Mrs. Fieldhouse
DESCRIPTION (FORM): What does the work look like and why? What advantages does using a particular medium provide?
FUNCTION: What is a work's use or purpose?
CONTENT: What is "inside" the artwork? What subject or narrative do you see? What symbolic elements exist(s) within the work?
CONTEXT: What do you need to know "outside" the artwork that will help you to interpret what you see? This doesn't include only information about religion and history but also information about an original setting or location.
--------------explained------------
Form
Form describes component materials and how they are employed to create physical
and visual elements that coalesce into a work of art. Form is investigated by applying design
elements and principles to analyze the work’s fundamental visual components and their
relationship to the work in its entirety
Analyzing Form - In addressing form first, an analysis of the work of art would involve thinking
about the materials and techniques used to make a work of art, as well as the visual/physical
elements that are created in the work
Questions:
• What materials were used to create the work?
• What techniques were used to create the work?
• Line: Horizontal, vertical, diagonal, or curved lines
• Shape: Height, width, geometric, organic
• Space: positive, negative, or three-dimensional
• Color: hue, value (dark or light), or intensity (dull, bright, warm, or cool)
• Texture: two-dimensional or surface texture
Function
Function includes the artist’s intended use(s) of the work, which may change according to the
context of the audience, time, location, and culture. Function may be for utility, intercession,
decoration, communication, and commemoration and may be spiritual, social, political,
and/or personally expressive.
Analyzing Function - An exploration of function focuses on the artist’s purpose for the work.
Questions:
• Why did the artist create the work?
• Religious worship?
• Entertain or please the eye?
• Propagandistic purposes?
• Address a social issue?
• Commemorate an event or famous person?
• Expression of wealth or status?
• Savor a memory?
• Document a place and time?
• Promote artistic theory or philosophical idea?
• To tell a story?
• To express some human emotion or to establish a personal or cultural identity?
• To impress others with technical skill?
• As a gift to a god or another person?
• As a form of scientific study?
• For private enjoyment?
• For practical purposes only (to provide shelter, hunt, document)?
• For whom was the work created?
• Was there a patron? Who was it?
• Why did the patron commission the work?
• Was the patron upper or middle class?
• Was the patron religious or secular?
• How involved was the patron involved in the artistic decision-making process?
• Was it created for the mass market?
• Did the artist create it for himself or herself?
• Where did the artist originally intend to place the work?
• In a church or place of religious worship?
• In a private home or public space?
• In a dramatic outdoor setting or an interior space?
• From a particular viewpoint?
• With a particular kind of lighting?
• As a compliment to another nearby work of art (such as a building or a sculpture)?
• To compete with another nearby work of art?
• In a competitive exhibition?
• In a portable object?
Content
Content consists of interacting, communicative elements of design, representation, and
presentation within a work of art. Content includes subject matter: visible imagery that may be
formal depictions, representative depictions, and/or symbolic, spiritual, historical, mythological,
supernatural, and/or propagandistic.
Analyzing content - Analyzing content in a work of art involves focusing on the subject matter,
iconography, and narration.
Questions:
• What does the work depict?
• Who does the artist depict in the work?
• What do the figures and objects in the work represent or symbolize?
• What event or series of events does the artist present to the viewer?
• Is the event spiritual, historical, mythological, supernatural, or propagandistic? If so, how?
Context
Context includes original and subsequent historical and cultural milieu of a work of art. Context
includes information the place, time, and culture in which a work of art was created, as well as
information about when, where, and how subsequent audiences interacted with the work. The
artist’s intended purpose for the work of art is contextual information, as is the chosen site for the
work, (which may be public or private), as well as subsequent locations of the work. Modes of
display of works of art can include associated paraphernalia (e.g. ceremonial objects and
attire) and multisensory stimuli (e.g. scent and sound). Characteristics of the artist and
audience—including aesthetic, intellectual, religious, political, social, and economic
characteristics—are context. Patronage, ownership of a work of art, and other power
relationships are also aspects of context. Contextual information includes audience response to
a work of art. Contextual information may be provided through recorded, reports, religious
chronicles, personal reflections, manifestos, academic publications, mass media, sociological
data, cultural studies, geographic data, artifacts, narrative and/or performance (e.g. oral,
written, poetry, music, dance, dramatic productions), documentation, archaeology, and
research.
Analyzing Context - Analyzing context involves thinking about the original and subsequent
historical and cultural milieu of a work of art.
Questions:
• Artist
• Who created the work?
• What is/was known about the artist’s status in the culture?
• What else is known about this artist?
• Culture
• When was the work created?
• Where was it produced?
• How does the work reflect the following cultural aspects of a particular time and place?
Religious beliefs?
Political ideologies?
Philosophical ideologies?
Attitudes towards social class and gender?
A culture’s concept of aesthetic beauty/power and authority/morality/changing tastes/normality/nature and humankind’s relationship to it?
A cultural view of history and tradition?
Cross cultural influence?
Status of artist or architect?
Impact of subcultures within a larger mainstream?
Impact of new scientific discoveries or inventions?
Lifestyle and milieu of the artist or architect?
• Impact
• What impact did the work have on the history of art?
Inspire or influence other artists?
Seen by a large number of people?
Cause controversy or raise complex questions?
Alter visual perception in some way?
Popularize a particular medium or technique?
Provide a sense of cultural or national identity?
Make a particular person famous or infamous?
Popularize a particular ideology?
Alter fashion and taste?
Alter the way artists were trained?
Dramatically rise in value or alter the art market?
• Function
• Intent
Why did the artist create the work?
• Audience
For whom was the work created?
Additionally, how did the audience respond to the work?
• Setting and modes of display
Where did the artist originally intend to place the work?
What additional features were used when displaying the work?