This document provides guidance on analyzing artworks by focusing on various formal elements including line, color, shape, pattern, light, texture, size, and orientation. It emphasizes that not all elements will apply equally and to choose a few to focus on specific to the artwork being analyzed. Examples of artworks are provided to illustrate different elements, such as Cy Twombly's use of texture in his paintings. Guidance is given for each element, such as looking at how light is distributed or where its source originates in a work.

1. Class 5.1
FORMAL ANALYSIS

2. Formal Analysis
You are going to examine this object closely in
terms of:
• line
• color
• shape
• pattern
• light
• texture
• size
• orientation

3. KEEP IN MIND
Not all of these will apply equally to every work of
art. Based upon the actual work you are analyzing,
you will choose a few of these to focus your
energies on.

4. LINE and COLOR Are considered the two most
basic elements of two-
dimensional art

5. SHAPE
organic (or biomorphic) vs. geometric

6. Vasily Kandinsky, Composition VIII, 1923
Oil on canvas, (55 1/8 x 79 1/8 in), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

7. Sonia Delaunay
Rhyme
1938
oil on canvas

8. Frank STELLA, Jasper’s Dilemma, 1962-3, oil on canvas

9. Arshile Gorky, Garden in Sochi, 1943

10. Joan Miro, Flight of the Dragonfly in Front of the Sun, 1968

11. Edgar Degas
Four Jockeys
c. 1889
oil on board
18 1/8 x 14 5/8 inches

12. Tina Modotti
Workers’ Demonstration,
Mexico City
1926
Platinum print

13. Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970, mud, salt, rocks, water, 15 x 1500 ft, Rozel Point, UT

14. PATTERN

15. Bridget Riley
Fall
1963
polyvinyl acetate paint
on hardboard
55 x 55 inches

16. Bridget Riley,
Hesitate
1964
Oil on canvas
1067 x 1124 mm

17. Tomma Abts
Fenke, 2014
Acrylic and oil on canvas
18 7/8 x 15 inches

18. Henri Matisse
La Gerbe
Cut paper
1953

19. Diego RIVERA
The Flower Seller
1941
Oil on masonite
48 x 48 inches

20. Loïs Mailou Jones
Ode to Kinshasa
1972
Mixed media
48 x 36 inches

21. Thomas RUFF
Interieur 13B
1980
Chromogenic print
10 7/8 x 8 inches

22. LIGHT
is light evenly distributed across the picture plane or
concentrated in one place for dramatic effect?
where is the light source and how does it create emphasis?

23. Caravaggio
Conversion on the Road to Damascus
1601
Oil on canvas
91 in × 69 inches
Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome

24. Georges de la Tour
The Penitent Magdalen
c. 1645
oil on canvas
61.4 x 48 inches

25. Mary Cassatt
Young Thomas and His
Mother
1893
Pastel on cardboard
24 x 20 inches
Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts

26. Weegee (Arthur Fellig), Two Offenders in the Paddywagon, c. 1942

27. Raymond PETTIBON
No Title (And now the…), 1987
Ink on paper
22 1/2 x 13 inches

28. TEXTURE/MATERIALS
• texture can be a quality of a two-dimensional surface—it is
most noticeable at the extremes of roughness and
smoothness
• it can also be a more literal—a choice of unusual
materials that seem to carry a symbolic charge

29. TEXTURE
Jean Dubuffet
Grand Master of the Outsider
1947

30. Paul Klee
Highway and Byways
1929
oil on canvas
32 5/8 x 26 3/8 inches

31. Cy Twombly
Leda and the
Swan
1962
oil, pencil and
crayon on canvas
6' 3" x 6' 6 3/4"

32. Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1971, Oil and crayon on canvas, 118 x 188¼"

33. John MCCRACKEN, Green Slab in Two Parts, 1966

34. Mickalene Thomas
A-E-I-O-U and Sometimes Y
2009
Plastic rhinestones, acrylic,
and enamel on panel
24 x 20 in

35. Cady NOLAND, Frame Device, 1989, Pipes, stantions, and twelve walkers
132 × 132 × 54 in, installed at the Hammer Museum

36. Nayland Blake, Feeder 2, 1998, steel and gingerbread, 7 x 10 x 7 feet

37. Liu Wei, Density 1, 2013, books, mild steel and wood, dimensions variable

38. SIZE
Richard Serra, installation at the Museum of Modern Art, New York

39. Donald RODNEY, In the House of My Father, 1996-7

40. ORIENTATION
Carl Andre, Breda, 1986, blue Belgian granite

41. Robert RAUSCHENBERG, Monogram, 1955

42. Xu BING
A Book from the Sky
1987-1991

43. E.V. Day, Bride Fight, 2006