This document provides guidance for analyzing artworks using various techniques including describing subject matter, art elements, colors, textures, movements, balances, relationships, and more. It then analyzes specific artworks using these techniques, describing works from the Realism, Impressionism, Pointillism, Expressionism, Abstract, and other movements in 3 sentences or less.

1. Feldman’s Art Criticism
Gloria Marubio, B.S. M.Ed

2. What do you see?
What subject matter?
What is happening?
What art elements do
you see?
“The Equatorial Jungle” - Henri Rousseau - (May 21, 1844 – September 2, 1910) was a French Post-
Impressionist painter in the naïve or primitive manner. Ridiculed during his life, he came to be recognized
as a self-taught genius whose works are of high artistic quality.

3. Similarities/Contrasts
Movement/Repetition
Dominance
Balance
Relationships

4. Relate the information
you have collected
to your feelings,
ideas, and emotions
inspired by the art
work.
Hypothesize a
meaning for the
work.
Use the evidence
gathered in the first
two phases to
defend your
hypothesis.

5. Based on your
analysis of the first 3
stages, how would
you judge the artist’s
success?
Craftsmanship
Design Quality
Expressiveness
Personal Response
Originality
Comparison

6. What colors were
used to create this
painting?
Describe the quality
of color and shade
in the sky.
“The Elder Sister” (1869)
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
REALISM

7. What textures would you expect to feel in this painting?
What feelings do you think the artist was trying to show?
“Susan Comforting the Baby” (1881) Mary Cassatt
IMPRESSIONISM

8. How are the colors arranged? Are the colors predominantly
light or dark? Warm or cool? Bright or dull?
“The Large Pine” (1892) – Paul Signac
POINTILLISM

9. Pretend you are in this
painting. What does it
feel like?
How has the artist
created a sense of
space?
“The Orange Tree” (1878)
Gustave Caillebotte
IMPRESSIONISM

10. What geometric and organic shapes do you see in this painting?
How do the shapes contribute to a sense of unity?
“Basket of Apples” (1893) Paul Cezanne
POST-IMPRESSIONISM

11. What is the first thing you notice in this painting? How do
the arrangement of the parts of the picture draw your
attention to the dominant image? Why?
“The Rocks” (1888)
Vincent van Gogh
EXPRESSIONISM

12. What do you see in
this picture? How did
you arrive at this
style?
Why do you think the
artist may have
chosen to illustrate
the images this way?
“Fishing Boats” (1909)
Georges Braque
ABSTRACT

13. Do you see geometric or organic shapes?
Is there one principle shape or is it composed of
interrelating combinations of shapes?
“The Rower” (1910) Pablo Picasso
ABSTRACT

14. The Color Wheel
Primary Colors:
Red, Yellow, Blue
Secondary Colors:
Orange, Purple,
Green
Complimentary
Colors:
Red – Green
Orange – Blue
Yellow - Purple

15. Describe the colors in
terms of their
harmony or contrast
with each other.
What types of lines
and patterns do you
see in this painting?
“Woman in the Purple Coat” (1937)
Henri Matisse
COLOR AND PATTERN

16. Is the visual weight on one side of the image about the
same as the other?
How does your eye move around the format? How do
rhythms and patterns contribute a sense of visual
movement?
“Red, Blue, Black & Yellow Composition” and “Broadway Boogie-Woogie” (1943)
Piet Mondrian

17. What elements are repeated? Do they form a
strong visual rhythm? Do they form a pattern?
How?
“Farbstudie Quadrate” (1913)
Wassily Kandinsky