This document discusses different visual elements of art including line, shape, tone, color, pattern, texture, and form. It provides examples of how artists have used different elements to convey meaning. Line can suggest movement, emotion, energy, and structure. Shape can be geometric, organic, representational, or abstract and used to portray meaning. Artists like Mondrian, Davis, and Sutherland experimented with geometric shapes. Overall, the document examines the building blocks of visual art and how artists manipulate elements to communicate ideas.

1. Visual Arts
Hum 100: Introduction to Humanities

2. Line
Shape
T
one
Color
Pattern
T
exture
Form

3. Visual Elements
Line is the foundation of all drawing.

4. Psychological response to different lines
• Curved lines suggest comfort and ease
• Horizontal lines suggest distance and calm
• Vertical lines suggest height and strength
• Jagged lines suggest turmoil and anxiety

5. Expressive qualities can convey
• Freehand lines can express the personal
energy and mood of the artist
• Mechanical lines can express a rigid control
• Continuous lines can lead the eye in certain
directions
• Broken lines can express the ephemeral or the
insubstantial
• Thick lines can express strength
• Thin lines can express delicacy

6. LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)
A Study for an Equestrian Monument, 1488 (metalpoint on blue paper)

7. HENRY MOORE (1898-1986)
Sheep, 1972 (intaglio print on paper)
Line as T
one
and Form

8. PETER DOIG (1959-)
The Architects Home In The Ravine, 1991 (oil on canvas, 200x275cm.)
Line as T
exture

9. ROBERT DELAUNEY
(1885-1941)
Eiffel T
ower, 1910 (oil on canvas)
Line as
Structure

10. KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (c.1760-1849)
The Great Wave off Kanagawa, 1823–29 (woodblock print from '36
Line as
Movement

11. PABLO PICASSO
(1881-1973)
Weeping Woman,
1937 (oil on canvas)
Line as
Emotion

12. REMBRANDT VAN RIJN (1606-1669)
T
wo women teaching a child to walk, c.1635-37 (red chalk on paper)
Line as
Energy

13. ALEXANDER CALDER (1898-1976)
Edgar Varèse and Unknown Man, 1929-30 (wire sculpture)
Line as
Form

14. PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)
Bull - plate 11, January 17 1946 (lithograph
Line as
Abstraction

15. Visual Elements
• Shape can be natural or man-made, regular or
irregular,
fl
at (2-dimensional) or solid (3-
dimensional), representational or abstract,
geometric or organic, transparent or opaque,
positive or negative, decorative or symbolic,
colored, patterned or textured.

16. The Behaviour of Shapes:
Squares and Rectangles can portray strength and
stability
Circles and Ellipses can represent continuous
movement
T
riangles can lead the eye in an upward movement
Inverted T
riangles can create a sense of imbalance
and tension

17. T
wo Dimensional Shapes
M. C. ESCHER
(1898-1972)
Reptiles, 1943 (lithograph)

18. Three Dimensional Shapes
ANTHONY CARO
(1924-2013)
Paul's T
urn, 1971 (cor-ten steel)
Three

19. Representational Shapes
HARMEN STEENWYCK
(1612-1656)
'Still Life: An Allegory of the
Vanities of Human Life', 1640

20. Abstract Shapes
PAUL CÉZANNE (1881-1973)
Still Life with a Peach and
T
wo Green Pears, 1883-87 (oil
on canvas)

21. Abstract Shapes
PIET MONDRIAN
(1872-1944)
Broadway Boogie Woogie,
1942-43 (oil on canvas)

22. Positive and Negative Shapes
STUART
DAVIS
(1892-1964)
Colonial
Cubism, 1954
(oil on
canvas)

23. Geometric Shapes
AL HELD
(1928-2005)
"S-E" 1979
(84"x84", acrylic
on canvas)

24. Geometric Shapes
GRAHAM
SUTHERLAND
(1903-1980)
Pastoral, 1930
(etching)

25. Symbolic Shapes
EADFRITH, BISHOP OF
LINDISFARNE (died 721)
'Illuminated Ornamental Cross',
715-721, Lindisfarne Gospels

26. T
ransparent, Re
fl
ective
and Opaque Shapes
RICHARD ESTES (b. 1932)
Donohue's, 1967 (oil on
masonite)