Welcome to Art 6H
Art & Aesthetics
Aesthetics - Beauty
 Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of
art and our experience of it. It developed in England as
philosophers grouped together such fields as poetry, sculpture,
music, and dance. These fields were put into one category and
called them les beaux arts or the fine arts.
 Philosophers began to say that reason by itself could not explain
beauty. Beauty may have some rational properties, such as
“order, symmetry, and proportion,” but it is really an experience
not explained by reason alone. It is understood through intuition
and experienced with human feeling and emotion.
 An aesthetic experience could include a mixture of feeling, such
as pleasure, rage, grief, suffering, and joy.
Introduction
 What is Art History?
 Not the book or proper academic
definition, but you (the student’s) definition
 Why did you enroll in this class? What do you
hope to learn in this class?
 Who has taken an art history course before?
 Who is majoring (or thinking of) in Art History?
What is Art History?
 The academic discipline that studies the history and
the development of the visual arts (Dictionary)
 Art History provides a humanistic and intellectual
foundation for the historian in which he/she can
understand the visual arts in their contexts.
 Emphasis is placed on the social, political, historical and
religious contexts of art; visual analysis is also stressed
(UCLA Dept. of Art History)
 Knowledge of the historical context of an artwork (or a
building) is required in art history.
 It is studying history via art objects and buildings
(usually alongside) historical documents.
Do you recognize these??
What type of artworks will be
looked at?
 Sculpture
 Architecture
 Pictorial arts (painting, drawing, printmaking &
photography)
 Craft arts (ceramics, metalwork, textiles, jewelry
and decorative accessories)
Types of artworks
Critical Questions that should
ALWAYS be asked….
 How old is it?
 To construct a history, dates are necessary. Once a
chronology is established, the work of art can be
studied in its historical context.
 Physical (materials used), Documentary, Internal
(identifiable objects/people) & Stylistic
 What is its style?
 Definition: an artist’s distinctive manner of
producing an object.
 Period Style ( of a certain time within a specific culture),
Regional (tied to geography), Personal (distinctive manner
of individual artists or architects)
Critical Questions that should
ALWAYS be asked….
 What is its subject?
 The narrative; the story; the scene presented; the action’s time
and place; the person(s) involved; the environment & its
details
 Viewers must identify these aspects to achieve a full
understanding of the work.
 Categories: religious, historical, mythological, genre (daily
life), portraiture, landscape, still life.
 Iconography – “writing of images,” refers to both the
content (or subject of an artwork), but it also includes the
study of symbols, or images that stand for other images or
summarize ideas.
 Attributes: an object that identifies a figure, most
commonly referring to objects held by saints (earlier, by
pagan gods) – THINK EMBLEM.
What is the subject?
Duccio, 1308-11
Giotto, 1305
Critical Questions that should
ALWAYS be asked….
 Who made it?
 The artist(s) must be identified.
 Artist’s signature (rare until the Middle Ages)
 Via attribute, based on knowledge of an artist’s personal style
(requires a connoisseur & is subjective)
 School of artists, a group of artists working in the same style at
the same time and place
 Who paid for it?
 Patron, the person who paid an artist(s) to make
individual works or hired them on a continuing basis.
 Usually dictated the content and form. Artists had little
say in subject matter or form.
Artists & Patrons
Akhenaton (left) with his wife,
Queen Nefertiti, and three of
their daughters
Possible self-portrait of Giotto
Terminology
 Along the way, you will learn new vocabulary
that is intrinsic to the understanding the
material.
 Start a list and make your own dictionary, use the glossary
in the back of the book, or you can reference From Abacus to
Zeus: A Handbook of Art History.
 Language includes:
 The visual elements, principles of design, style,
form and content; lines, shapes and color.
 Various media: drawing, painting, printmaking,
camera, sculpture, etc
Vocabulary
 Form & Composition
 Form – an object’s shape and structure; either in 2D or
3D
 Composition – the organization of forms in an artwork
by either placing shapes on a flat surface or in space
 Material & Technique
 Material – pigment, clay, marble, gold, etc
 Technique – the distinctive, personal way the artist
handle their materials & tools
 Line
 Color
Vocabulary
 Texture
 Quality of a surface; rough, hard, smooth, soft, shiny,
dull. This is true texture.
 Represented Texture – objects are painted having a
certain texture
 Space, Mass & Volume
 Perspective & Foreshortening
 Perspective – illusion of depth or space on a 2D surface
 Foreshortening – a kind of perspective; the contraction
of an object and is shown at an angle; one part of the
object is farther away than the other, even though all the
forms are on the same surface.
Perspective
Relative, not linear perspective, because this style involves mathematical concepts and scientific
proportions like that of the Renaissance
2nd style, Still-Life, 1st c. B.C.
4th style, 1st c A.D.,
architectural painting
Vocabulary
 Proportion & Scale
 Proportion – a mathematical relationship between the
size of one part of an artwork or building and the other
parts within the work.
 Canons (or ideal) of proportions created by Vitruvius (Roman)
where every minute detail fits a mathematical ratio.
 Hierarchal Scale – enlarging of elements considered the
most important.
 Carving & Casting
 Both sculptural techniques.
 Carving – subtractive technique; final form is a
reduction of the original material used.
 Casting – additive technique; the artist builds up the
form(s)
Hierarchal Scale
Christ at the top in halo (youthful, holding cross),
so the power of emperor comes from God;
Christ gestured to Justinian to justify his rule
Palette of Narmer shows the unification of Upper and
Lower Egypt. Narmer’s divine power is conveyed
with his image on the front
Vocabulary
 Sculpture
 Freestanding – exist independent of any architectural
frame and are in the round
 Relief – subjects project from the background but remain
part of it.
 High relief – images look to be freestanding but aren’t. Usually
attached by a foot or hand.
 Low (bas-) relief – projection is slight
 Sunken relief – cutting the image into a flat surface
 Architectural Drawings
 Floor plan which includes architectural elements such as
vaults, ribs, aisles, flying buttresses and choirs
High & Low Relief
Why study art history?
 By studying art history the student is introduced to
one of the fundamental means of human
communication.
 In exploring the history of art one becomes aware of
the wide variety of ways humans have conceived of
themselves and their relationship to the surrounding
world.
 In studying other cultures we, thus, come to
understand how we are like and different from other
people.
 Through the study of art history, we learn about
ourselves and gain an understanding and respect for
people with different perspectives.
And lastly…
 The important thing to think about when looking
at art is:
1.) Find the connection between art and its social
and/or cultural context.
2.) Look for symbolism.
3.) Figure out the subject /content. What is it telling
us??
Class Website
http://websites.rcc.edu/herrera/