The document provides guidance for young art students on how to analyze and describe art works using key elements and principles of design. It encourages looking at line, color, shape, space, and texture to describe what is visually seen. It also advises considering principles such as balance, repetition, contrast, emphasis and unity to understand how the entire composition is arranged. The document uses Van Gogh's Starry Night as an example, describing how the elements and principles are demonstrated in the painting through the swirling sky, rolling hills, and placement of the large tree shape. Students are reminded to also discuss how the work makes them feel and to research the artist when analyzing a piece.

1. ANALYZING ART WORK
MADE EASY!
D e s i g n e d F o r
Young Art
Students

2. Help
me!!
We each have different
responses to works of art.
Sometimes the feelings are
very positive and sometimes it
can be very negative, while at
other times it can seem
completely blah!
When your teacher asks you to
“analyse” an artistic piece, it
can be very overwhelming! It is
probably because the style
seems so peculiar, too simple
or so very complex!
Luckily we can make the
process so much easier if we
look at art by looking for The
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
was a Russian Artist. He was
known as an expressionist
(expressionism is a movement of
art associated with exciting
colour use and abstract forms)
and the Der Blaue Reiter (The
Blue Rider) group from Germany.
This group painted themes that
Wassily Kadinsky
“Composition IV
1911
Oil on Canvas
Kunstsammiung
Nordrhein-Westfallen
Dusseldorf
How do YOU feel about this piece?

3. GETTINGSTARTED
The Credit Line
The information about you is what makes you different from anybody else:
Your name, the day that you were born, where you were born and where you
live. Then there are other bits of information that you consider “vital
statistics”, like your height and weight!
Pieces of art work also have vital statistics. They appear in this order
beneath the art work:
1. Name of the artist.
2. Title of the work. This often appears in italics.
3. Year the work was created.
4. Medium used by the artist. This is the materials used by the artist to create the
piece. E.g. Oil Paint
5. Size of the work. The first number is always the height, the second number is the
width, and if the work is three-dimensional, the third number indicates the depth.
6. Location of the work. The location is where you can find the art: a gallery, museum,
a private collection as well as which city and country.

4. 1. Name of the artist: Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-1519)
2. Title of the work. This often appears in italics: La Gioconda (popularly known as The
Mona Lisa)
3. Year the work was created: 1503-1519
4. Medium used by the artist. These are the materials used by the artist to create the
piece: Oil paint on poplar panel
5. Size of the work. The first number is always the height, the second number is the width,
and if the work is three-dimensional, the third number indicates the depth: 77 cm × 53 cm
(30 in × 21 in)
6. Location of the work. The location is where you can find the art as in a gallery, museum, a
private collection as well as which city and country: Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
Leonardo da Vinci; La Giconda (The Mona Lisa); 1503-1519; Oil on Panel; 30”x21”; The Louvre
Museum, Paris, France
 “ser Piero” means “son of Piero”? Piero was the name of Leonardo’s Father.
 “da Vinci” translates as “of Vinci” meaning that is where Leonardo was born.
 Historians do not know exactly when Da Vinci worked on this painting. They do believe it
was completed within a16 year span. They do agree that it was completed in Florence.
 The identity of the sitter of the painting was thought to be Lisa del Giocondo, wife to a
Florentine merchant Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo.
The Credit Line cont’d. Here’s an
example:
Leonardo da Vinci

5. DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS: What are we really
seeing?Spend about a minute really looking at the piece. Is it representational or non-representational? In
other words is it easy to see recognizable objects and people or is it so abstract that you can’t see
much of anything?
Representational piece by Piet
Mondrian
Non-Representational piece by Piet
MondrianPiet Mondrian; Gray Tree; 1911; Oil on board; 78.5 × 107.5 cm;
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague
Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, gray, and Blue; 1921; Oil on
Canvas; 59.5 x 59.5 cm; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

6. DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS: What are we really seeing? Cont’d
Vincent van Gogh; Starry Night; 1889; Oil on Canvas; 29 in
× 36 1⁄4 in;
Musuem of Modern Art, New York City, USA
What is your overall
impression?
This oil painting by Vincent van Gogh is a
landscape set at night.
What objects do you see and
where?
In the foreground there is a (cyrpus) tree towards
the left. In the middle ground, to the right, is
what appears to be a town set in front of some
rolling hills. In the background is a sky of stars
and a moon.
MORE information please!
To add more to the description you’ll need to use
The Elements of Art. Read on!
Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890)was born in Holland. He was a Methodist teacher and preacher
before turning
to painting in his 30’s. He worked alongside famous artists like Henri de Toulouse Lautrec and Camille
Pissarro. He was a roommate of the Expressionist Paul Gauguin. Vincent was plagued by depression. Not
only did he cut off part of his ear, but he committed suicide by a gun shot to the chest in 1890. Though
Vincent van Gogh

7. WHAT’S NEXT?
Art critics use the Elements of Art and Design to understand and describe art work, whether it is
two-dimensional or three-dimensional pieces of work. The good news is that you can use them
too!
Lines are marks made on art surfaces which can be thin or
thick, zigzagged, straight, curved, irregular, patterned,
standing alone or overlapping.Colour is a reflected light phenomenon. They are used to
create drama and depth. The theory of colour says that the
Primary create all of the other colours that we see in all of the
works of art across the world.
Shapes can be found in geometric forms like squares, circles
or triangles. There are also irregular shapes also called
biomorphic like leaves, flowers and clouds.
Space determines how near or far objects are in an art work,
but it is also the spaces around the objects.
Texture is how things look and/or feel. Artists use fine or
large tools to make different textures that sometimes appear
as patterns. Dots, lines and a variety of marks are used to
create the feeling of texture.
Different sources list what the Elements of Art and Design are. Most agree that there are up to ten. Here we
will consider these five:
The Elements of Art and Design

8. Using the Elements of Art and Design to Describe Art Work.
Where are the Elements of Art and how do
they look?
There are many lines evident in Van Gogh’s Starry
Night. In the tree there are wavy lines. These
lines are multi-coloured in burgundy, forest
green and dark blues. The shape of the tree is
like flames of fire. The tree is such a large shape
that it creates a huge space between the
foreground and the middle ground.
The village has many geometric shapes showing
the planes of the buildings. The triangular
steeple shape, on what appears to be a church,
stands out near the centre of the piece. The
colours of the buildings are mostly cool colours
of sky blue, lilacs and warm colours like mauve
and golden yellow.The lines in the hills emphasize how rolling they are. There are gradients of blues and purples with
streaks of yellows, reflecting the moon light.
The sky is full of whirling lines that seem to represent wind. They are thick, thin, hatched and
repetitive. The ones that are around the stars and moon seem to suggest the shimmering of the lights
in the sky. He uses many blues like cerulean, aquamarine and sky. The yellows are pale, lemon and

9. Contrasting Colours Contrasting direction
WHAT THEN?
The Principles of Art and Design
BALANCE
Balance in art doesn’t mean that a composition is symmetrical. As a matter of fact, ideal balance
is when things are asymmetrical. For example a large object near to the centre in the foreground
will need a smaller object in the middle or background. When looking at a painting, you are
looking for where objects are placed in the piece. Off balanced paintings can make the viewer
uncomfortable.
REPETITION
We look for shapes that appear more than once. Trees are a good example of that. Check to see if
all the trees are identical in shape and size. Variations, even as they are repeating keeps the
composition interesting.
CONTRAST
Contrast can be spotted in a number of ways:
Colours like red and green, orange and blue as well as yellow and purple contrast when placed
side by side because they are complementary (opposite each other on the colour wheel). Objects
can point in opposite directions. The lightness or darkness (value) of objects can point to
contrast

  
The Principles of Art are what helps us to understand the entire composition of the painting. They are:

10. HARMONY
Harmony in painting is the use of colours and shapes
that are pleasing because they relate well with each
other.
RHYTHM AND MOVEMENT
Rhythm and movement is where there is a use of
objects (sometimes repeatedly) to help the viewers’
eyes move around or through a composition. Patterns
create rhythm and movement also.
EMPHASIS
Emphasis is how objects appear more dominant by
making them much larger than other objects in the
composition. This is also accomplished by having one
object coloured or textured differently, being lighter or
darker. Where an object is placed can also create
emphasis.
PROPORTION/SCALE
How the whole painting is divided proportionally, can
make it clear as to what is supposed to be the centre
of attention. This holds true for individual objects as
The Principles of Art and Design
Cont’d Using the analogous
colours for harmony.
Degas uses the well
placed dancers to lead
our eyes towards the
back of the dance studio.
The fish stands
out because of its
colour, direction
and shape.
Homer was a master
at painting skies.
Though the sky
proportionally
dominates this
painting, the
children are more
important. It is
because of the

11. The Principles of Art and Design
Cont’d
UNITY
How all of the other Principles and the Elements of Art and Design come together to
appear united or not.
Above, Alison Chapman-Andrews uses all of the Elements and Principles of Art to create a piece
that possesses unity. Can you identify some if not all of the ones discussed in the previous slides?
Alison Chapman-Andrews; Verandah Pandanus; Acrylic on Canvas; 8x10in. ; The Gallery of Caribbean Art, Speightstown, Barbados

12. Using the Principles of Art and Design to Describe Art
Work.Van Gogh has repeated shapes in the fire
shaped Cyprus tree on the left and the
triangular steeple of the church. The church
was an important part of Van Gogh’s life.
They both point skyward which could mean
that he wants the viewer to feel connected to
heaven.
Though the tree is large, the colours of the
tree are more somber and so it is not the
most dominant feature. Balance is created
by the hill on the right being the same
colour. Their dark colours could be related
to Van Gogh’s obsession with death.
The sky has repeated circular forms. They
are surrounded with rhythmic lines that
seem to be moving
towards the right of the painting. This appears to be an attempt to draw the viewer’s eyes towards
the moon which eclipses all other shapes in the sky with its size. There is also contrast in the sky as
the warm and cool colours interplay with each other. There is a feeling that the sky represents the
inner turmoil of the artist.
Van Gogh emphasizes the importance of the sky by making the sky proportionately larger than any
other part of the painting. The village is made less significant by having less contrast, rhythm and

13. HOW DO I FINISH UP?
Talk about how the painting makes you feel. Really
look at the piece and express yourself honestly
about it. Even if it doesn’t make you feel anything
you should state it and explain why.
Sometimes knowing something about the artist
helps to understand their work better. So read as
much as you can about the artist. Have fun!