Chapter One
ART IN YOUR WORLD
What is Art?
 A work of art is the visual
expression of an idea or experience
created with skill. Visual art is
more than paintings hanging on a
wall.
What is Art?
 Visual art includes:
 Drawing
 Printmaking
 Sculpture
 Architecture
 Photography
 Filmmaking
 Crafts
 Graphic
arts
 Industrial and
commercial
design
 Video
 Computer arts
Art as Communication
 Art is a language that artists use to
express ideas and feelings that
everyday words cannot express.
Through the arts, artists can convey
ideas in ways that go beyond describing
and telling.
Art as Communication
 To experience art fully, you
develop the ability to perceive. To
look is to merely notice an object with a
name such as “chair” or “house”. To
perceive is to become deeply aware
through the senses of the special
nature of a visual object.
The Purposes of Art
 People created art to record ideas and
feelings long before they had written
words. They used art as we use it
today. The following are some of the
most common functions of art:
The Purposes of Art
1) Personal Functions – art created to express
personal feelings.
 EXAMPLE – Edvard Munch’s The Sick
Child. The artist had a tragic childhood. His
mother died when he was very young and his sister
died when he was 14. This work was meant to
remind viewers of personal family tragedies.
The Purposes of Art
2) Social Function – Artists may produce art to
reinforce and enhance the shared sense of
identity of those in a family, community, or
civilization. That is why many families
commission or hire an artist or photographer to
produce a family portrait.
Example: Family Portraits
The Purposes of Art
3) Spiritual Function – Artists may create art
to express spiritual beliefs about the
destiny of life controlled by the force of a
higher power. Art produced for this purpose
may reinforce the shared beliefs of an
individual or a human community.
EXAMPLE - In Pueblo Scene: Corn
Dancers and Church the artists have created
a three-dimensional representation of a religious
festival that connects two cultures and two
religions.
The Purposes of Art
4) Physical Functions: Artists and
craftspeople constantly invent new ways to create
functional art. Industrial designers
discover new materials that make cars lighter
and stonger. Architects employ new building
materials such as steel-reinforced concrete to
give buildings more interesting forms.
Example: Furniture, buildings, cars
5) Educational Functions: In the past, many
people could not read and art was often created to
provide visual instruction In the Middle Ages,
artists created stained-glass windows, sculptures,
paintings, and tapestries to illustrate stories from the
Bible or about rulers of a kingdom.
EXAMPLE- Anne of Cleves shows us how people
from the past dressed and how they looked.
Lesson 2: Why do Artists
Create?
WHY DO ARTISTS CREATE?
 Where do artists get ideas? Artists are
creative individuals who use imagination and
skill to communicate in visual form. Artists look
to many sources for inspiration:
Nature
 People and real world events
 Myths & legends
 Spiritual & religious beliefs
 Creative techniques
 Artists of the Past
 Ideas commissioned by employers

Lesson 3: The Language of Art
THE LANGUAGE OF ART
 The Language of Art
A
symbol is something that stands for or
represents something else.
The Language of Art
 The
basic visual symbols of the language of
art are known as the Elements of Art.
These elements are the building blocks that
the artist puts together to create a work of
art.
The Language of Art
 The Elements of Art are:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
Line
Shape
Form
Space
Color
Value
Texture
The Language of Art
 After you have learned to recognize the elements of
art, you will learn the ways in which the elements can
be organized for different effects. When you learn a
language, you learn the rules of grammar by which
words are organized into sentences. These rules that
govern how artists organize the elements of art are
called the principles of art.
The Work of Art
 In art, it is important to understand the
three basic properties, or features, of an
artwork. These are:
The Subject
The Composition
The Content
The Work of Art
 The Subject: the image viewers can easily
identify in a work of art.
The Work of Art
 Nonobjective art: art that has no recognizable
subject matter.
The Work of Art
The Composition: the
way the principles
of art are used to
organize the
elements of art.
The Work of Art
The Content: the
message the work
communicates.
The Credit Line
 A credit line is a list of important
facts about a work of art. You will
see the credit line under a photo in our
textbook.
 Most credit lines contain at least six
facts. They are…
The Credit Line
 Name of the artist
 Title of the work. This is always in
italics
 Year the work was created. Sometimes
in the case of older works, “c” appears
before the year. This is an abbreviation
for circa, a Latin word meaning “about”
or “around”.
 Medium used by the artist. This is the
material used to make art. If more than one
medium is used, the credit line may read
“mixed media”.
 Location of the work. This names the
gallery, museum, or collection in which the
work is housed and the city, state, and
country. The names of the donors may also
be included.
The Credit Line
**Add this one to your notes**
 Size of the work. The first
number is always the height, the
second number is the width, and if
the work is three-dimensional, the
third number indicates the depth.
THE ELEMENTS OF ART
 Line - an element of art that is the path of a moving
point through space.
 Lines vary in appearance in 5 major ways:





Length
Width
Direction
Texture
Degree of Curve
 A line is also used by an artist to control the viewer’s
eye movement.
 There are five kinds of lines:
Vertical
 horizontal
 diagonal
 curved
 zigzag.

THE ELEMENTS OF ART
 Shape – A two-dimensional area that is defined in
some way. While a form has depth, a shape has only
height and width. Shapes are either geometric or
free-form (organic).
 Form – objects having three dimensions. Like a
shape, a form has height and width, but it also has
depth. Forms are either geometric or free-form
(organic).
 Space – the element of art that refers to the
emptiness or area between, around or above, below,
or within objects. Shapes and forms are defined by
space around and within them.
 Color – An element of art that is derived from
reflected light. The sensation of color is triggered in
the brain by a response of the eyes to different
wavelengths of light. Color has three properties:
hue, value, and intensity.
 Value – the element of art that describes the
darkness or lightness of an object. Value depends on
how much light a surface reflects. Value is also one
of the three properties of color.
 Texture – the element of art that refers to how
things feel, or look as if they might feel if touched.
Texture is perceived by touch and sight. Objects can
have rough or smooth textures and matte or shiny
surfaces.