Analytical Artist Review

1. Where to access this PowerPoint
Presentation
• http://www.slideshare.net/jemaniedixon/anal
ytical-artist-review-presentation1
• Moodle

2. Learning Aims
1. The aim of this lesson is to share opinions and knowledge with other
group members with a common purpose, task or goal to work to work
towards a deeper level of understanding each individuals chosen artists.
2. The aim is to share good practice through paired work to analyse each
students selected artists in regards to composition, subject matter,
content, mediums, techniques, texture, and colour in order to create a
deeper level of understanding how to analyse art work.
3. The aim also is to share good practice and build confidence when using
interpersonal skills.
4. The aim of the pairing strategy is to differentiate instruction by providing
students time and structure for thinking on a given topic, enabling them
to formulate individual ideas and share these ideas with a peer.
5. The aim of the session is to gain skills and knowledge in order to be able
to annotate about their chosen artists.

3. Learning Outcomes
1. Define the lesson aims and outcomes
2. Identifying key words to use in annotation of
artists
3. Define the words composition, balance, content,
mediums, techniques, texture, and colour in
regards to art work
4. Analyse art work using words such as
composition, balance, content, context,
mediums, techniques, texture, and colour
5. Share opinions and thoughts with the group.
6. Reflect on notes taken to begin annotated draft
of own artist

4. Write down your peers ideas and answers throughout this lesson.
Listen for key words in the video to consider when
analysing art work
It is important to take notes

5. Analysing Artwork

6. What key words were mentioned in the video?

7. Composition – symmetry/ balance:
composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art
Subject Matter:
Is the literal, visible image in a work the subject of the artwork, e.g., still life, portrait, landscape etc.
Content:
Is the communication of ideas, feelings and reactions connected with the subject.
The emotional or intellectual message of an artwork.
The expression, essential meaning, significance, or aesthetic value of a work of art.
Mediums
Charcoal, Ink, paint, paper, canvas, pencil, marker, chalk, graphite, pastel, stencil, wax, fabric,
varnish, crayon, spray painting
Techniques
Painting, lino, dry cuts, mono printing, dripping, dragging, texture, layering, smudging, drawing,
spray painting, hatching, stippling, collage, light, shade, stamping,
Colour
Used to create emotions. To create harmony or contrast. To set a visual path. To produce rhythm
or to create emphasis on one or more particular areas.

8. David Hockney ‘My Parents’
Composition:
Subject Matter:
Content:
Mediums:
Techniques:
Colour:

9. David Hockney ‘My Parents’
• Using the square format it is this that dominates the composition that revolves
around the centrally placed square green cabinet. With the parents being the
subject matter equally placed and balanced within the pictures frame
• Its content is the emotional power that lies in its confession of love. Hockney's
parents are separated by the books and the vase of yellow and pink tulips, and
adopt different relationships with the painter, their son. His mother looks at him
directly, adopting a suitable pose, as if having her photograph taken. His father
seems to have no sense of occasion, ignoring the artist as he reads a book.
• It’s content takes his parents from the 20th century and painting in the style of
Neo-classical artists from the 18th century there is a juxtaposition of ages and
things close to the artist emotionally
• The medium he uses is oil on canvas where the brush strokes are minimally
observed.
• His technique of create a quiet and calming atmosphere is observed through the
use of a steady light that pours in from the left, giving his mother a stellar
brightness. (Stellar is the brightness and magnitude of light)
• His use of colour on his mothers blue dress has a silvery sheen where the lighter
blue tone in the background pushes his mother further towards us. His father's
brown suit and position in the picture take him further from the light yet the use
of the brown colour still makes him a dominant figure in the painting.

10. What does Juxtaposition mean?
Placing things side by side especially when using contrasting
elements
In art this usually is done with the intention of bringing out a specific quality or creating an effect,
particularly when two contrasting or opposing elements are used. The viewer's attention is drawn
to the similarities or differences between the elements.
Visual Examples
• The use of agressive mark-making in contrast to an area of very controlled shading
• Light and dark, organic and man-made,
Abstract Examples
• Weakness’s and strength, love & hate, belief and denial.
Meret Oppenheim 1936
'Luncheon in Fur‘
The perplexing juxtaposition of fur
and teacup unsettles the viewer,
as we question form and function.

11. Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio: Supper at Emmaus
Date of Birth: 29 Sep 1571 (Italy)
Focus: Paintings
Art Movement: Baroque
Composition:
Subject Matter:
Content:
Mediums:
Techniques:
Colour:

12. Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio: Supper at Emmaus
• Caravaggio emphasised co-extensive space which can be observed as he extends the action of his
composition beyond the picture plane and into the viewer's space. In the Supper at Emmaus, the
viewer is almost like a fifth actor in the scene; the arms of the apostle on the right stretches into
our space, while the teetering basket of fruit could almost fall to the viewer's feet.
• The subject matter is portraits whilst also adding still life into the frame and it’s content is
religious. Two of Jesus' disciples were walking to Emmaus after the Crucifixion when the
resurrected Jesus himself went with them, but they did not recognise him. At supper that
evening in Emmaus '... he took bread, and blessed it, and gave to them and their eyes were
opened, and they knew him Christ is shown at the moment of blessing the bread and revealing
his true identity to the two disciples.
• His use of oil on canvas as the medium and textured brush strokes add to the intensity and
weight of the painting.
• Caravaggio's technique of painting is easily recognizable for its realism, intense chiaroscuro and
the artist's emphasis on co-extensive space. The juxtasposition of using Chiaroscuro (kee-ar-uh-
SKYOOR-o) is observed in the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold
contrasts affecting the whole composition.
• Italian Baroque art uses a palette of colour that is rich and dark and there is a juxtaposition of
colours to enhance the appearance of saturation and brightness. His use of artificial and
theatrical light lent a heightened sense of drama to the scenes and characters depicted, charging
his paintings with an intense emotion

13. Georgia O'Keeffe : Red Canna
Date of Birth: 15th November 1887 (America)
Focus: Painting
Art Movement: American Modernism
Composition:
Subject Matter:
Content:
Mediums:
Techniques:
Colour:

14. Georgia O'Keeffe : Red Canna
• O'Keeffe was intrigued by the aesthetics of photography and adopted the
compositional device of isolating certain details and magnifying close-up
angles, an approach she applied to her abstracted, expressive paintings.
• O’ Keeffe said of her work that the 'The subject matter of a painting should
never obscure its form and colour, which are its real thematic contents “. She
was very much drawn to natural and still life forms as her subject matter and
the content was mainly in abstracting aspects of flowers where she would
vastly enlarge the fragments.
• The content explores the elements of colour, shape and texture of the objects
she paints. She was preoccupied with simple forms in her flower paintings.
• O’Keeffe used oil on canvas as her medium and the restrained brushwork is
typical of O'Keeffe's technique in handling of oils, creating peculiarly smoothed
shapes and the juxtaposition in her grading from intense tones to pearly
whites.
• The texture of the painting would be flat brush strokes not thickly laid on and
as the shapes swell and taper across the plane, they pulse with colour and
energy, suggesting the artist's continuing fascination with themes of natural
vitality. Colour is often bold and frequently carefully modulated but tends to
come across as somewhat 'flat'.

15. Jim Dine: Tools & Dreams
Date of Birth: 16th June 1935 (America)
Focus: sculpture, painting, printmaking & assemblage
Art Movement: Abstract Expressionism.
Composition:
Subject Matter:
Content:
Mediums:
Techniques:
Colour:

16. Jim Dine: Tools & Dreams
• Dine demonstrates his ability to transform Pop Art’s interest in common objects
into an expressive composition.
• The subject matter is everyday objects or 'autobiography through objects‘.
• The content of Dine’s images of tools are autobiographical symbols which
symbolize aspects of his life. The tools represent Dine’s childhood memories of the
hardware store owned by his family in Cincinnati. The hearts represent his wife.
• The mediums he uses are etching & dry point on paper.
• Dry point as his technique is produced by scratching directly onto a metal plate
and is as close to using a pencil as possible and which when inked, results in a line
or area of tone.
• Etching as a technique is where a needle is used to draw on a metal plate through
a wax ground. The plate is then submerged in an acid bath that bites into the
surface of the metal where it is unprotected by the wax, or “ground.”
• The explosive, splashy marks are sometimes achieved by “spitbite” a technique in
which strong acid is applied directly to the printing plate.
• The juxtaposition of softly drawn, solid-looking hearts are surrounded with a
volcanic eruption of marks, which contrast strongly with the carefully drawn tools.
• The texture is flat however an aesthetic texture is created through lines, tones and
splatters.
• He uses black and white as colour with bold grades to lighter tones creating
depth.

17. Peter Doig: The Architect's Home in the Ravine
Date of Birth: 17th April 1959 (Scottish)
Focus: Painting
Art Movement: Magical Realism
Composition:
Subject Matter:
Content:
Mediums:
Techniques:
Colour:

18. Peter Doig: The Architect's Home in the Ravine
• Peter Doig’s painting reinvents the way a picture is meant to be looked at. With all
the richness of the distant woods and the stunning architecture to look at, it’s the
twigs which create the composition.
• The twigs create a rhythm and pattern that is soothing to the eye.
• The subject matter is landscapes and the content is of magical realism capturing
timeless moments of the artists childhood memories of a snowy Canadian
landscape.
• Photography and film are important sources drawing freely on them and
recognizing the suggestive narrative power and subdued tension of a well-chosen
film still or photo.
• He uses oil on canvas as his medium with expressive thick brushstrokes and an
abstract painterly technique to create a magical interpretation of a landscape .
Using techniques such as glazing and harsh brush strokes (combined with his
gestural and abstract style), Doig produces diverse impression within his scenes.
• The colours reflect his preoccupation with weather and the shaping force behind
all the forms and colours of nature. The colours represent a change from one
season to another.

19. Raul Lazaro: Untitled
Date of Birth: 29th February 1980 (Spanish)
Focus: Collage
Art Movement: Abstract
Composition:
Subject Matter:
Content:
Mediums:
Techniques:
Colour:

20. Raul Lazaro
• His use of the road leads the composition of the collage and our eye
however the sign “Road Ahead Closed” suggests that the road actually
leads us nowhere.
• The content appears to be a collection of the artist memories, fractions of
time, rests of bitter situations and expresses them through collage, joining
pieces as if they were ingredients of a bigger story or impression.
• He cuts and pastes thoughts that teleport us anywhere we want, to the no
ground, to the surreal, to the unknown world from above.
• The artist combines photographs with newspaper clippings, photocopies
and paperboard and other mediums to create his collages.
• Using collage and photomontage he uses abstract techniques and
juxtaposition of manmade places and buildings contrasted with people
and animals to create a magical interpretation of a landscape.
• The texture is flat however the layering of different mediums creates a 2D
effect and the use of the texture in the images deceives the eye.
• The use of stark contrasting black and white bold grades to lighter tones
create a sense of depth.

21. Composition:
Subject Matter:
Content:
Mediums:
Techniques:
Colour:
Roy Litchenstein: Interior with Waterlilies
Date of Birth: 27th October 1923 (America)
Focus: Painting
Art Movement: Pop Art

22. Roy Litchenstein: Interior with Waterlilies
• The composition is square, balanced and the bed seems dominant to the
eye and the subject matter is still life’s using domestic interiors.
• The content refers to the art movement Pop Art whereby incorporating
imagery appropriated from popular culture and features of design into
their work, they attempted to introduce aspects of life into art.
• The medium is oil and acrylic paint on canvas where the artists uses
drawing, tracing, painting, emphasising brushstroke, line and Benday dot
techniques.
• Benday dots is named after inventor Benjamin Day's 1879 technique for
reproducing printed images by using dots to recreate gradations of
shading used in the comic book printing process. The dots and stripes
create tonal shading.
• The juxtaposition of mechanical process’s and hand made paintings, the
artists own produced paintings and reproduced paintings suggest
contrasting elements.
• The texture of the painting appears flat, unreal and illustrational however
his use of paper stencils, used to mask off areas of the canvas to be left
blank, is evident in the sharp raised edges of the painted shapes.
• There is a sense of detachment to the painting; the bedroom furniture
represented here is generic which is emphasised through the use of bland
pastel colours.