Road signs
such as "SCHOOL CROSSWALK" and directional arrows are designed anamorphically
— stretched out — when painted on pavement, so that these signs are easily
understood by the drivers who must view them obliquely.
Do not confuse anamorphosis with metamorphosis.

Hans Holbein (German, 1497/8-1543), The Ambassadors, oil. A

human skull in the lower third of the painting can be seen undistorted
only from a viewpoint that is near and below the painting, and to its
left. See vanitas.

Follower of Caravaggio, anamorphic Saint Jerome Praying, 1635, oil

on canvas.
Erhard Schön (German, 1691-1742), Distortion, 1538. Immediately one
sees on the left four people in a room, and an odd landscape to the right.
Viewing this picture obliquely from its right reveals the anamorphic image
of an embracing couple.

In photography, an anamorphic lens is capable of compressing a wide angle of view

onto a standard frame of film. A similar projection system can be used to reform such an
image onto a wide screen. Holywood movie company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer devised an
anamorphic lens system in 1957 for 35mm film with a compression ratio of 1.25:1, that
is sometimes called "M-G-M Camera 65" and sometimes "Ultra Panavision." The
system employed a pair of achromatized Brewster prisms in order to expand a projected
image anamorphically, and was first used for the films Raintree County and Ben-Hur.

SHAPE
Shape - An element of art, it is an enclosed space defined and determined by other art
elements such as line, color, value, and texture. In painting and drawing, shapes may take on
the appearance of solid three-dimensional object even though they are limited to two
dimensions — length and width. This two-dimensional character of shape distinguishes it from
form, which has depth as well as length and width.

Examples of shapes include: circle, oval, and oblong; polygons such as triangle, square,
rectangle, rhombus, trapezium, trapezoid, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon,
decagon, undecagon, dodecagon, etc.; and such other kinds of shapes as amorphous,
biomorphous, and concretion.

circle - A round, two-dimensional shape in which every point on

the outside is the same distance from the center. The curve of
every segment of its edge is the same as every other. Note the
similarity and difference between a circle and an ellipse.

When used in attributing a work of art, "the circle of" is a group of artists who shared with the
artist named the style of the work, and implies a shared geographic origin and close dates for
that group.

When the distance from the center to the outside of a circle is its radius (half its width), and its
width is its diameter, the circumference (or perimeter) of a circle equals two times radius times
pi (3.14159), or diameter times pi. The area of a circle equals pi times radius squared, or pi
times diameter squared divided by 4, or 0.78539 times diameter squared.
A painting within a circle may be called a tondo in Western tradition, and a mandala in Eastern
tradition. Each of these are likely to employ radial balance.

Examples of works in which this shape is important:

England, Salisbury Plain, Stonehenge, c. 2,500-1,500 BCE, stone,

162 inches high, a Stone Age monumental stone temple / observatory
located 330 feet above sea level on the chalk downland of Salisbury
Plain, about 80 miles
west of London near
the town of Amesbury.
Also see circle,
dolmen, megalith,
menhir, and monolith.

Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) (Italian, 1483-1520), Madonna and Child

(Madonna Conestabile), 1502/3, tempera on canvas (transferred from
panel), 7 x 7 inches (17.5 x 18 cm), State Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg, Russia. See tondo.

 René Jules Lalique (French, 1860-1945), Necklace, c. 1895-1905, gold,

enamel, Australian opal, Siberian amethysts; overall diameter 9 1/2 inches
(24.1 cm); 9 large pendants: 2 3/4 x 2 1/4 inches (7 x 5.7 cm), 9 small pendants:
1 3/8 x 1 1/4 inches (3.5 x 3.2 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. See Art
Nouveau and jewelry.

Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (American, 1867-1959), manufactured by F. Schumacher

and Company, New York, Length of Printed Fabric, 1955, silk, printed, Fortisan (?), 88 x
49 3/4 inches (223.5 x 126.4 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. See architect,
architecture, and textile.

Robert Delaunay (French, 1885-1941), Disks, 1930-33, oil on canvas, 88.3 x

124.5 cm, Museum of Modern Art, NY. See Orphism.
 Sven Wingquist, designer, manufacturer: SKF Industries, Inc., USA, Self-
Aligning Ball Bearing, 1929, chrome-plated steel, 1 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches (4.4 x
21.6 cm) diameter, Museum of Modern Art, NY. MOMA's site says, "Good
design was considered by modernists as essential to the elevation of society, and
in 1934, this ball bearing was among the first works to enter The Museum of
Modern Art's design collection." See design and technology.

Jasper Johns (American, 1930-), Target with Four Faces, 1955,

assemblage: encaustic and collage on canvas with objects, 26 x 26
inches. The circles in the target are "concentric" — meaning they all
have the same point as their center. See Pop Art.

 Coca Cola advertising sign, 20th century,

enamel on steel. See icon and logo.

  Sol LeWitt (American,

1928-), Untitled, 2001,
linoleum cut, 30 x 30 inches,
edition of 100. See
conceptual art and
Minimalism.

Michael Todd (American, 1935-), Daimaru X, 1978, lacquered steel, 137

1/2 x 131 1/4 x 40 inches, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture
Garden, U of Nebraska, Lincoln. "Daimaru" is a Japanese word that
means "big circle."
 Robert Smithson (American, 1938-1973), Broken Circle,
Emmen, Holland, 1971, green water, white and yellow sand
flats, diameter 140 feet, canal approximately 12 feet wide,
depth of the quarry lake 10 to 15 feet. See earth art.

Richard Long (English, 1945-), A Hundred Mile Walk,

1971-2, pencil, map, printed text, photographs and
labels on board, 21.6 x 48.3 cm, Tate Gallery, London.
All of Long's work results from solitary walks he has
undertaken in different parts of the world. This work
documents the circular route he took on a walk made
in December and January of 1971-2, by means of a
map showing his location, a photograph of part of the
landscape passed through and phrases recording his
thoughts and reactions. See earth art and line.

Richard Long (English, 1945-), Small White Pebble Circles, 1987,

marble pebbles, 4.0 x 200.0 x 200.0 cm, Tate Gallery, London. This
is a concentric arrangement on a floor of rocks Long collected
while walking.

Richard Long, South Bank Circle, 1991, delabole slate,

10.0 x 199.7 x 199.7 cm, Tate Gallery, London.

Michele Oka
Doner (American, contemporary), Ice Ring, 1989, cast bronze, 3 / 3, 18 x
120 x 120 inches, Grounds For Sculpture, NJ.

“At the early age of 7, Michele Oka Doner came upon a Venetian grotto
chair in Florida.  This observation taught her "that furniture doesn't have to
be mundane."  Later on in her career, Doner created furniture, works of art
which are tied closely to mythology and celestial surroundings.  Ice Ring
represents the ice rings found around Saturn as captured in photographs by
the space craft Voyager.  In the center is Radiant Disk, incised with radial
marks that attract and channel light.  The difference in surface treatments of
the two works contrast references to the coldness of Saturn’s ice rings with
the bright, warmth of the sun. These pieces are also made to serve as a table
and bench.  Doner believed that making the bench round, as opposed to
straight, would lend to it a more social atmosphere.” 
Quoted from Joy Hakanson Colby, "Sculptor Transforms The
Mundane Into The Mythological," The Detroit News, April 11, 1990.
 Damien Hirst (British, 1965-), Valium, 2000.

oval - An egg-like two-dimensional shape that looks like a circle that has
been stretched to make it longer. The two ends of an oval may or may not
be the same size and shape. Oval can be either a noun or an adjective. A
three-dimensional form with oval shape is an ovoid.
Dexamenos (Greek, Chios), Intaglio of a Flying Heron, 5th century BCE,
chalcedony, gold, 1.7 x 2.2 cm, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg,
Russia. See Greek art.

Dame Barbara Hepworth (English, 1903-1975), Oval Sculpture (No. 2),

1943, cast 1958, plaster, 29.3 x 40.0 x 25.5 cm, Tate Gallery, London.
Because oval refers to a two-dimensional shape, this three-dimensional
form would better be described as ovoid or ovate — shaped like an egg.

polygon - A closed plane figure (shape) bounded by three or more straight-

line segments. A list of names of polygons, and the formulae for finding
their areas when their sides are equilateral :
triangle square pentagon hexagon heptagon octagon nonagon decagon undecagon dodecagon

Other 4-sided polygons are the parallelogram (can be equilateral or non-equilateral),

quadrilateral (sides can be of any lengths), rectangle (non-equilateral), and rhombus
(non-equilateral), trapezium, and trapezoid (non-equilateral).

triangle - A closed two-dimensional polygon bounded by three straight-line segments. The sum
of its interior angles is always 180°. The formula with which to find an equilateral triangle's area
is 0.433 times the length of one side squared. The formula for finding any triangle's area: half of
the longest side multiplied by its height.

An example of a triangle in art:

Ellsworth Kelly (American, 1923-), Yellow Red Curve, 1972, oil on

canvas, 115 x 302 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. See
Minimalism.
square - A closed two-dimensional shape (polygon) bounded by four straight-line
segments of equal length (equilateral) joined at four equal (right) angles. The
formula with which to find its area: the length of one side squared (see below).
The distance between opposite corners is the square root (see below) of the sum
of the square of two sides. A quantity is squared when it is multiplied once by the
same quantity (for example, 4 squared=4x4=16). The square root is the divisor of
a quantity that when squared gives the quantity (for example, the square root of 4
is 2, because 4/2=2, and 2x2=4).

Examples:

In these images, negative spaces have been shaped and placed among positive spaces so that a viewer
can make closure on a square and a cube.

Examples of works in which squares are important elements:

Kasimir Malevich (Russian, 1878-1935), Black Square, [1913] 1923-29, oil on

canvas, 41 3/4 x 41 7/8 inches (106.2 x 106.5 cm), State Russian Museum, St.
Petersburg. See Russian art.

Joseph Albers (German-American, 1888-1976), Homage to the Square:

Soft Resonance, 1962, oil on composition board, 48 x 48 inches (121.92
cm x 121.92 cm), Memorial Art Gallery, U of Rochester, NY.

Joseph Albers, Day and Night VIII (from Homage to the Square), 1963,
lithograph, 18 7/8 x 20 7/16 inches (47.94 x 51.91 cm), Memorial Art
Gallery, U of Rochester, NY.
Joseph Albers, Homage to the Square: On Dry Ground, 1963, oil on
Masonite, 40 1/4 x 30 3/4 inches (102.2 x 78.1 cm), California State
University Library.

Frank Stella (American, 1936-), Hyena Stomp, 1962, oil on canvas,

195.6 x 195.6 cm, Tate Gallery, London. See Minimalism.

amorphous - An anomalous, shapeless form, without crystalline structure. Amorphous

materials have no sharply defined melting point, and surfaces of pieces that break have
undulating surfaces like those of lumps of broken glass or of resin, both of which are examples
of amorphous materials.

Example:

Louise Bourgeois (French-American, 1911-), Quarantania, 1941, seven pine

elements on a wood base, 84 3/4 x 31 1/4 x 29 1/4 inches (215.3 x 79.4 x 74.3
cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. See feminism and feminist art and
sculpture.

biomorphic form - An abstract form whose shapes are more organic than geometric, more
curvaceous than linear. Much of the work of Hans [Jean] Arp (German-French, 1887-1966) was
composed as biomorphic forms.

organic - An irregular shape, or one that might be found in nature, rather than a regular,
mechanical shape.

Other examples:

 Frederick Kiesler (Austrian, 1896-1966), Nesting Coffee Table,

1935-38, cast aluminum, each 9 1/2 x 34 x 25 inches (24.1 x 86.4 x
63.5 cm) and 9 1/2 x 22 x 16 1/4 inches (24 x 55.9 x 41.3 cm),
Museum of Modern Art, NY.

 
 Jean [or Hans] Arp (French, born Germany (Alsace), 1886-1966), Human
Concretion, 1935, plaster, 19 1/2 x 18 3/4 x 25 1/2 inches (49.5 x 47.6 x
64.7 cm), Museum of Modern Art, NY. See Dada.

Leaves and Navels I, Jean (Hans) Arp (French, born Germany

(Alsace). 1886-1966) 1930. Painted wood, 39 3/4 x 31 3/4" (100.9 x
80.6 cm). MOMA - Purchase.

 Isamu Noguchi (American, 1904-1988), Kouros, 1944-45, marble, height 9 feet 9 inches
(297.2 cm); base: 34 1/8 x 42 inches (86.7 x 106.7 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.
This figurative and biomorphic modern sculpture has abstracted the human figure into
fragmented, bonelike elements.

concretion - In the work of Surrealist Jean (or Hans) Arp (French,

1887-1966), sculptural form characterized by twisting and growing effects.

FORM

In its widest sense, total structure; a synthesis of all the visible aspects of that structure
and of the manner in which they are united to create its distinctive character. The form
of a work is what enables us to perceive it.

Form also refers to an element of art that is three-dimensional (height, width, and depth)
and encloses volume. For example, a triangle, which is two-dimensional, is a shape, but
a pyramid, which is three-dimensional, is a form. Cubes, spheres, ovoids, pyramids,
cone, and cylinders are examples of various forms.

Also, all of the elements of a work of art independent of their meaning. Formal elements
are primary features which are not a matter of semantic significance — including color,
dimensions, line, mass, medium, scale, shape, space, texture, value; and the principles
of design under which they are placed — including balance, contrast, dominance,
harmony, movement, proportion, proximity, rhythm, similarity, unity, and variety.
TEXTURE - An element of art, texture is the surface quality or "feel" of an
object, its smoothness, roughness, softness, etc. Textures may be actual or
simulated. Actual textures can be felt with the fingers, while simulated
textures are suggested by an artist in the painting of different areas of a
picture — often in representing drapery, metals, rocks, hair, etc. Words
describing textures include: flat, smooth (third row, right), shiny, glossy,
glittery, velvety, feathery, soft, wet, gooey, furry, sandy, leathery (second
row, right), crackled (upper left), prickly, abrasive, rough (first row, right),
furry, bumpy, corrugated (second row, left), puffy (second row, third), rusty
(third row, second), and slimey (third row, third).
Examples of textures:
Examples of artworks in which textures are particularly important:
 Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528), The
Rhinoceros, drawing and woodcut, 1515, British
Museum, London.

"Dürer produced this drawing and woodcut from reports of

the arrival in Lisbon of an Indian rhinoceros in May of
1515. No rhinoceros had been seen in Europe for over
1000 years, so Dürer had to work solely from these
reports. He covered the creature's legs with scales and
the body with hard, patterned plates. Perhaps these features interpret lost sketches, or even the text,
which states, '[The rhinoceros] has the color of a speckled tortoise and it is covered with thick scales'. So
convincing was Dürer's fanciful creation that for the next 300 years European illustrators borrowed from
his woodcut, even after they had seen living rhinoceroses without plates and scales." See nature and
Northern Renaissance.

Jaune Quick-to-See
Smith. Giving
Thanks, 2000.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Reverence, 2005.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People), 1992.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Which Comes First, 2004.

Biography

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was born at the Indian Mission on

the Flathead Reservation in 1940. She is an enrolled Flathead
Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
of the Flathead Indian Nation, Montana.

She received an Associate of Arts Degree at Olympic College in

Bremerton Washington in 1960. She attended the University of
Washington, received her BA in Art Education at Framingham
State College in 1976 and a masters degree in art at the University
of New Mexico in 1980.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is one of the most acclaimed American

Indian artists today. She has been reviewed in all major art
periodicals. Smith has had over 90 solo exhibits in the past 30
years and has done printmaking projects nationwide. Over that
same time, she has organized and/or curated over 30 Native
exhibitions, lectured at more than 185 universities, museums and
conferences internationally, most recently at 5 universities in
China. Smith has completed several collaborative public art works
such as the floor design in the Great Hall of the new Denver Airport; an in-situ sculpture piece in Yerba Buena Park,
San Francisco and a mile-long sidewalk history trail in West Seattle. She is in the collections of the Museum of
Modern Art, Quito, Ecuador; the Museum of Mankind, Vienna, Austria; The Walker, Minneapolis, MN; Smithsonian
American Art Museum, Washington DC; the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan and
The Whitney Museum, NY. Smith calls herself a cultural art worker. With her Native worldview, Smith's work
addresses today's tribal politics, human rights and environmental issues with humor. Critic Gerrit Henry, (Art in
America 2001) wrote: "For all the primal nature of her origins, Smith adeptly takes on contemporary American
society in her paintings, drawings and prints, looking at things Native and national through bifocals of the old and
the new, the sacred and the profane, the divine and the witty."

Feminist Artist Statement

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith – Statement of a Cultural Arts Worker Artist

I have memory of making things with my hands from mud, leaves, sticks and rocks from very early in my life. I
knew that I entered another world, one that took me out of the violence and fear that dominated my life. First grade
opened a new world with foreign substances such as tempera, crayons and library paste. Once they became familiar
their smell could almost make me swoon.

When I turned 13, I rode to town in the back of a pickup with other farm workers to see a movie about Henri
Toulouse-Lautrec. I so desperately wanted to be an artist, that later I took axle grease from my father’s truck to make
a goatee on my face and made a cardboard palette. I asked a man down the road if he could take my picture. This
was my way of entering the skin of an artist, since I had never seen a woman artist. Toulouse was a little person, so I
knelt on my knees for the picture, thinking that would make me an authentic artist.

After my first year at a community college, the professor told me even though I could draw better than the men
students, that a woman could not be an artist. For the next 20 years I struggled to get a degree in art ed. I attended
college in many places while I raised my two sons alone. My story is similar to other Indian women my age.

In the mid l970’s in Santa Fe, I found that only Native men were able to exhibit in the galleries. I set about
organizing Indian women to move out of the trading posts and into galleries and museums My training as a mother,
helped me with this activism. I organized the Grey Canyon Artists, located and shipped exhibitions, first in New
Mexico and then across the U.S. While working as a full time artist, I have also consistently organized and curated
exhibitions for Native artists for over 30 years. One of my most memorable was the first touring Native women’s
exhibit “Women of Sweetgrass, Cedar and Sage”. After receiving the catalog, one woman wrote me that she laid the
catalog against her cheek and cried, she had no idea there were so many Native women artists out there and she no
longer felt alone.

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/archive/images/
159.1556.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/
gallery/

Various work of Andy Goldsworthy:

 SPACE
An element of art that refers to the distance or area between, around,
above, below, or within things. It can be described as two-dimensional or
three-dimensional; as flat, shallow, or deep; as open or closed; as positive
or negative; and as actual, ambiguous, or illusory.

two-dimensional - Having height and width, but no depth; flat.

three-dimensional - Having, or appearing to have, height, width, and

depth.

Also see chiaroscuro, compass rose, direction, form, illusion, mass,

perspective, sculpture, shadow box, space, statue, two-dimensional, and
wireframe.

Chiaroscuro - A word borrowed from

Italian ("light and shade" or "dark")
referring to the modeling of volume
by depicting light and shade by
contrasting them boldly.

This is one means of strengthening an

illusion of depth on a two-dimensional
surface, and was an important topic
among artists of the Renaissance.
perspective - The technique artists use to project an illusion of the three-dimensional
world onto a two-dimensional surface. Perspective helps to create a sense of depth —
of receding space. Fundamental techniques used to achieve perspective are: controlling
variation between sizes of depicted subjects, overlapping some of them, and placing
those that are on the depicted ground as lower when nearer and higher when deeper. In
addition, there are three major types of perspective: aerial perspective, herringbone
perspective, and linear perspective.

Example:
Giotto di Bondone (Italian, Florentine, 1266/76-1337). This is one of two
views Giotto painted side-by-side using herringbone perspective. These
scenes are interiors of what appear to be sacristries or a choir, in perfect
perspective. The effect is so realistic that we feel we are looking into
actual rooms. Our gaze moves beyond the ogival arch to the cross-vault
of each room, and thence to the Gothic mullioned window. That the two
symmetrical chapels appear to have approximately the same vanishing
point is an astonishing anticipation of the fifteenth-century perspective
system. Though their significance was once ignored, these small scenes
are now recognized as an extremely important phase in the development
of Giotto's conception of pictorial space. See trecento.

AERIAL PERSPECTIVE - The perception of depth in nature can be enhanced by

the appearance of atmospheric haze. Although this haze is most commonly humidity (or
cloudiness), it could be rain or snow, smoke, or any other kind of vapor. Aerial
perspective is the portrayal of that atmospheric haze -- one means to adding to an
illusion of depth in depicting space on a flat surface. It is achieved by using less focus,
along with bluer, lighter, and duller hues for the distant spaces and objects depicted in a
picture. Be careful not to confuse aerial perspective with aerial view.

One of the first artists to use this technique was Masaccio (Italian, 1401?-1428). Aerial
perspective is also referred to as atmospheric perspective.

Examples of pictures in which artists

have used aerial perspective:

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa (La Joconde)

(1479 - d. before 1550), c. 1503-1506, oil on
wood panel, 77 x 53 cm, Louvre. Many artists
have created their own versions of this image.
See landscape, Renaissance, sfumato, and
xenophobia.
  T. Worthington Whittredge (American,
1820-1910), Fight Below the Battlements,
1849, oil on canvas, Kresge Art Museum.
Wittredge was a member of the Hudson River
School of painters. Toward the horizon on the
left side of this painting, we can see
Whittredge's use of aerial perspective.

Look more closely at this (detail of the)

deepest part of Whittredge's picture.

 Compare its depth of color to that seen in the

foreground.

Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1891),

Bathing at Asnières (Une Baignade,
Asnières), 1883-1884 (retouched
1887), 79 x 118 1/2 inches, National
Gallery, London. Also see Neo-
Impressionism

herringbone perspective - A type of perspective in which the lines of

projection converge not on a vanishing point, but on a vertical axis at the
center of the picture, as in Roman painting.
linear perspective - A system of drawing or painting in which the artist
attempts to create the illusion of spatial depth on a two-dimensional
surface. It works by following consistent geometric rules for rendering
objects as they appear to the human eye. For.instance, we see parallel
lines as converging in the distance, although in reality they do not. Stated
another way, the lines of buildings and other objects in a picture are slanted
inward making them appear to extend back into space. If lengthened these
lines will meet at a point along an imaginary horizontal line representing the
eye level. Each such imaginary line is called an orthogonal. The point at
which such lines meet is called a vanishing point.

The invention of linear perspective dates to the early 1400s, with Filippo
Brunelleschi's experiments in perspective painting and Leon Battista
Alberti's treatise on perspective theory.

Irregular applications of linear perspective have resulted in various optical

illusions and anamorphosis.