Instructor: S.Worley
STUDENT NAME:_______________________
MUSEUM ASSIGNMENT WORKSHEET
Choose an artwork on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (mfah.org) or the Menil
Collection (menil.org) DATING BEFORE 1400CE (PREHISTORIC – LATE MEDIEVAL).
Artist:________________________ Region/Country____________________
Title:__________________________ Date:____________________________
Medium:_______________________ Style:____________________________
Patron:________________________
Cultural context and artist’s biography (see museum label and museum catalogues of
general collections located in museum bookstores and libraries):
Patron:
Visual Elements: In taking notes on the various visual elements, be sure to relate them directly to
the artist and style. In other words consider how the handling of paint (precise or loose
brushwork) is characteristic of a specific artist’s style. Or is the abstraction and stylization or
ideal and naturalistic representation of the human form characteristic of a particular region, style
and culture?
Subject (who or what is represented):
Style (Period, Regional; Abstract and Stylized or Realistic, Naturalistic, Ideal?):
Iconography (symbolism or narrative):
Form (shape or structure; 2 dimensional or 3 dimension):
Composition (arrangement of forms in space; balanced; symmetrical; asymmetrical)
Technique (handling of materials):
Line (contour; implied line of sight; thick; precise; broken):
Light (natural; reflected; implied inside or outside the picture frame):
Color (value/tonality (light or dark) /hue (name) /saturation or intensity (relative purity)
Chiaroscuro (shading or modeling of form with dark and light):
Texture (quality of surface; rough, shiny, smooth):
Mass (bulk density):
Volume (space mass organizes):
Perspective (linear, aerial (atmospheric), intuitive):
Foreshortening (figures represented at angles to the picture plane surface and literally shortened to
create the illusion of 3-D and projection into space):
Proportion (relation of parts to the whole; i.e. ideal canon of human proportions; contrapposto
pose):
Scale (relative size relation between members of a group; hierarchy of scale: one figure is larger
than the rest):