Formal analysis is visually analyzing a piece of work and trying to identify the subject matter that the artist is trying to convey. While looking at an art work or any picture in general, many people get in the habit of simply scanning the picture and moving on. D’Alleva describes this as the habit of “lazy looking”. We hardly ever have the time and patience to analyze a picture to fully understand what the artist is trying to address. When we say formal analysis, not only are we visually analyzing the art, but we are also using various key components in order to further understand the artists’ key purpose of the painting. One of the key components include color and scale. What primary or secondary colors does the artist use? Is one part of the painting larger than another? Many artists use these tools to further emphasize their meaning such as figures of gods would be larger than other figures or a person in a line of fire would be wearing a bright white shirt. Artists want you to focus on the key components of the painting and in order to do so, they intentionally use color and scale to draw the audience’s attention. Another key component of formal analysis is line. Are the lines strong and continuous or are they broken up into small pieces? Artists intentionally use lines to direct the audience’s eyes and the visual movement of how a person looks at art. One last key component of formal analysis is the use of space and mass. Many artists use space and mass to create illusory characteristics that seem almost realistic to the viewers. This is also called mimesis. Artists use skills like foreshortening to create an illusion as if certain objects are receding towards us. Many artists intentionally use certain techniques in their drawings to emphasize their subject matter of their work. Formal analysis consists of many of these key components that make up the compositions of many artists.
Tag: Blog Post 4: Formal Analysis
Formal analysis
Formal analysis is how we can examine and understand art to the smallest details by seeing how the artist used their techniques to create their works. Using formal analysis involves things such as the composition, lines, color, and texture. Using these characteristics many artist use them to help us paint our own picture of what the artist is conveying. We see in todays world how advertisements use formal and contextual analysis to the fullest with how they want us to decipher their message. We see to this day how the color, scale, and composition makes us perceive works of art and define it in our own way. We as well use formal analysis when it comes to performance art from the movement, gestures, and sounds that the artist uses. Formal analysis helps us break down works and brings us to our own understandings of things from the theater to sculptures and to advertisements we see everyday.
Formal Analysis
Works of art are always crafted, never natural or choice free. Formal analysis is an attempt to describe physical entity such as a piece of art. For formal analysis, our vision is our primary source thus making formal analysis subjective. We look at a piece of art’s formal properties, subject matter, and historical context for a formal analysis. Formal properties refers to looking at the line, color, composition, size, scale, modeling, and etc. Subject matter would be what the artist has chosen to paint, draw or sculpt. If something is analyzed “in historical context,” it means the historical circumstances in which it was produced affected the work and it’s meaning or message. Without an understanding of the era, a full understanding of the piece will be impossible.Historical context can play into artists’ influences, intentions and state of mind.
