How to analyse Art?

The elements of painting are the basic components or building blocks of a painting. In Western
art, they are generally considered to be color, tone, line, shape, space, and texture.

Colour: Color (or hue) is at the heart of every painting. It is arguably the most important
element because it sets the tone for how viewers feel about the work. It can, for instance, be
warm and inviting or cold and stark. Either way, color can set the mood for a piece. Color can
be broken down further into hue, intensity, and value. Also, many artists choose to work with
a mother color when painting.

Tone: Tone and value are used interchangeably in painting. It is, essentially, how light or dark
a paint is when you strip away the color. At its most basic, tone can be best seen in grayscale:
Black is the darkest value and white the brightest. A well-rounded painting often has both of
these, with highlights and shadows adding to the overall effect of the piece.

Line: Line is defined as a narrow mark made by a brush, or a line created where two objects or
elements meet. It defines the subject of paintings and helps us imply things such as movement.
There are different types of lines, such as :

Vertical lines are straight up and down lines that are moving in space without any
slant and are perpendicular to horizontal lines. They suggest height and strength
because they extend towards the sky and seem unshakeable.

Horizontal lines are straight lines parallel to the horizon that move from left to right.
They suggest width, distance, calmness, and stability.

Diagonal lines are straight lines that slant in any direction except horizontal or
vertical. When in use, they suggest movement or lack of stability.

Zigzag lines are a series of diagonal lines joined at ends. They can convey action and
excitement, as well as restlessness and anxiety.
 Curved lines are lines that bend and change direction gradually. They can be simply
wavy or spiral. Such lines convey the feelings of comfort and ease, as well as sensual
quality as they remind us of the human body.

Shape: Every piece of artwork includes the element of shape, which ties into line and space. In
essence, a shape is an enclosed area that is made when lines meet. When that shape takes on a
third dimension (as in sculpture or some mixed media), we then also have form. shapes may be
either geometric or organic. The former are the triangles, squares, and circles we're all familiar
with. The latter are those shapes that are not well-defined or those found in nature.

Space: When talking about space in art, we think of the balance between positive and negative
space. Positive space is the subject itself while the negative space is the area of a painting
around it. Artists can play with a balance between these two spaces to further influence how
viewers interpret their work. For example, a landscape with a smaller tree and horizon (positive
space) that allows the sky (negative space) to take up most of the canvas can make a very
powerful statement. Likewise, painting a portrait in which the subject (positive) looks in the
direction of the negative space can be just as intriguing as it is when they were looking straight
at the viewer.

Texture: Paintings are the perfect medium to play with texture as well. This can be interpreted
as a pattern within the painting or the brushstrokes themselves.

The elements above are essential to paintings, though quite often we also add four more
elements to the list. One of the most important for any artist is composition.
Composition: Composition is the arrangement of the painting. Where you place the subject,
how the background elements support it, and every little piece that you add to the canvas
becomes part of the composition. It is critical to how the work is perceived. There are also
"elements of composition" to consider. These include unity, balance, movement, rhythm,
focus, contrast, pattern, and proportion. Each plays an important role in every painting, which
is why artists focus so much of their time on composition.

Direction: In art, the word "direction" is a broad term that can be interpreted in many ways.
Direction may also be used to refer to perspective. Where you place objects or how they're used
in proportion to others can direct a viewer through the art. In this sense, it's related to
movement as well and direction is an important aspect of design, no matter the medium.
Size: "Size" refers to the scale of the painting itself as well as the scale of proportions within
the painting's elements. The relationship between objects can also unknowingly disrupt a
viewer's perception and enjoyment. For instance, an apple that is larger than an elephant is
not natural. Less dramatically, we expect someone's eyes, lips, and nose to have a particular
balance in size.
 Cubism
In the four decades from 1870-1910, western society witnessed more technological progress
than in the previous four centuries. During this period inventions such as photography,
cinematography, sound recording, the telephone, the motor car and the airplane heralded the
dawn of a new age. The problem for artists at this time was how to reflect the modernity of
the era using the tired and trusted traditions that had served art for the last four centuries.
Photography had begun to replace painting as the tool for documenting the age and for artists
to sit illustrating cars, planes and images of the new technologies was not exactly rising to the
challenge. Artists needed a more radical approach - a 'new way of seeing' that expanded the
possibilities of art in the same way that technology was extending the boundaries of
communication and travel. This new way of seeing was called Cubism - the first abstract
style of modern art. Picasso and Braque developed their ideas on Cubism around 1907 in
Paris and their starting point was a common interest in the later paintings of Paul Cézanne.

Paul Cézanne was not primarily interested in creating an illusion of depth in his painting and
he abandoned the tradition of perspective drawing. Perspective, which had been used since
the Early Renaissance, was a geometric formula that solved the problem of how to draw
three-dimensional objects on a two dimensional surface. Cézanne felt that the illusionism of
perspective denied the fact that a painting is a flat two-dimensional object. He liked to flatten
the space in his paintings to place more emphasis on their surface - to stress the difference
between a painting and reality. He saw painting in more abstract terms as the construction
and arrangement of colour on a two-dimensional surface. It was this flat abstract approach
that appealed to the Cubists and their early paintings, such as Picasso's 'Factory at Horta de
Ebbo' (1909) and Braque's 'Viaduct at L'Estaque' (1908,) took it to an extreme.

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) Bibemus Quarry (oil on canvas, 1895)

Picasso's 'Factory at Horta de Ebbo' (1909)

Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, colour, and space. Instead, they
presented a new reality in paintings that depicted radically fragmented objects. Cubism
derived its name from remarks that were made by the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who derisively
described Braque’s 1908 work Houses at L’Estaque as being composed of cubes. 

Houses at L’Estaque 
In Braque’s painting, the volumes of the houses, the cylindrical forms of the trees, and the
tan-and-green colour scheme are reminiscent of Paul Cézanne’s landscapes, which deeply
inspired the Cubists in their first stage of development (until 1909). The limitations of
perspective were also seen as an obstacle to progress by the Cubists. The fact that a picture
drawn in perspective could only work from one viewpoint restricted their options. As the
image was drawn from a fixed position, the result was frozen, like a snapshot - but the
Cubists wanted to make pictures that reached beyond the rigid geometry of perspective. They
wanted to introduce the idea of 'relativity' - how the artist perceived and selected elements
from the subject, fusing both their observations and memories into the one concentrated
image.

When you look at an object your eye scans it, stopping to register on a certain detail before
moving on to the next point of interest and so on. You can also change your viewpoint in
relation to the object allowing you to look at it from above, below or from the side.
Therefore, the Cubists proposed that your sight of an object is the sum of many different
views and your memory of an object is not constructed from one angle, as in perspective, but
from many angles selected by your sight and movement. Cubist painting, paradoxically
abstract in form, was an attempt at a more realistic way of seeing.

A typical Cubist painting depicts real people, places or objects, but not from a fixed
viewpoint. Instead it will show you many parts of the subject at one time, viewed from
different angles, and reconstructed into a composition of planes, forms and colours. The
whole idea of space is reconfigured: the front, back and sides of the subject become
interchangeable elements in the design of the work.

The Cubists - Picasso, Braque and Gris

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque conceived and developed Cubism but other artists also
adopted the style. The Spanish artist Juan Gris, who is often referred to as the 'Third
Musketeer of Cubism', was the best of these and he refined the Cubist vocabulary into his
own instantly recognisable visual language.

Juan Gris (1887-1927) Violin and Glass (oil on canvas, 1915

Other notable artists associated with Cubism were Fernand Leger, Robert Delaunay, Albert
Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Louis Marcoussis, Marie Laurencin and Roger de La Fresnaye.

The Influence of African Art on Cubism

The Cubists believed that the traditions of Western art had become exhausted and another
remedy they applied to revitalize their work was to draw on the expressive energy of art from
other cultures, especially African art. However, they were not interested in the true religious
or social symbolism of these cultural objects, but valued them superficially for their
expressive style.

Cubism had two distinct phases. The early phase which lasted from 1910 to 1912 was called
Analytical Cubism. Picasso and Braque favoured right-angle and straight-line construction,
though occasionally some areas of their paintings appear sculptural, as in Picasso’s Girl with
a Mandolin (1910). 

Here the artist analysed the subject from many different viewpoints and reconstructed it
within a geometric framework, the overall effect of which was to create an image that evoked
a sense of the subject. These fragmented images were unified by the use of a subdued and
limited palette of colours. They simplified their colour schemes to a nearly monochromatic
scale (hues of tan, brown, gray, cream, green, or blue were preferred) in order not to distract
the viewer from the artist’s primary interest—the structure of form itself. These planes appear
to move beyond the surface of the canvas rather than to recede in depth. Forms are generally
compact and dense in the centre of an Analytical Cubist painting, growing larger as they
diffuse toward the edges of the canvas, as in Picasso’s Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1909–
10).

In their work from this period, Picasso and Braque frequently combined representational
motifs with letters; their favourite motifs were musical instruments, bottles, pitchers, glasses,
newspapers, and the human face and figure. Around 1912, the styles of Picasso and Braque
were becoming predictable. Their images had grown so similar that their paintings of this
period are often difficult to tell apart. Their work was increasingly abstract and less
recognisable as the subject of their titles. Cubism was running out of creative steam. In an
attempt to revitalise the style and pull it back from total abstraction, Picasso began to glue
printed images from the 'real world' onto the surface of his still lifes. His painting 'Still Life
with Chair Caning', was the first example of this 'collage' technique and it opened the door
for himself and other artists to the second phase of the Cubist style: Synthetic Cubism.

Influenced by the introduction of bold and simple collage shapes, Synthetic Cubism moved
away from the unified monochrome surfaces of Analytic Cubism to a more direct, colourful
and decorative style. Although synthetic cubist images appear more abstract in their use of
simplified forms, the other elements of their composition are applied quite traditionally.
Interchanging lines, colours, patterns and textures, that switch from geometric to freehand,
dark to light, positive to negative and plain to patterned, advance and recede in rhythms
across the picture plain.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Still Life with Mandolin and Guitar (oil on canvas, 1924)

Works of this phase emphasize the combination, or synthesis, of forms in the picture. Colour
assumes a strong role in these works; shapes, while remaining fragmented and flat, are larger
and more decorative. Smooth and rough surfaces may be contrasted with one another, and
frequently foreign materials, such as newspapers or tobacco wrappers, are pasted on
the canvas in combination with painted areas. This technique, known as collage, further
emphasizes the differences in texture and, at the same time, poses the question of what is
reality and what is illusion.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Still Life with Chair Caning (oil on canvas, 1912)

it was adopted and further developed by many painters, including Fernand

Léger, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Juan Gris, Roger de la Fresnaye, Marcel
Duchamp, Albert Gleizes, and Jean Metzinger.

Though primarily associated with painting, Cubism also exerted a profound influence on
20th-century sculpture and architecture. The major Cubist sculptors were Alexander
Archipenko, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques Lipchitz. The adoption of the
Cubist aesthetic by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier is reflected in the shapes of the houses
he designed during the 1920s.

Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier

Beyond Cubism
Cubism was born in France but emigrated across Europe and integrated with the artistic
consciousness of several countries. It emerged as Futurism in Italy (illustrated above),
Vorticism in England, Suprematism and Constructivism in Russia, and Expressionism in
Germany. It also influenced several of the major design and architectural styles of the 20th
century and prevails to this day as mode of expression in the language of art.
Cubism Points
 Cubism was invented around 1907 in Paris by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
 Cubism was the first abstract style of modern art.
 A Cubist painting ignores the traditions of perspective drawing and shows you many
views of a subject at one time.
 The Cubists introduced collage into painting.
 The Cubists were influenced by art from other cultures, particularly African masks.
 There are two distinct phases of the Cubist Style: Analytical Cubism (pre 1912) and
Synthetic Cubism (post 1912)
 Cubism influenced many other styles of modern art including Orphism, Futurism,
Vorticism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Expressionism

(2) An Introduction to Cubism - YouTube