Art App Chapter 3

• Whether an artist creates two-dimensional or three-dimensional art, works in a traditional medium like painting, or makes art using the latest technology, all artists use the same basic visual building blocks of form (elements) and strategies of visual organization (principles) to achieve visual unity
• Form


  Elements of design
• Content


  Subject matter of an artwork
• Content can play a role in formal analysis, but the content aspect is less important than the "artwork" aspect
• Formal analysis


  A close and analytical way of looking at and discussing a work of art, including describing the work in terms of various design elements and how those elements have been used (the design principles)
• Immediate or obvious content

  The historical scene, landscape, portrait, interior, functional object, or abstraction depicted in the artwork
• Complex content


  What is happening in the work, what meaning you derive from it, and whether it creates a particular mood or reaction
• The formal elements of the work and its title can often help to read the content, as can recurring patterns, motifs or symbols that may have special significance
• Point


  The visual element upon which all others are based, a singularity in space or the area where two coordinates meet
• Line


  Essentially, when you put two or more points together you create a line, which can be static or dynamic depending on how the artist chooses to use them
• Shape


  An enclosed area in two dimensions, which can be created in many ways and animates figure-ground relationships
• Space


  The empty area surrounding real or implied objects, including outer space, inner space, personal space, and pictorial space
• Color


  The most complex artistic element, with primary, secondary, and tertiary colors organized on a color wheel

  
• Traditional color theory is a qualitative attempt to organize colors and their relationships, based on Newton's color wheel

  
• Primary colors


  • Red
  • Blue
  • Yellow
• Secondary colors


  • Orange
  • Green
  • Purple
• Color theory


  The study of color in art and design
• Categories of color


  • Primary
  • Secondary
  • Tertiary
• Color wheel


  A basic tool used in color theory, developed by Isaac Newton in 1666

  
• Color tree


  A more complex model showing the spectrum made up of sets of tints and shades on connected planes, created by Albert Munsell

  
• Traditional color theory


  A qualitative attempt to organize colors and their relationships, based on Newton's color wheel

  
• Primary colors


  • Red
  • Blue
  • Yellow
• Secondary colors


  • Orange
  • Green
  • Violet
• Tertiary colors


  • Red-orange
  • Yellow-green
  • Blue-violet
• Neutral colors


  Browns and grays, mixed using the three primary colors together
• Tint


  A lighter color made by adding white to it
• Shade


  A darker color made by adding black to it
• Color attributes


  • Hue
  • Value
  • Tone
  • Saturation
• Hue


  Color itself, and variations of a color

  
• Value


  The relative lightness or darkness of one color next to another
• Tone


  The gradation or subtle changes made to a color when it's mixed with a gray created by adding two complements
• Saturation


  The purity and intensity of a color
• Equiluminance


  Two colors working strongest together when they share the same intensity
• Perspective


  The effect of distance upon the appearance of objects by means of which the eye judges spatial relationships
• Linear perspective


  An implied geometric pictorial construct dating from fifteenth-century Europe, affording the accurate illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface
• One-point perspective


  The receding lines appear to converge at a single point on the horizon, used when the flat front of an object is facing the viewer
• One-point perspective artwork


  • The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci
• Two-point perspective


  The vertical edge of a cube is facing the viewer, exposing two sides that recede into the distance, one to each vanishing point
• Two-point perspective artwork


  • Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte
• Three-point perspective


  The projection lines recede to two points on the horizon and a third either far above or below the horizon line