Copyright © 2019, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Right.docx

Copyright © 2019, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All
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Prebles’ Artforms
Twelfth Edition
Chapter 2
The Purposes and
Functions of Art
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Learning Objectives (1 of 2)
2.1 Explain the ways in which artists transform objects for daily
use.
2.2 Describe how design and embellishment create visual
delight in art.
2.3 Compare the different ways in which art can function as a
means of communicating
information.
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2.4 Discuss the use of art for both public and personal
expression.
2.5 Demonstrate how art can be used to meet religious and
spiritual needs.
2.6 Explain how art can be used for political purposes.
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Introduction
• Art forms as a result of meeting deep and subtle needs as a
society.
– Public purposes, not personal goals of the artist
• Art in its social and cultural context
– Six functions
▪ May address more than one need
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Art for Daily Use (1 of 3)
use.

• Designing for Everyday
– Eva Zeisel, Sauce Boat with Ladle
▪ “A playful search for beauty”
– George Nakashima, Conoid Chair
▪ Radical shape to a common seat
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Eva Zeisel. Sauce Boat with Ladle. c.1949–50.
Glazed earthenware. Sauce boat: 6-1/4” × 6-1/2” × 5-1/4”.
Ladle: 4” × 4-1/2” × 1-7/8”.
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Della Rothermel in
honor of
John Patrick Rothermel 404.1994.1-2 © 2018. Digital image,
The Museum of Modern Art,
New York/Scala, Florence. © courtesy of the Eva Zeisel Estate.
[Fig. 2-1]
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George Nakashima. Conoid Chair. 1971.
Black walnut and hickory. Height 35-3/8”. © George Nakashima
Woodworker. [Fig. 2-2]

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use.
• Embellishment
– Society values artistic embellishment of everyday things
▪ Cell-phone case
– Urge to embellish motivates creativity
▪ Yoruba people, resist-dyed cloth
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Resist-dyed cloth (adire eleko). Mid-twentieth century.
Indigo dye on cotton. X66.1149AB. Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Photograph by Don Cole. [Fig. 2-3]
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use.

• Embellishment
– Shelter a basic need
▪ Architects and designers can make surroundings distinctive
– Frank Lloyd Wright, Hollyhock (Barnsdall) House in
Hollywood
▪ Design scheme based on repeated hollyhock flowers
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Frank Lloyd Wright. Barnsdall House, Los Angeles. 1919–1921.
Exterior view.
Citizen of the Planet/Alamy Stock Photo. [Fig. 2-4]
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Art for Visual Delight (1 of 4)
delight in art.
• Delight often seen as principal goal of art
• Happens when we are captivated by a work of art
– Enjoy it aside from practical or moral or political
considerations
• Aesthetics

– Branch of philosophy that studies how and why artworks are
considered beautiful
• “Beautiful”
– Something pleasing to the eye and agreeable to the mind
▪ Varies across cultures
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delight in art.
• Idealism
– Beauty found in something that is ideal or close to perfection
▪ Behind much of art created in ancient Greece
• Charioteer sculpture
– Balance and quiet dignity
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Charioteer. c.470 BCE.
Bronze. Height 5’ 11”.
Archaeological Museum, Delphi. © Craig & Marie Mauzy,
Athens. [Fig. 2-5]

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delight in art.
• Harmony
– A pleasing balance or harmonious proportions
• Claude Lorrain, Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Silvia
– Harmonious colors
– Buildings balances by trees and cliffs
– Light evenly diffused throughout
– Term picturesque means resembling his pictures
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Claude Lorrain. Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Silvia. 1682.
Oil on canvas, 48” × 60”.
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK/Bridgeman
Images. [Fig. 2-6]
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delight in art.
• Harmony
– Highly valued in calligraphy
– Peter Behrens, porcelain plate
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Emperor Lizong. Couplet from a poem by Han Hong. 1261.
Song Dynasty.
Fan mounted as an album leaf. Ink on silk. 8-3/16” × 8-11/16”
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of John M.
Crawford Jr.,
1988 (1989.363.23a). [Fig. 2-7]
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Peter Behrens. Porcelain plate. British Museum, London.
Photograph: © The Trustees of the British Museum.
© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. [Fig. 2-8]
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Art for Communicating Information (1 of 4)
information.
• Art often used to impart information and ideas
• Before photography, artists and illustrators only source of
information about visual
appearance
• Artists have shaped the way people understand their world
– And the way their culture is viewed by others
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information.
• Storytelling
– Great deal of art tells stories
▪ Personal
▪ Moral
▪ Historical
• Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne
– Recounting of a mythological story

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Titan. Bacchus and Ariadne. 1520–3.
Oil on canvas. 5’9” × 6’3”.
National Gallery, London/akg. [Fig. 2-9]
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information.
• Storytelling
– Some art tells stories of everyday life
▪ Help broaden perspective
▪ Show how others live
• Abraham Cruzvillegas, Autoconstrucción Suites
– Seeming disorder represents artist’s family home
• Carrie Mae Weems, The Kitchen Table Series
– Photos reveal lives of other people to us
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Abraham Cruzvillegas. Autoconstrucción Suites. 2013.
Installation view at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
Courtesy of the artist, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and
kurimanzutto, Mexico City.
Photo © Walker Art Center. [Fig. 2-10]
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Carrie Mae Weems. Man Reading Newspaper from The Kitchen
Table Series. 1990.
Photograph.
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
[Fig. 2-11]
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information.
• Commentary
– Artists often speak in a language that is easy to understand
▪ View art’s primary purpose as communication
• William Hogarth, Gin Lane
– Exposes the horrors of excess

• Chris Jordan, Midway: Message from the Gyre series
– Uses art to inform viewers about human impact on the
landscape
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William Hogarth. Gin Lane. 1751.
Etching and engraving. Plate: 14-1/4” × 12”.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Rosenwald
Collection. [Fig. 2-12]
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Chris Jordan. CF000668, from the series “Midway: Message
from the Gyre.” 2009.
Photo by Chris Jordan. [Fig. 2-13]
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Art for Public and Personal Expression (1 of 3)
expression.
• Commemoration

– Many monuments in ancient world had a commemorative
function
• Taj Mahal
– Commemorates ruler’s favorite wife
• Royal Portrait Figure
– Represents Shyaam the Great
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial
– Bears names of 60,000 servicemen and women who died or are
missing from war
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Taj Mahal. Agra, India. 1632–48.
Mazzzur. Shutterstock. [Fig. 2-14]
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Royal Portrait Figure. Kuba peoples, Congo. 18th century.
Wood. Height 22”.
The British Museum, London. © The Trustees of the British
Museum. [Fig. 2-15]
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Maya Lin. Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Mall, Washington
D.C. 1980–82.
Black granite. Each wall 10’1” × 246’9”.
Photograph: Duane Preble. [Fig. 2-16]
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expression.
• Self-Expression
– Has increasingly become one of art’s most common functions
• Expressive function when artist conveys information
– Personality
– Feelings
– Worldview
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expression.
• Self-Expression

• Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column
– Kahlo created some of the most self-expressive work of the
twentieth century
• Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VI
– Sought to reach out to viewers by beginning with his inner
feelings
• Totem poles of Pacific Northwest native peoples
– Illustrate crests or legends associated with a family’s history
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Frida Kahlo. The Broken Column. 1944.
Oil on canvas. 15-11/16” × 12-1/16”.
Museo Dolores Olmedo, Xochimilco, Mexico City, Mexico.
Photograph akg/images/Album. © 2018
Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust,
Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York. [Fig. 2-17]
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Wassily Kandinsky. Composition VI. 1913.
Oil on canvas. 76-3/4” × 118”.
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. akg-
images/Album/VEGAP

© Vassily Kandinski/Prisma © 2018 Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York. [Fig. 2-18]
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Bill Reid. House Frontal Totem Pole. 1959.
Museum of Anthropology. Werner Forman Archive/University
of British Columbia, Vancouver,
Canada. [Fig. 2-19]
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Art for the Spirit (1 of 3)
spiritual needs.
• Worship and Ritual
– Buildings intended for gathering also visually striking
• Sainte-Chapelle in Paris
– Resembles a giant jewel-box
▪ Original function as a storehouse for precious relics
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Sainte-Chapelle, Paris.
Upper chapel, interior view.
Photograph: akg-images/A.F. Kersting. [Fig. 2-20]
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spiritual needs.
• Worship and Ritual
• Other traditions focus creativity on ritual tools
– Eskimo peoples of the Arctic region
▪ Moon Mask
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Moon Mask. Eskimo, village of Andreofsky. Collected 1893.
Height 13-1/2”, width 13”.
Werner Forman Archive/ Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka,
Alaska. [Fig. 2-21]

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spiritual needs.
• Spirituality
– Contemporary spirituality takes many forms
▪ Art assists some of them
• Shirazeh Houshiary, Ancient Light
– “This work is about presence.”
• Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels
– Expresses and represents the vastness of the landscape
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Shirazeh Houshiary, Ancient Light. 2009.
Pencil, aquacryl, and pigment on canvas. 74-3/4” × 106-1/4”.
Courtesy of the artist. [Fig. 2-22]
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Nancy Holt. Sun Tunnels. 1973–76.
Concrete, steel, and earth. Great Basic Desert, Utah. Overall

dimensions: 9’3” × 68’6” ×53’; diagonal
length: 86’; each tunnel: 18’1” × 9’3” diameter.
Utah Museum of Fine Arts. © Holt-Smithson
Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. [Fig.
2-23]
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Art for Political Purposes (1 of 4)
• Express political goals or ideals
– Some to persuade us to submit to authority
– Others expressed protest or encouraged revolt
• Persuasion
– Invite and urge us to do or think things we may not have
otherwise
• Rulers of West African region of Benin
– Plaques to decorate their palaces
▪ Original function as a storehouse for precious relics
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• Rulers of West African region of Benin
– Plaques to decorate their palaces
• United States Supreme Court Building
– Uses art to express their authority
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Plaque Showing the Oba Holding Leopards. c.1700.
Benin. Brass. 19-1/2” × 13-1/2” × 2-1/2”.
The British Museum, London. Af1898,0115.31 © The Trustees
of the British Museum. [Fig. 2-24]
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Carol Highsmith. U.S. Supreme Court Building. Photograph.
1980.
Library of Congress, Carol Highsmith Archive, 2011632073.
[Fig. 2-25]
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• Protest
– Artists involving themselves in the politics of the day
• Rodney McMillian, Untitled (The Supreme Court Painting)
– Protests against court decisions on voting rights and election
districting
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Rodney McMillian. Untitled (The Supreme Court Painting).
2004–2006.
Poured acrylic on cut canvas, 216” × 216”.
Inventory #MCR130. Courtesy of the artist and Susanne
Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.
Photo credit: Gene Ogami. [Fig. 2-26]
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• Protest
• Käthe Kollwitz: Art of Human Concern
– Devoted career to art that took political positions

– Series of prints encouraged workers and peasants to protest
and struggle
– Controversial but reputation grew among artists
– Nazis forbid her from exhibiting in public
▪ Kollwitz continued to make prints
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Käthe Kollwitz. Self-Portrait. 1904.
Color lithograph. 16-1/4” × 12-1/2”.
Photograph akg-images. © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York. [Fig. 2-27]
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Käthe Kollwitz. The Outbreak. From the series The Peasants’
War. 1903.
Etching, engraving, and aquatint on paper. 19-1/2” × 23”. Sheet
5 of the series: Bauernkrieg.
Hanover, Sprengel Museum Photograph akg-images.
© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. [Fig. 2-28]
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Copyright
Please address the following: DUE BY
WEDNESDAY 9/5/18 at 1:00 pm
1. Describe a situation where you had to facilitate a meeting and
how you would apply some of the principles from the readings
to improve the productivity of your meetings.
2. Provide an example of why and how you could manage a
project escalation within your organization.
REFERENCES
Mulcahy, R. (2013). PMP exam prep (8th ed.). Minnetonka,
MN. RMC Publications.
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/four-techniques-facilitate-
project-meetings-7249
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/ability-conduct-manage-
project-meetings-3719
ESCALATION
https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/335178/Team-
Members--The-PMs-Critical-Communications-Channel
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/elevating-issue-gaining-
managements-attention-3182
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/escalate-issue-successful-
solution-team-4345

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Prebles’ Artforms
Twelfth Edition
Chapter 1
The Nature of Art and
Creativity
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1.1 Describe art as a means of visual expression that uses
various media and forms.
1.2 Explain what is meant by creativity.
1.3 Discuss the role creativity plays in the work of trained and
untrained artists.
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1.4 Assess the ways in which representational, abstract, and
non-representational art
relate to reality.

1.5 Contrast the terms looking and seeing.
1.6 Differentiate between form and content, and show how
artists may use iconography
to communicate the latter.
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Introduction
• The ability to create is a special characteristic of humans.
– Art as common experience
• Janet Echelman, Her Secret Is Patience
– Large, distinctive public artwork in Phoenix, Arizona
– Inspired by saguaro cactus
– Artistic creation as a two-way street
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Janet Echelman. Her Secret Is Patience. 2009.
Fiber, steel, and lightning. Height 100’ with a top diameter of
100’.
Civic Space Park, Phoenix, AZ. Courtesy Janet Echelman, Inc.
Photograph: Will Novak. [Fig. 1-1]

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What is Art? (1 of 3)
• Generally refers to:
– Music
– Theater
– Literature
– Visual arts
▪ Including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, architecture, and
design
• Communicates meaning beyond verbal exchange
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• Work of art
– The visual expression of an idea or experience, formed with
skill, through the use
of a medium.
• Medium
– A particular material along with its accompanying technique
(pl. media)

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• Medium
– Chosen by artist to enforce the function of the work
▪ Echelman's use of flexible netting that responds to wind
– Traditional or modern materials
– Mixed media
▪ Describes art created with a combination of materials
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What is Creativity? (1 of 4)
• Creativity
– The ability to bring forth something new that has value
▪ Relevance or new way of thinking
▪ Not a novelty
• Potential to influence future thought or action

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• Five traits that define creativity
1. Associating
2. Questioning
3. Observing
4. Networking
5. Experimenting
• Visual creativity
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• Robin Rhode
– He Got Game
▪ Visual creativity using simple means
▪ Low-tech chalk drawing of a basketball hoop
▪ Artist imitates slow-motion photography and performs an
impossible flip
▪ Creativity is an attitude

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Robin Rhode. He Got Game. 2000.
Twelve color photographs.
Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong © Robin Rhode.
[Fig. 1-2]
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• Romare Bearden
– Prevalence of Ritual: Tidings
▪ Picture fragments
▪ Suggests Christian Annunciation
▪ Concerned with effectiveness of communication to the viewer
– But inner need for creative expression was equally important
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Romare Bearden. Prevalence of Ritual: Tidings. 1967.
Photomontage. 36” × 48”.

© Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York,
NY. [Fig. 1-3]
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Trained and Untrained Artists (1 of 7)
untrained artists.
• We all have the potential to be creative
• Training
– In the past, via apprenticeships
– Today, in art schools and/or colleges and universities
– Not always necessary
• Folk artists
– Naïve or outsider artists with little or no formal training
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untrained artists.
• Outsider Art
– Sabatino “Simon” Rodia, Nuestro Pueblo (Our Town)

▪ One of best-known and largest pieces of outsider art in the
United States
▪ Use of cast-off materials
▪ Towers built without power tools, rivets, welds, or bolts
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Sabatino “Simon” Rodia. Nuestro Pueblo. Distant view. 1921–
54.
Mixed media. Height 100’.
Watts, California. Photograph: Duane Preble. [Fig. 1-4a]
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Sabatino “Simon” Rodia. Nuestro Pueblo.
Detail of enclosing wall with construction tool impressions.
1921–54.
Mixed media. Height 100’.
Watts, California. Photograph: Duane Preble. [Fig. 1-4b]
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untrained artists.
• Outsider Art
– Philadelphia Wireman
▪ Unknown creator, likely male
▪ More than a thousand hand-sized sculptures of small objects
wrapped in wire
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Philadelphia Wireman. Untitled (Watch Face). c.1970.
Watch face, bottle cap, nail, drawing on paper, and wire. 7” × 3-
1/2” × 2-1/4”.
Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery. [Fig. 1-5]
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untrained artists.
• Folk Art
– Folk artists are part of established traditions of style, theme,
and craftsmanship
– Most have little systematic art training
– Can take many forms

▪ Quilts
▪ Embroidered handkerchiefs
▪ Decorated weather vanes
▪ Sculptures
▪ Customized cars
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untrained artists.
• Folk Art
– Quilting a flourishing form of folk art
– Mary Wallace, Peony
▪ Shows influence from Pennsylvania German pottery
– Can take many forms
▪ Quilts
▪ Embroidered handkerchiefs
▪ Decorated weather vanes
▪ Sculptures
▪ Customized cars
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Mary Wallace. Peony. Quilt: pieced, appliquéd, and quilted

cotton. 100-3/4” × 98”.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Gift of Rhea Goodman
(M.75.133). [Fig. 1-6]
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untrained artists.
• Folk Art
• Retablo paintings in Mexico and the American Southwest
▪ Giving thanks to God
▪ Generally depict salvation
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Retablo. 1915.
Paint on tin. 9” × 11”.
Fowler Museum at UCLA. Photograph by Don Cole. [Fig. 1-7]
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untrained artists.
• Children’s Art
– Alana, Grandma
– Children
▪ Intuitive sense of composition
▪ Depict world symbolically until about age 6
▪ Begin to doubt creativity by age 9/10
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Alana, age 3. Grandma.
[Fig. 1-8]
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Art and Reality (1 of 11)
relate to reality.
• Representational Art
– Depicts the appearance of things
– Figurative art
▪ When human form is the primary subject
– Subjects

▪ Objects depicted in representational art
– “Real”-looking paintings in the trompe l’oeil style, French for
“fool the eye”
▪ A Smoke Backstage
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William Harnett. A Smoke Backstage. 1877.
Oil on canvas. 7” × 8-1/2”.
Honolulu Museum of Art, Gift of John Wyatt Gregg Allerton,
1964 (32111). [Fig. 1-9]
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relate to reality.
– Magritte’s La Trahison des Images (Ceci N’est Pas une Pipe)
▪ Viewer may wonder, “If it’s not a pipe, what is it?”
▪ Answer: it is a painting.

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René Magritte. La Trahison des Images (Ceci N'est Pas une
Pipe). 1929.
Oil on canvas. 25-3/8” × 37”.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Purchased with
funds provided by
Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection (78.7). ©
2018 Digital image,
The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. © 2018
C. Herscovici, London/Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York. [Fig. 1-10]
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relate to reality.
– Beldner’s This is Definitely Not a Pipe
▪ Complicated relationship between art and reality
▪ Reproduction of Magritte’s painting
▪ Point is that representational art has a complex relationship to
reality
– Artists rarely merely depict what they see

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Ray Beldner. This Is Definitely Not a Pipe. 2000.
After René Magritte’s The Treason of Images (1929). Sewn US
currency. 24” × 33”.
Courtesy of the artist. [Fig. 1-11]
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relate to reality.
• Abstract Art
– Works that have no reference at all to natural objects
– Works that depict natural objects in simplified, distorted, or
exaggerated ways
▪ May be obvious to viewer or may need a verbal clue
– Common in many cultures
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relate to reality.
• Abstract Art
– Chief’s stool from Cameroon
▪ Shows repeated abstractions of the human form
▪ People representing the community that supports the chief
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Chief's stool. Late 19th–early 20th century.
Wood plant fiber. Height 16-1/2”.
Western Grasslands, Cameroon. Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Photograph by Don Cole.
[Fig. 1-12]
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relate to reality.
• Abstract Art
– Abstraction of a Cow
▪ van Doesburg’s exploration of how far he could simplify a
cow while still

capturing its essence
▪ If only final painting is viewed, it likely would be seen as a
nonrepresentational
painting.
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Theo van Doesburg (born C. E. M. Küpper).
Composition (The Cow) from Abstraction of a Cow series.
c.1917.
Pencil on paper. 4-5/8” × 6-1/4”.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Purchase 227.1948.1. © 2018
Digital image, The
Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 1-13a]
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Study for Composition (The Cow) from Abstraction of a Cow.
c.1917.
Pencil on paper. 4-5/8” × 6-1/4”.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Purchase 227.1948.6. © 2018
Digital image, The
Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 1-13b]

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Study for Composition (The Cow) from Abstraction of a Cow.
c.1917.
Tempera, oil, and charcoal on paper. 15-5/8" × 22-3/4".
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Purchase 226.1948. © 2018
Digital image, The
Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 1-13c]
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Composition VIII (The Cow) from Abstraction of a Cow.
c.1917.
Oil on canvas. 14-1/4” × 25”.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Purchase 225.1948. © 2018
Digital image, The
Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 1-13d]
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relate to reality.
• Alma Thomas: Devoted to Abstraction
– First graduate of Howard University art program in 1924
– Taught art in a Washington, D.C. junior high school
– Founding vice-president of first private gallery to show work
by artists of all races
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Alma Thomas at an opening at the Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York, 1972. Alma Thomas
papers, 1894–2000, bulk 1936–1982. Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution. [Fig. 1-14]
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relate to reality.
• Alma Thomas: Devoted to Abstraction
– Devoted to art full-time after retirement from teaching
▪ First solo exhibition at age 69
▪ Inspired by movement of leaves and flowers under different
light
▪ White Roses Sing and Sing

– First African-American to have a solo exhibition at the
Whitney Museum
– Always believed creativity not bound by race or nation
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Alma Thomas. White Roses Sing and Sing. 1976. Acrylic on
canvas. 72-1/2” × 52-3/8”. National
Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. 1980.36.3. © 2018.
Photo Smithsonian American Art
Museum/Art Resource/Scala, Florence. [Fig. 1-15]
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relate to reality.
• Nonrepresentational Art
– Nonobjective or nonfigurative art
– Presents visual forms with no specific references to anything
outside themselves
▪ As in pure sound forms of music

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relate to reality.
– Wide variety of forms, compositions, moods, and messages
possible
– Pair of Doors
▪ From an Egyptian mosque
▪ Wood carving
▪ Draw and hold our attention despite not representing anything
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Pair of doors. Egypt, c.1325–1330. Wood (rosewood and
mulberry); carved, inlaid with carved ivory,
ebony, and other woods. 77-1/4” × 35” × 1-3/4”, encased in
weighted freestanding mount.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 91.1.2064.
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relate to reality.
– Carmen Herrera, Yellow and Black
▪ Asymmetrical and sleek
▪ Communicates vigorous energy, agitated state of mind
– May seem more difficult to grasp nonrepresentational art
▪ Can offer fresh ways of seeing, new visual experiences
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Carmen Herrera. Yellow and Black. 2010. Acrylic on canvas.
36” × 72”. © Carmen Herrera;
Courtesy Lisson Gallery. Photographer: Ken Adlard. [Fig. 1-17]
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Looking and Seeing (1 of 2)
• Looking
– Implies taking in what is before us in a mechanical or goal-
oriented way
• Seeing
– More open, receptive, and focused
– “Looking” with memories, imaginations, and feelings attached

– Appreciation of a form beyond function
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Looking and Seeing (2 of 2)
• Ordinary becomes extraordinary
– Edward Weston’s Pepper #30
▪ Quality of glowing light from a time exposure of over two
hours
▪ Seemingly common object elevated to represent the artist’s
achievements
▪ Sense of wonder about the natural world
• The process of seeing is different for every person.
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Edward Weston. Pepper #30. 1930.
Gelatin silver print. 9-7/16” × 7-1/2”.
Photograph by Edward Weston. Museum of Modern Art, New
York. Gift of David H. McAlpin
(1913.1968) © 2018. Digital image, The Museum of Modern
Art, New York/Scala, Florence
© Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of
Regens/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

[Fig. 1-18]
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Form and Content (1 of 9)
• Form
– The total effect of the combined visual qualities within a work
▪ Materials
▪ Color
▪ Shape
▪ Line
▪ Design
Rights Reserved
• Content
– The message or meaning of the work of art
▪ What the artist expresses or communicates to the viewer

• Form and content inseparable
– Content determines form
– Form expresses content
Rights Reserved
• Contrasting Rodin’s The Kiss and Brancusi’s The Kiss
– Rodin’s work representational of Western ideals
▪ Highly-charged moment of lovers embracing
– Brancusi’s manipulation of a solid block of stone to represent
lasting love
▪ Symbolic concept of two becoming one
Rights Reserved
Auguste Rodin. The Kiss. 1886.
Marble. 5’11-1/4”.
Musée Rodin, Paris. Photograph akg-images/Erich Lessing.
[Fig. 1-19]

Rights Reserved
Constantin Brancusi. The Kiss. 1916.
Limestone. 23” × 13” × 10”.
Photograph: The Philadelphia Museum of Art/Art
Resource/Scala, Florence.
© Succession Brancusi – All rights reserved (ARS) 2018. [Fig.
1-20]
Rights Reserved
• Seeing and Responding to Form
– The artist is the sender of the work’s message.
– The viewer must receive and experience the work.
▪ Learning to respond to form
– Subject matter can interfere with perception of form.
▪ Look at pictures upside down to make familiar unfamiliar
Rights Reserved

• Seeing and Responding to Form
– Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jack-in-the-Pulpit
▪ Enlarged to 4 feet in height
▪ Focusing on only the flower
▪ Viewer takes time to observe an object that would normally be
too small or be
passed over
Rights Reserved
Georgia O'Keeffe. Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. V. 1930.
Oil on canvas. 48” × 30”.
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe,
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1987.58.4. Photograph: Malcolm Varon [Fig. 1-21]
Rights Reserved

• Iconography
– Subjects, symbols, and motifs used in an image to convey its
meaning
▪ Mother and child as Mary and baby Jesus
– Not all works contain iconography.
Rights Reserved
• Iconography
– The Virgin of Carmel Saving Souls in Purgatory
▪ Christian iconography
– Winged figures as angels
– God holding the orb of the world
– Holy Spirit as a dove
– Mary wearing crown
– Cross signifying Christ
– Scapular garment
Rights Reserved
Circle of Diego Quispe Tito.

The Virgin of the Carmel Saving Souls in Purgatory. Late 17th
century.
Oil on canvas. 41” × 29”.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA/Bridgeman Images.
[Fig. 1-22]
Rights Reserved
• Iconography
– Amida Buddha
▪ Asian traditions use rich iconographic language
– Topknot symbolizes enlightenment
– Long earlobes show he was a wealthy prince before he sought
truth
– Garment is simple
– Hands folded in traditional position of meditation
– Lotus-flower throne symbolizes enlightenment can come in
the midst of life
Rights Reserved

Amida Buddha (wood). Japanese school (17th century). San
Diego Museum of Art, USA/Bequest of
Mrs. Cora Timken Burnett/Bridgeman Images. [Fig. 1-23]
Rights Reserved
• Iconography
– Contemporary artists mash up and quote various traditions
▪ Rashaad Newsome, Saltire Compton
– Frame would normally surround a precious painting
– Scanned photos of “bling”
– Saltire
• X-shaped motif commonly found in flags and crests
Rights Reserved
Rashaad Newsome. Saltire Compton. 2011. Collage in
customized antique frame.
17-1/4” × 14-3/4” × 1-1/2”. © Rashaad Newsome Studio. [Fig.
1-24]

Rights Reserved
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