Category: 9:30 AM Class

Unit 1: Art History Summary

      Throughout this unit we learned about what is the meaning of art, formal analysis, banking model, power and pedagogy. Why art is important? What is our ideas and opinion when we are talking about art? How did art influence in society? In my perspective, I think art is a way for people to express their emotional feelings. You may feel a connection with, being creative and having great imagination. Now, a formal analysis is when you look and describe a piece of an artwork. Trying to look into every detail that would help us analyze of a work of art. Therefore, we use the elements to describe the artwork. The color, line, space, mass, and scale are all made up the elements called the composition. The color is the first step where people take to look and identify the most because this is where it stands out. For example: if a painting that has all the ugly color it would definitely not going to look nice. We can also determine as a primary and secondary colors. Now, if it was all the bright pretty color, it obviously would look nice.

   The banking model is when we connected the ideas to pedagogy and power. The banking models help us establish about how the students limits the rights of being collaboratively and working together. Paulo Freire, who was a famous Brazilian educator who supports the idea of Pedagogy. He explained the wrong method of how the students are leaning. The banking model is describing as a negative way student being educated every day and has received many criticisms. Future more, he also talks about when the teachers directly fill the minds of the students with information and the students accept it without any questioning.

     Therefore, the students have no freedom in learning and do not gain any knowledge. Students usually memorize the information before taking an exam, but have not fully understood the concept of learning it. This is what we called a critical pedagogy which is idea that students and teachers are able to balance between the works among themselves. I do agree with this idea because it’s not fair to the students not able to socialize and without asking questions. This is not a way for the students to fully learn and understand the concept.

Unit : 1 Art History Summary

In this unit, we learned about topics such as banking model, power and pedagogy and formal analysis. We learned about the banking model and connected to pedagogy and power. The banking model is a concept introduced by Paulo Freire, who supports the idea that education should be a more collaboratively where students and teachers work together, instead of the teacher giving lectures and students just recording it. This empowers the teachers, provide them with authority, and disempower students as it limits them from challenging themselves, asking questions, and think creatively.  In this unit, we focused mainly on formal analysis, which is a way to understand an artwork by examining its use of artistic techniques and characteristics to define its meaning. We also looked at some artwork such as “Venus of Urbino” which we analyzed using the components on formal analysis. While examining this art, we looked at the elements such as the line, value (light and dark in a design), shapes, composition, scale, forms, space and mass, color, and texture. We also looked at other artworks including Manet, Olympia, and Yasumasa Morimura, portrait (futago) and compared them using formal analysis method.

 

Art History Summary Unit 1

During this unit we learned about formal analysis, banking model, power and pedagogy. During this unit formal analysis was majority of what this unit emphasized on.  Formal Analysis is when you visually describe the element in a work of art. When writing a formal analysis for a piece of work it is best to decipher the piece of art. Having background information such as the time of place the piece was made in can a give a historical insight. While analyzing the painting try to ask yourself who is the center of the piece? Is the artist trying to focus on one person/object or is it a bunch of things that the artist wants you to focus on? This is called the CENTRAL FOCUS. Although you may not have answers asking a bunch of questions that will help you understand the piece of art and will help your imagination run wild. Evaluate the art work. What is this art work? While analyzing the work of art always keep in mind to SHOW not tell. Show the class where exactly are there soft lines or where in the art there are structured lines. By doing this your formal analysis will consist of depth.We learned throughout the unit in order to understand truly what’s occurring in the piece of work we first have to find out what is the central focus of the art work. Once that is figured out we then look at formal properties. Formal properties consist of contrast, size/scale, composition (is it chalk work? oil painting? water colors?) position, material, and illusionism (how “realistic” (mimesis) does an art work look, line, and color). The second part of a formal analysis is finding the answers to the questions you have asked earlier. Where does this take place? Who was the painting made for? Was it a commissioned painting?  What is the message of the painting? Answering and including all of this in your formal analysis will help you understand the elements of the art work and how the art work came to be. Understanding formal analysis helped us analyze the art piece  “Venus of Urbino.” The Venus of Urbino is an oil painting by the Italian painter Titian this piece consisted of saturated tones.  In class we discussed how the female’s body had soft lines and how the dog and the female’s body consisted of the same tones.  While in the background of the painting there are straight columns, which contrasts with the soft lines. When we continued to the next topic in the unit we learned that the banking model is the form of teaching where teachers have minimal communication with students when teaching a lesson.  Instead of communicating, teachers would often lecture and “deposit” information into the student’s head. This would happen through memorizing, repeating, and reciting.  Freire explained that this method of teaching is flawed because students are not taught how to process information which, leads them to not fully understand what they are learning. This empowers the teacher and disempowers the student.  Each student learns in a different and unique way which The Banking Model eradicates. Students who are not able to process what the teacher taught using The Banking Model were often lost and left behind in the education system because of the authority the teacher held over the student. To me this personally is the worst type of teaching. Being a visual learner it is very hard to grasp information when its all in a lecture form.

 

Formal Analysis

Formal Analysis is interpreting what the artist is trying to say visually  through the color, scale, lines, space and mass. It’s an explanation of visual structure, in which certain visual elements have been arranged and the function within a composition.

 Color has three main characteristics. The hue colors such as red, green, blue, etc. The value, in terms of  how light or dark it is.  And the intensity, how bright or dull it is. Colors can be described as warm colors which are red, yellow or cool (blue, gray), depending on which end of the color spectrum they fall.

Shape and form define objects in space. Shapes have two dimensions, height and width are usually defined by lines. Forms exist in three dimensions, with height, width, and depth. The scale of the piece can also be important as the size of the piece can emphasize or deemphasize certain elements in the piece. These elements of art are components or parts of a work of art that can be isolated and defined. They are the building blocks used to create and analysis a work of art.

Art History Summary Unit 1

During this unit there was a lot of emphasis on formal analysis. Formal analysis asks to look at the painting for physical elements like line, color, composition, and size as well as understand the historical contexts behind its origin. Once both aspects of the painting is considered the the art can be better understood to a viewer. As a class we looked at the painting “Venus of Urbino”, and we were able to analyze the picture through careful observations and discussion. We also went into thinking about pedagogy and power in relation to the banking model of teaching. It was really a great way for us to open our feelings of traditional pedagogy and how we can innovate it. I think understanding formal analysis will be the foundation of this class, and it will be a concept carried throughout the course. It is also important that we had the opportunity to discuss pedagogy and power since we can try to move away from the harms of it and be a little more independent in our critical analysis.

Analyzing an artwork through the critical eye helps to reveal so much information about the picture that may be unknown at first sight. The time spent looking at the artwork is the viewers experience of the artist and the artwork. This unit really delved into the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words. The artist has the freedom to express his or her thoughts into an artwork however, the fascinating part about art is that it is subjective. Subjectivity of the artwork makes it not limited by boundaries or definitions. Formal analysis is the tool used to understand it but in the viewer’s own perception and conclusions. This makes the art experience a more spontaneous adventure, giving a possible equal responsibility to the artist and the viewer.

Critical Pedagogy

The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire is a critique on the traditional education system. According to Friere, the traditional pedagogy is the “banking model of education” because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. The banking model of education is the standard format of a classroom where a teacher, the knowledge holder, shares their knowledge with the students, whom are the receivers, without any feedback from the receivers themselves.  This leads to an unfair distribution of power between the teachers and the students. The teachers ultimately have an excess amount of power, and can grade students subjectively and as they please. The students are essentially powerless because the amount of power they have relies solely on how much the teachers have given them.  I’ve been in many science and mathematics classes that were the same power dynamics between teachers and students. The banking model has led me to rely on myself more than my professors when it comes to learning the course material. In addition, I also focus more on passing the class with a good grade and less about retaining the knowledge learned in class and applying it to real life situations.  The banking model makes students memorize facts without enjoying seeking knowledge and thus are not prepared for the real world.  They may lose independence because they are trained not to think for themselves.  One advantage of the banking model that I have realized is that it can teach individuals discipline as well as being independent, which are necessary skills for real world situations.

Comment on Javier Vazquez Morales blog post

Like in my post, Morales post explains formal analysis and its components which are the color, line, space, and etc. We also agreed on the the function of formal analysis which is to try to understand the artists intentions and what they want to convey in their piece. What he did differently compared to me was including an explanation of contextual analysis too. Morales explains that contextual analysis is to use external resources to understand the art piece. And he explain that using them formal and contextual analysis together can help when you are confused or want a deeper look at it historically.

Formal Analysis

The Formal Analysis of a painting is the physical look of the painting.  There are many different properties (ie: line, color, size, material, composition, etc.)

Not only do you have to discuss what you see, but also figure out what  the image is portraying and analyzing the meaning.  By looking at the physical features and focusing on exactly the way they are placed within a piece of art might give you insight of why the artist placed it there.  Most of the placings are intentional and you will turn up understanding the artists mindset by just looking at the physicality of the piece.

Formal Analysis

Formal Analysis is when you describe a piece of art using features such as color, line, scale, contrast, position, material, illusion, space and mass. Formal Analysis is also trying to understand what the artist is trying to convey in his creation. Color is used in formal analysis to describe or portray a certain type of mood in art. Artist use warm colors, such as red and orange, to portray a positive/happy mood and cold colors, such as blue and grey, to portray a negative/sad mood. Other components such as position, scale, space and mass are used to portray an illusion of depth in a work of art and are also used to make artworks look naturalistic and mimesis. These components of an artwork can also create a form of texture such as using lines to portray that something is rigid or smooth.

Another type of analysis that intertwines with Formal Analysis is Contextual Analysis. Contextual Analysis is when you use external resources to try and understand what a certain piece of art is about. Resources such as articles, other works of art, journals, artist writings can be used to gain information as to when an artwork was made and what the artist wanted to portray to the viewer based on the era they lived in. A component of Formal Analysis that may be helpful in Contextual Analysis is the material used for the artwork. By paying attention to the material of a piece of art the viewer can find out the time period in which that material/ type of art was the most popular and if the artwork was made within that era.

Formal Analysis

When an individual is prompted with the task of creating a formal analysis on a piece of work, it is meant that they should observe the physical factors that make up the piece.

Components of a formal analysis include everything to do with what you see as soon as you set sight on a piece and do not require further research. You may observe the lines, the colors and the size and scale of the piece. Are the lines going straight up or horizontal? There might possibly be a color scheme going on or maybe a pattern. Is the subject large or small? Is it possible to determine how large or small the subjects are to its surroundings? In addition, you may take how the subject is placed and it’s surrounding details into consideration and this may be called composition.