Chap 3 notes

Art 211 Art Appreciation
Chapter 3 notes

Chapter 3 – Visual Elements

Visual elements –
- Picture plane – 2 dimensional (2D) surface (flat), can be covered with lines, shapes, textures, and other elements
- Sculpture – 3 dimensional (3D) using the same elements in 3D
Line – paths of action
- Characteristics of line –
Active, static, aggressive, or passive, sensual or mechanical
Indicate directions, define boundaries of shape and space, imply volume or solid mass, suggest motion or emotion, light and shadow, form patterns and textures
- Implied line – suggests visual connections
Shape – 2D, expanse within an outline when drawing
Geometric shapes – circles, triangles, squares
Organic shapes – irregular, curving, rounded, relaxed, informal, nature
- Positive/figure shapes - subject or dominant shapes on the picture plane
- Negative/ground shapes – background areas
- Figure-ground reversal
- Foreground – objects closest to the bottom of the picture plane
- Middle ground – objects in the middle of the picture plane
- Back ground – objects at the back of the picture plane
Mass/Form – 3D, physical bulk of a solid body of materials
- Volume – mass enclosing space
- Closed form – a form that does not interact with the space around it
- Open form – interacts with the surrounding space
Space – continuous, infinite, and ever present – visual arts are spatial, organized in space
- 3D space – our relationship to objects in space
- 2D space – is defined by height and width, implied
Implied depth on a 2D surface
- Overlapping – one shape in front of another
- Diminishing size – shapes get small farther back in space
- Vertical placement – objects low on the picture plane are larger, high or further back are smaller
Linear perspective – the way objects appear in space to the eye
- Vanishing point – converging points on the horizon
- Horizon line – your eye level as you look at a scene
- Eye level – imaginary plane parallel with the ground plane extending to the horizon
- Vantage point – single fixed position
- One point perspective – all lines are parallel but visually appear to converge at a single point
- Two point perspective – 2 sets of parallel lines appear to converge at two points on the horizon line
Atmospheric perspective – nonlinear means giving the illusion of depth created by color, value, and detail
Implied motion – to create a sense of movement

Light – everything we see is made visible by light – light dramatically changes the way we perceive things
- Chiaroscuro - use of graduations of light and shade, forms are revealed by subtle shifting from light to dark areas, no sharp outlines – Caravaggio
Color - a component of light affects our thoughts, moods, actions, and health
- Achromatic – means without the property of hue/color – black, white, and gray – neutral color
- Hue – is interchangeable with the word color,
- Value – lightness or darkness of a color, white added to a hue makes a lighter color, black added to a hue makes a darker color
- Shade – black added to a hue
- Tint – white added to a hue
- Intensity or Saturation – is the purity of a hue. A pure hue is the most intense form of a color at its highest or brightest saturation. With color when another color is added to a pure hue, the color is dulled.
- Primary colors – red, blue, and yellow – cannot be produced by intermixing any other colors
- Secondary colors – orange, green, and violet – are mixed from a combination of 2 primary colors to produce a secondary color.
Red + blue = violet, red + yellow = orange, blue + yellow = green
- Tertiary or intermediate colors – red-orange, yellow–orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue- violet, and red-violet
- Warm colors – red, yellow, orange side of color wheel
- Cool colors – blue, green, violet side of the color wheel
Color schemes – color groupings that create distinct color harmony
- Monochromatic – one color plus black and white
- Analogous – 3 – 5 colors next to each other on the color wheel
- Complementary – 2 colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel
Texture – tactile qualities – touch, feel
- Actual textures – feel by touching
- Implied textures – created to look like something on a flat surface