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Look at and react to this artwork?
What is art history?
While animals are attracted to superficial appearances humans are enticed by the idea of
that which is hidden
THE FACTS
Artist: Ben Shahn
Title: The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti
Date: 1931
ART-MAKING: MATERIALS and TECHNIQUES
Medium: Oil Paint on Canvas
THE CONTENT
Subject Matter: What do you see? What is this an image of? What is the emotional content?
FORMAL ANALYSIS:
How is the picture put together? What are the visual characteristics/qualities of the artwork –
style?
CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Historical Context / Contextual Analysis: What is outside the picture
A social-realist painter
Painted urban life, organized labor, immigration and injustice.
Nicola Sacco and Batolomeo Vanzetti: Italian anarchists who many thought were
unjustly convicted of killing two men in a robbery in 1920.
The three men are members of the commission who declared the trial fair and cleared
the way for the executions.
Behind, on the wall of a government building is a picture of the judge who pronounced
the initial sentence.
MEANING / Purpose
Considering the subject matter, the historical context in which this work was made, and how
it looks what is the message does it communicate and purpose/function does it serve?
CONTENT
Describe What You See?
WHAT QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE
ABOUT THIS PAINTING?
CONTENT
WHO IS IN THE PAINTING?
Investigation of the Content
FACTS
WHO PAINTED IT?
WHEN and WHERE?
MATERIALS
What did the artist use to make it?
CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS
WHY WAS IT CREATED?
Investigation of what outside the
painting gave cause for its creation*
Formal Analysis
How is the subject matter
visually represented?
What are the visual
characteristics that define
artwork’s style?
WHAT IS THE MEANING?
What is the meaning or message that the artwork is
intended to communicate to its audience?
Content
MEANING / PURPOSE
Formal Analysis
(Style)
Contextual Analysis
(History)
Art history is not the practice of describing or evaluating
works of art. Rather it is the process by which we analyze an
artwork’s content, historical context, and visual qualities
(style) to determine it’s meaning purpose.
Facts
• Who made it: Artist
• When was it made: Date
• Where was it made: Culture, Location
Art-making: Medium and Technique,
Tools
What is the medium: The material used to make the artwork
Examples:
Painting Mediums: Tempera paint, Oil paint
Sculpture: Bronze, Marble
Architecture: Stone, Wood, Mud
What is the technique: How the artwork was made
Examples:
Painting techniques: Fresco, Plein Air, Perspective, Chiaroscuro
Sculpture: Casting, Reduction/Carving
Architecture: Arches and keystones
What are the tools needed for the medium/technique
Examples:
Painting: Brush, Pigments
Sculptures: Molds, Chisels
Architecture: Hoist and lever
Content
What is the subject matter?
Story, or narrative
The scene of the story presented
The action’s time and place
The person’s involved
The environment and details
Pictorial Subjects:
Religious
Historical
Mythological
Genre (daily life)
Portraiture
Landscape
CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS
the information about the painting you can’t see
• PATRON: Who commissioned it?
• HISTORICAL EVENTS AND BIG IDEAS: What
historical events and big ideas of the time
contributed to the selection and portrayal
of the subject matter
• LOCATION: Where was the art displayed?
• AUDIENCE: Who was intended to see it?
• FUNCTION: Where was the artwork
displayed and what role did it serve to it’s
audience?
Formal Analysis
• How is the artwork put together: Elements
of art and principles of design
• Period Style: What are the distinctive visual
characteristics that place the artwork in a
specific culture and time period?
• Regional Style: What are the distinctive
visual characteristics that place the artwork
in a specific location?
• Personal Style: What are the distinctive
visual characteristics that attribute an
artwork to a specific artist?
• How does the arrangement of the artwork
and it’s style reflect the historical context
of the painting?
Meaning
Synthesizing content, context and style
• What is the meaning or message that the
artwork is intended to communicate to its
audience?
• How does the artwork communicate the BIG
IDEAS OF THE TIME?
Themes In Art History
Art Historian categorize art by style, tim period and culture. However they also categorize by Theme.
The meaning and/or purpose of an artwork will relate to one or more themes in art history
Themes
• Power, authority and commemoration
• The Spiritual World/ Images of Religious Figures/Ritual Objects/Sacred Sites (temples, basilicas, and
cathedrals, and objects of worship/ritual)
• Propaganda
• Family, domesticity and everyday life
• Love, marriage, sex and procreation
• The human body
• Humanism
• Portraiture
• Technology
• Nature; man vs. nature
• The “Other”
• War, Violence in art
• Challenging the establishment/tradition
• Internal worlds/realities and the subconscious