CHAPTER TWO

The Languageof the Visua l Artist

The visual arts have their own language, and the artistthinks in tercos of that language, just as a musician thinksin sounds and rhythms, and a mathematician in num-bers. The basic visual vocabulary consists of the so-calledformal elements of style, which include Line, shape, color,light, and dark. When artists combine these elements in acharacteristic way, they are said to have a style . In orderto describe and analyze a work of art it is helpful to befamiliar with the artist's perceptual vocabulary.

FormIn its broadest cense, the form of a work of art-literary,musical, or visual-refers to its overall plan, composition,or structure. It denotes the relationship between compo-nent parts, whether chapters of a book, movements of asymphony, or lines and colors of a painting. The form of awork depends on how its formal elements are arrangedor organized, and is distinct from its subject matter orcontent . In a narrower sense, the form of an object mayrefer to its shape, which can also be a component, orelement, within its overall organization.

Balance

In a successful composition, the harmonious blending ofthe formal elements gives the work its balance . The mostsimple form of balance is symmetry. This is a term whoseoriginal meaning is that there is an exact correspondenceof parts on either side of an axis or dividing line. In otherwords, the left side of a work is a mirror image of the rightside. The human body is an example of this type of bal-ance, as shown in Leonardo's Vitruvian Man (fig. 16.2).

Balance can also be achieved when non-equivalent ele-ments balance each other. In Berniní s David (fig. 19.14),for example, the weight of the figure is not evenly dis-tributed on either side of the central axis. However,although the parts are not in perfect symmetry, there is abalance or equilibrium between them which produces anesthetically satisfying result. This is known as asymmetricalbalance.

LineA une is the path traced by a moving point. For the artist,the moving point is the tip of the brush, pen, crayon, orwhatever instrument is used to create an image on a sur-face. In geometry, a line has no width or volume; in fact ithas no qualities at all except for location. In the languageof art, however, a line can have many qualities, dependingon how it is drawn (fig. 2.1). A vertical line seems to standstiffly at attention, a horizontal line lies down, and a diag-onal seems to be falling over. Zigzags have an aggressive,sharp quality, whereas a wavy line is more graceful and,like a curve, more naturally associated with the outline ofthe human body. Parallel lines are balanced and harmo-nious, implying an endless, continuous movement, whileperpendicular, converging, and intersecting lines meetand create a sense of force and counterforce. The thinline (a) seems delicate, unassertive, even weak. The thickone (b) seems aggressive, forceful, strong. The flat line(c) suggests calmness, like the surface of a calm sea,whereas the wavy line (d) implies the reverse. The angularline (e) climbs upward like the edge of a rocky mountain.(Westerners understand (e) as going up and (f) as goingdown, as we read from left to right.)

Expressive Qualities of LineMany of the lines in figure 2.1 are familiar from geometryand can therefore be described formally. But the formalqualities of line also convey an expressive character be-cause we identify them with our bodies and our experi-ence of nature. So, in math, a straight line is the shortestdistance between two points and, likewise, a person whofollows a straight, clear line in thought or action is be-lieved to have a sense of purpose. "Straight" is associatedwith rightness, honesty, and truth, while "crooked"-whether referring to a line or a person's character-de-notes the opposite qualities. We speak of a "line of work,"a phrase adopted by the former television program"What's my Line?" When a baseball player hits a une drive,the bat connects firmly with the ball, and a "hardliner"takes a strong position on an issue.

LINE 25

Regular Lines

Vertical Horizontal Curved

2.2 Lines used to create facial expressions.

Diagonal

Wavy or S-shaped

Spiral

Lines in Relation to Each Other

Zigzag

Parallel Perpendicular Converging Intersecting(at right angles)

Irregular Lines

(d)

2.1 Lines.

(c)

In the configuration of the face, it is especially easy tosee the expressive impact of u nes (fig. 2.2). In (a), theupward curves create a happy face, and the downwardcurves of (b) create a sad one. These characteristics ofupward and downward curves actually correspond tothe emotions as expressed in natural physiognomy. Andthey are reflected in language when we speak of peoplehaving "ups and downs" or of events being "uppers" or"downers."

Speeches (fig. 2.3), drawn by Saul Steinberg, uses onlyline to convey the character of the two figures and their"dialogue." The enlarged curvilinear head and neck of thewoman and the long horizontal of the dogs head corre-spond to their speech. The floral curlicues "spoken" by thewoman seem mellifluous and demure like her pose, whilethe harsh zigzags coming from the dog's mouth suggest asharp, rasping bark. Reinforcing this effect are the diag-onals of its eyebrow and pointed tail, which are contrastedwith the wide-eyed, open expression of the woman.

2.3 Saul Steinberg, Speeches. 1954. Steinberg was born in Romaniaand studied architecture in Milan before emigrating to the U.S.A. Since1940 he has been a regular contributor to the New Yorker. He hasdescribed drawing as "a way of reasoning on papen'; to make a gooddrawing, he has said, "one has to teil the truth."

26 2 THE LANGUAGE OF THE VISUAL ARTIST

The importance of line in the artist's vocabulary is illus-trated by an account of two ancient Greek painters,Apelles, who was Alexander the Great's personal artist,and his contemporary Protogenes. Apelles traveled toRhodes to see Protogenes' work, but when he arrived atthe studio, Protogenes was away. The old woman incharge of the studio asked Apelles to leave his name.Instead, Apelles took up a brush and painted a line of coloron a panel prepared for painting. "Say it was this person,"Apelles instructed the old woman.

When Protogenes returned and saw the line, he im-mediately recognized that only Apelles could have paintedit so perfectly. In response, Protogenes painted a second,and finer, line on top of Apelles' line. Apelles returned andadded a third line of color, leaving no more room on theoriginal line. When Protogenes returned a second time, headmitted defeat and went to look for Apelles.

Protogenes decided to levve the panel to posterity assomething for artists to marvel at. Later it was exhibited inRome, where it impressed viewers for its nearly invisiblelines on a vast surface. To many artists, the panel seemeda blank space, and for that it was esteemed over otherfamous works. After his encounter with Protogenes, it wassaid that Apelles never let a day go by without drawing atleast one line. His experience was the origin of an ancientproverb, "No day without a line."

The parallel modeling lines on the front surface of thecube are called hatching . If they intersect other parallellines , as in the cylinder and the oblique surface of the cube,they are known as cross -hatching . The closer the lines areto each other, the darker their surface. They suggest shadeor shading, which is a gradual transition from light todark. Shading appears on the side of the object that isturned away from the light source. A shadow is seen asdark and denotes the absence of light; it is cast onto a sur-face when the source of light is blocked by another object.

DepthIn some styles the artist creates the illusion of three-dimensional depth in a two-dimensional image. Tech-niques for achieving this effect include:

• use of modeling lines to simulate three-dimensionality(fig. 2.4)

• making the nearer object overlap a more distant one• depicting the nearer object as larger than the more

distant object• making the base of the nearer object close to the lower

edge of the picture and, conversely, the base of themore distant object closer to the horizon line.

Lines Used for ModelingEven though drawn lines have only two dimensions,height and width, they can be used by an artist to make anobject appear three-dimensional (fig. 2.4).

2.4 The fines inside the sphere, cube, and cylinder create the illusionthat these objects are solid. They also suggest that there is a source oflight coming from the upper left and shining down on the objects. Suchfi nes are called modeling fines.

Perspective

Artists have also developed mathematical systems, knownas linear or geometric perspective , to aid them in cre-ating the illusion of depth. The simplest system is one-point perspective . Imagine a person standing in themiddle of a straight road (fig. 2.5). As the road vanishesinto the distance, it seems to the viewer to narrow, eventhough in reality its width is constant. The illusion of depthis enhanced by the fact that equal-sized and equally spacedobjects along the side of the road (trees, telegraph poles)seem to become smaller, and the spaces between themshorter (or foreshortened ), as their distance from theviewer increases.

In early fifteenth-century Italy (see Chapter 15), a systemwas developed to provide artists with a method for de-picting figures and objects as if located at increasing dis-tances from the viewer. The picture plane (the surface ofa painting or relief sculpture) is conceived of as a window,whose frame conforms to the frame of the painting. Theedges of rectilinear objects in the picture (often architec-tural features such as roofs, walls, rows of columns) areextended along imaginary "lines of sight." These lines,called orthogonals (from two Greek words, orthos mean-ing "right" or "straight," and gonia meaning "angle"), areperpendicular to the picture plane and parallel to eachother. Although parallel lines never meet in reality, theorthogonals seem to converge at a point known as thevanishing point (fig. 2.5). In the simplest form of thismethod, the vanishing point is on the horizon, at the eyelevel of the viewer, but it can theoretically be anywhere

SHAPE 27

ShapeWhen lines endose a space, they create a shape, and theline that outlines the shape is called its contour. Shapesare another basic unit, or formal element, used by artists.There are regular and irregular shapes. Regular ones aregeometric and Nave specific names. Irregular shapes arealso called "biomorphs," or biomorphic (from the Greekbios, meaning "life" and morphe, meaning "shape") be-cause they seem to move like live, organic matter. Shapescan be two-dimensional (fig. 2.7) or three-dimensional, inwhich case they are solid or have volume (fig. 2.4).

2.5 Diagram of one-point perspective.

Vanishing

point

Horizon

Vanishing

point

Expressive Qualities of ShapeLike lines, shapes can be used by artists to convey ideasand emotions. Open shapes create a greater sense ofmovement than closed ones (fig. 2.7). Similarly, we speakof open and closed minds; open minds allow for a flowof ideas, flexibility, and the willingness to entertain newpossibilities. Closed minds, on the other hand, are in-accessible to new ideas.

Specific shapes can evoke associations with every-day experience. Squares, for example, are symbols of

Regular Two-Dimensional Geometric Shapes

2.6 Diagram of two-point perspective.

inside the composition, or even outside it, depending onthe artist's organization of content and space. This systemcan be used when one side of the object providing theorthogonals is parallel to the picture plane. It focusesattention on a single vanishing point and assumes thatthe viewer is standing at a single fixed spot.

Two-point perspective is used when objects are set atan angle to the picture plane. For example, if the artiststands at a street corner and paints a building situateddiagonally across the intersection on the opposite corner,there will be no facing surface parallel to the picture plane(fig. 2.6). One-point perspective will not work, becausethere are two vanishing points on the horizon which arewidely separated from each other. If a picture containsmany buildings or objects, each with its own orthogonals,there can be a number of vanishing points (multiple-pointperspective).

Circle Square

LI vRectangle Oval

0 D OTriangle Trapezoid Hexagon

Irregular , or Biomorphic, Two-Dimensional Shapes

Open Shapes Closed Shapes

2.7 Shapes.

28 2 THE LANGUAGE OF THE VISUAL ARTIST

reliability, stability, and symmetry. To call people"foursquare" means that they are forthright and unequiv-ocal, that they confront things "squarely." If something is"all square," a certain equity or evenness is implied; a"square meal" is satisfying in both amount and content.When the term "brick" is applied to people, it meansthat they are good-natured and reliable. Too much rec-tangularity, on the other hand, may imply dullness ormonotony-to call someone "a square" suggests over-conservatism or conventionality.

The circle has had a special significance for artists sincethe Neolithic era (see p.43). In the Roman period, the circlewas considered a divine shape and thus most suitable fortemples. This view of the circle persisted in the MiddleAges and the Renaissance, when ideal church plans werealso circular.

The appeal of the circle's perfection is illustrated by aRenaissance anecdote about Giotto. As the story goes, thepope's messengers scoured Italy to find the best livingartist. When a messenger arrived at Giotto's studio andasked for a sample of his work, the artist took up a pieceof paper and brush. He held out his arm stiffly as if to makea compass of his whole body and drew a circle. When thepuzzled messenger asked the meaning of his action, Giottotold him to take the picture to the pope, who would under-stand. As soon as the pope saw Giotto's O, he recognizedhis genius and summoned him to Rome. From that anec-dote carne the expression, "You are more stupid thanGiotto's O."

Light and ColorUght may be technically defined as electromagneticenergy of certain wavelengths which produces visual sen-sations when it strikes the retina of the eye. The opposite,or the absence, of light is darkness. Color, one of the mostpowerful elements at the artist's disposal, is derived fromlight. Rays of light emanating from the sun are composedof waves with various wavelengths (i.e. they vibrate atvarious frequencies), and these are perceived by thehuman brain as different colors. This can be examinedscientifically by passing a beam of light through a prism (atriangular block of glass): each wavelength is refracted, orbent, at a different angle. Light can be reflected on to ascreen as a continuous band composed of separate colors(fig. 2.8)-basically the same phenomenon as a rainbow,when rays of light from the sun are refracted throughfalling raindrops.

Each beam of light contains all the colors of the spec-trum; but objects look as though they have different colorsbecause they have pigmentation which allows them to ab-sorb certain color waves and reflect others. We see atomato as red because its pigmentation absorbs everycolor of the spectrum except red, which it reflects. The col-oring materials, or pigments, that artists use also absorband reflect different waves. If applied to the surface of anobject, the pigment transfers this quality to the object. The

2.8 The visible spectrum has seven principal colors-red, orange,yellow, green, blue, indigo (or blue-violet), and violet-that blendtogether in a continuum. Beyond the ends is a range of other colors,starting with infrared and ultraviolet, which are invisible to the humaneye. If all the colors of the spectrum are recombined, white light isagain produced.

colors produced through the use of pigments are not as

pure or intense as the colors in the spectrum. Either theyreflect more than one color, or they reflect one color plus acertain amount of white light, which makes the basic color

less intense. If all pigments were recombined, the result

would not be pure white but, at best, a pale shade of gray(see p.29).

Objects that are white, gray, or black (known asneutrals ) reflect all (or none) of the colors in a ray of lightand differ among themselves only in the amount of lightthat they reflect. Pure white reflects all color waves;absolute black (which is very rare) reflects no light at all;shades of gray reflect different amounts of light-thedarker the gray, the less light is reflected.

Physical Properties of ColorThere are seven principal colors in the spectrum. Each ofthe seven has many variations, which depend on the threephysical properties of color: hue, value, and intensity.

Hue This is virtually synonymous with color. Red is onehue, yellow is another. Each has a different wavelength.Mixing one color with another changes its wavelength andhence its hue. Red plus yellow, for example, producesorange; adding more red makes a reddish orange andadding yellow makes a yellowish orange.

Red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors. Theycannot themselves be produced by combining any othercolors. However, all of the other colors can be created bymixing the primary colors either in pairs or all together. Amixture of two primary colors produces a secondarycolor: yellow and blue produces green, blue and red pro-duces violet, red and yellow produces orange. A tertiary

LIGHT AND COLOR 29

or intermediate color can be formed by combining a pri-mary with an associated secondary color. Thus mixinggreen (which already contains blue) with more blue pro-duces a blue-green; mixing violet (which also containsblue) with more blue produces a blue-violet. The numberof intermediate colors is unlimited because the propor-tions of each mixture can be varied to an unlimited degree.

Hues containing a common color, although in differentproportions, are known as analogous hues and theircombination produces a feeling of color harmony in awork of art. If only a single hue is used, the work is said tobe monochromatic (from the Greek mono, meaning"single" and chroma, meaning "color").

The color wheel (fig. 2.9) illustrates the relationshipsbetween the various colors. The farther away hues are, theless they have in common, and the higher their contrast.Hues directly opposite each other on the wheel (red andBreen, for example) are thus the most contrasting and areknown as complementary colors . They are often juxta-posed when a strong, eye-catching contrast is desired.Christmas colors, for example, are red and Breen, andEaster colors are commonly purple and yellow. Mixingtwo complementary hues, on the other hand, has a neu-tralizing effect and lessens the intensity of each. This canbe seen in figure 2.9 as you look across the wheel fromred to green. The red's intensity decreases, and the graycircle in the center represents a "stand-off' between all thecomplementary colors.

Value The relative lightness or darkness of an image isknown as its value, also referred to as brightness, shade,or tone. An object's value is a function of the amount oflight reflected from its surface. Gray, for example, reflectsmore light than black but less than white, which makesgray lighter than black and darker than white. Thevalue scale in figure 2.10 provides an absolute value fordifferent shades. But, in fact, our visual perceptions aremore relative than absolute and are "colored" by thecontext in which we perceive something. For example, infigure 2.11 the band across the center is of a uniformshade of medium gray (i.e. it has the same value through-out). However, when seen alongside the darker gray onthe right it looks lighter, and vice versa on the left. Artistsare constantly aware of the absolute values of the shadeswith which they are working and of the effect of juxta-posing different colors.

Value is characteristic of both achromatic works ofart-those with no color, consisting of black, white, andshades of gray-and of chromatic ones (from the Greekchroma, meaning "color'). On a scale of color values (fig.2.12), yellow reflects a relatively large amount of light, ap-proximately equivalent to "high light" on the neutral scale,whereas blue is equivalent to "high dark." The normalvalue of each color indicates the amount of light it reflectsat its maximum intensity. The addition of white or blackwould alter its value (i.e. make it lighter or darker) but notits hue. The addition of one color to another would changenot only the values of the two colors but also their hues.

P"PI- {a,ed P^^PIe

2.9 The color wheel. Note that the three primary colors red,yellow and blue-are equally spaced around the circumference. Theyare separated by their secondary colors. Between each primary andits two secondaries are their related tertiaries, giving a total of twelvehues on the rim of the wheel.

Intensity In darkness, colors are invisible; in dim lightthey are muted and difficult to distinguish; in brightlight, color is at its most intense. Intensity (also known assaturation or chroma) refers to the brightness or dullnessof a color. There are four methods of changing the intensi-ty of colors. The first is to add white. Adding white to purered creates light red or pink, which is lighter in value andless intense. If black is added, the result is darker in valueand less intense. If gray of the same value as the red isadded, the result is less intense but retains the same value.These three methods are illustrated in figure 2.13. Thefourth way of changing a color's intensity is to add itscomplementary hue. For example, when green (a sec-ondary color composed of two primaries, yellow and blue)is added to red, gray is produced as a consequence of thebalance between the three primaries. If red is the domi-nant color in the mixture, the result is a grayish red; ifgreen is dominant, the product is a grayish green. In anyevent, the result is a color less intense and more neutralthan the original.

Expressive Qualities of ColorJust as lines and shapes have expressive qualities, so toodo colors. Artists select colors for their effect. Certain onesappear to have intrinsic qualities. Bright or warm colorsconvey a feeling of gaiety and happiness. Red, orange, andyellow are generally considered warm, perhaps because

30 2 THE LANGUAGE OF THE VISUAL ARTIST

2.10 This ten-step value scale breaks the various shades from whiteto black into ten gradations. The choice of ten is somewhat arbitrarybecause there are many more values between pure white and pureblack. Nevertheless, it does illustrate the principie of value gradations.

2.11 (below) The juxtaposition of objects with different tonal valuesproduces a contrast . Objects from opposite ends of the value scalecreate a very high or strong contrast-the simplest example is thejuxtaposition of black and white.

of their associations with fire and the sun. It has beenverified by psychological tests that the color red tends toproduce feelings of happiness. Blue and any other huecontaining blue-green, violet, blue-green-is consideredcool, possibly because of its association with the sky andwater. It produces feelings of sadness and pessimism (see,for example, the discussion of Picasso's Blue Period onp.452).

Colors can also have symbolic significance and suggestabstract qualities. A single color, such as red, can have

multiple meanings. It can symbolize danger, as when onewaves a red flag in front of a bull. But to "roll out the redcarpet" means to welcome someone in an extravagantway, and we speak of a "red letter day" when somethingparticularly exciting has occurred. Yellow can be associ-ated with cowardice, white with purity, and purple withluxury, wealth, and royalty. We might call people 'Breenwith envy," "purple with rage," or "in a brown study' ifthey are quietly gloomy. The great European plague of1348 is referred to as the Black Death.

LIGHT AND COLOR 31

19191919

1119191919Black Low dark

las

Low light Light

1900191919

High light

Blue-violet Blue Blue-green Green Yellow-green Yellow

2.12 (aboye ) A color value scale . The central row contains a range ofneutrals from white to black; the rows aboye and below match thetwelve colors from the color wheel with the neutrals in terms of theamount of light reflected by each.

Dark High dark Medium

Violet Red -violet Red Red -orange Orange Yellow-orange

2.13 (below) Changes of intensity.

White

Scale of neutrals

32 2 THE LANGUAGE OF THE VISUAL ARTIST

Textu reTexture (from the same word stem as the Latin texo, "Iweave") is another expressive quality at the artist's dis-posal. It refers to the surface characteristics of an object ormaterial. These are usually described by adjectives such asrough or polished, hard or soft, firm or fluffy, coarse orfine, cold (like steel) or warm (like wood), shiny or matte,stiff or pliable.

Texture is associated with the tactile sense (the sense oftouch), and indirectly with vision. By touching or feelingan object, we experience its texture directly. But our eyesalso have a role here. As soon as we see something, weeither recognize its texture from experience or make anassumption based on how it looks. When we explore art,the senses of sight and touch interact. Thus, a sculpture ofpolished bronze will look and feel hard and smooth.Unpolished marble will look and feel rough.

It is necessary to distinguish between actual texture andsimulated (or implied) texture. Actual texture is the surfacequality of a real object-canvas, marble, paint-which isthe artist's medium. When artists simulate texture, theycreate an illusion.

Until the latter part of the nineteenth century, it was cus-tomary for painters to use their medium to create illusionsof texture. During the past 150 years, however, certainpainters have begun to incorporate the literal, texturalquality of their medium into the work's impact. Brush-strokes have intentionally been made visible so as toarouse the viewer's sense of touch. More recently-sincethe late 1940s-many artists have emphasized the mediumto the point where its literal tactile character is a centralaspect of the image.

All of the formal elements of art-whether line, shape,light, dark, color, or texture-are arranged by artists tocreate images. Their final arrangement is called the com-position of the work. It involves such matters as balanceand harmony, the relationships of parts to each other andto the whole work, and the effect on the viewer.

Stylistic TerminologyCertain terms have become conventional in describingworks of art, especially with reference to their styles andshapes. Since they are used throughout this book, themost important are set out here.

The word "naturalistic" describes a work whose formsrepresent figures and objects as they are perceived innature. Related terms are as follows:

• figurative: representing the likeness of a recognizablehuman (or animal) figure.

• realistic : attempting to depict objects accurately, asthey actually are. In the nineteenth-century style calledRealism (see Chapter 23), artists consciously tried todepict everyday reality.

• representational: representing natural objects in recog-nizable form. Note that a work of art may be represen-tational without being realistic.

All of these terms can be applied to a painting such asLeonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (fig. 16.14).

If an image is representational but falls short of absolutefaithfulness to the original object, it may be that it is:

• stylized : emphasizing certain features, or distorted inaccordance with certain artistic conventions. Stylizedforms can be found in ancient Near Eastern art. Theeyebrows of Gudea (fig. 4.14), for example, are identi-fiable by virtue of their position aboye the eyes, but theydo not replícate the natural appearance of eyebrows.

• romanticized : emphasizing characteristics which showthe subject matter in a "romantic" light. Chapter 22 con-siders the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuryRomantic style.

• idealized : representing a figure or object according toan ideal of beauty or perfection accepted at that time.Perhaps the most idealized depictions of the human fig-ure in western art come from the Greek Classical period(see Chapter 7).

If the shapes within a work of art bear little or no re-lation to observable or natural objects, they may be called:

• nonrepresentational, or nonfigurative : the oppositeof representational and figurative, implying that the artdoes not represent real objects or subject matter.Examples of such work appear in Chapters 26 to 29.Certain Abstract Expressionist works contain no recog-nizable figures or objects.

• abstract : not representing observable objects, but de-rived or abstracted from real things. Often the artist isattempting to depict the essence, or intrinsic qualities,of an object. The result may be representational, in thatthe viewer can still recognize the original object.

The transition from naturalism to geometric abstractionis encapsulated by the early twentieth-century Dutch artistTheo van Doesburg in figure 2.14. He gradually changedhis drawing of a cow from image (a), which could be callednaturalistic, figurative, or representational, to image (e),which is an abstract arrangement of fiat squares and rect-angles. In (a) and (b), the cow's form is recognizable as thatof a cow-it is composed of curved outlines and a shadedsurface that creates a three-dimensional illusion. In image(c), the cow form is still recognizable, especially as itfollows (a) and (b). It is now devoid of curves, but stillshaded-it has become a series of volumetric (solid, geo-metric) shapes. Even in image (d), the general form of thecow is recognizable in terms of squares, rectangles, andtriangles, but there is no longer any shading. As a result,each distinct color area is flat. In image (e), however, theshapes can no longer be related to the original naturalform. It is thus a pure abstraction, and is also nonfigurativeand nonrepresentational.

(a)

(c)

(e)

STYLISTIC TERMINOLOGY 33

(b)

(d)

2.14 Theo van Doesburg , Study for Composition (The Cow). 1916-17.(a) and (b) pencil, 45/8 X 6% in (11.7 x 15.9 cm); (c) pencil, 4%a X53/4 in (10.4 x 14.6 cm); (d) tempera , oil, and charcoal , 155/a X 223/4 in(39.7 x 57.8 cm); (e) oil on canvas , 143/4 X 25 in (37.5 X 63.5 cm). TheMuseum of Modern Art, New York ((a), (b), (d), (e) Purchase, (c) Giftof Nelly van Doesburg).

34 2 THE LANGUAGE OF THE VISUAL ARTIST

Subject Matter , Content, andIconographyThe subject matter of a painting refers, not surprisingly, towhat is represented, such as figures, landscape, inanimateobjects, or formal elements such as lines and shapes. Thecontent refers to themes or ideas contained in a work andmay include its subject matter. In western art there are cer-tain standard categories of subject matter:

• human (or animal) figures, either in generalized formor al portraits of specific individuals. This categorymay in turn be divided into subcategories that includereligious, historical, and mythological themes.

• landscape-scenes in which human figures are ab-sent or minimal; subcategories are cityscapes andseascapes.

• still life, in which the artist arranges inanimate objectsspecifically to be the subjects of an image.

• genre (the French word for "kind" or "sort")-scenes ofeveryday life.

The word iconography is used to refer to the signifi-cance of what is represented, the literal and symbolicmeanings of the imagery. In the Mona Lisa (fig. 16.14), forexample, the subject is a woman seated on a balcony infront of a landscape. The content includes the subject, butalso encompasses the traditional idea of the wornan in

relation to the landscape, even the woman as a metaphorfor landscape.

The iconography of the Mona Lisa has been the subjectof numerous studies and is fraught with controversy. Shehas been seen as a symbolic mountain because her formechoes the distant rock formations. Certain landscapedetails, such as the aqueduct, merge into the lines of herdrapery, and the spiral road repeats the undulating foldsof her sleeves. Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis (seep.448), thought that she evoked Leonardo's childhoodmemory of his mother-particularly her smile-and thatthis explained Leonardo's attachment to the figure's mys-terious expression. An American physician analyzed hersmile as a reflection of the serene inner satisfaction of apregnant woman, and a computer researcher identifiedher as Leonardo's self-portrait! Not all works of art areas elusive as the Mona Lisa, but her case illustrates thepotential complexity of nailing down a precise icono-graphic interpretation. Most good images are quitecomplex and Nave multiple layers of meaning.

Following this brief survey of some of the major visual ele-ments used by artists , we begin our historical sequence.Many important works of art are necessarily omitted froma book such as this. Nevertheless , what follows is an at-tempt to convey the remarkable range of western . art anda sense of the artists who created it.