Visual Elements of Art

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say in any other way – things I had no words for.

–Georgia O’Keeffe

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The Language of Art

With the “Language of Art,” we are able to communicate thoughts and feelings about our visual and tactile experiences in our world

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Visual Elements of Art

1. Explore the basic vocabulary or visual elements in the “Language of Art”

2. This lecture serves as the building block around which an art form is constructed

3. Visual elements have the capacity to evoke thoughts and emotions

1. Line is the simplest and also the most complex of the elements of art

2. Line serves as the basic building block for all art

3. Line has the capacity to evoke thoughts and emotions

Line

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Characteristics of a Line

1. Measure of line2. Expressive qualities of line

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Types of Line

1. Contour Lines2. Actual lines3. Implied lines

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1. An actual line2. A line formed by dots3. A psychologically formed line

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Modeling

1. Stippling2. Hatching3. Cross-Hatching4. Contour-Hatching

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Implied Line

Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna of the Rocks is a Renaissance work that shows superb composition and implied lines

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Functions of Line

1. To give outline and shape2. To create depth and texture3. To suggest direction and

movement

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Shoki the Demon Queller c. 1849-1853

Woodblock print, 14 x 9 ½. Burrell Collection Glasgow.

The bold, thick angular lines of Kunisada's Shoki the Demon Queller we can see the varieties of lines as they imply movement and furious energy.

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They're Biting  1920

Paul KleeDrawing and oil on paper, 12 ¼” x 9 ¼”. Tate Gallery, London.

Contour lines mark the outer edges of a three-dimensional object, allowing artists to eliminate internal detail but retain recognition of the object, as with the sailboat and buoy.

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Albrecht Durer

Artist drawing a model in foreshortening through a frame using a grid system from “Unterweysung der Messung”(Treatise on Perspective). Woodcut.

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Bruce Nauman Human/Need/Desire, 1983. 

Neon tubing transformer and wire 7' 10 3/8” x 70 ½” x 25 ¾”

The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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Light and Value

Vision depends on the presence of light. Light may be used as a material in art or more commonly, to simply make the art object visible. Value refers to lightness or darkness of a surface in non-light emitting media. Artists adjust the values within a work of art to create the illusion of depth, to express emotion, and to create emphasis.

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(A) Achromatic value scale. Value, or gradations of dark and light, exist between black and white.

(B) Chromatic value scale. A spectrum of dark and light exists within colors as well.

(C) Creating volume through value. The illusion of depth can be created through the manipulation of value.

Rosso Fiorentino, Recumbent Female Nude Figure Asleep, a red, chalk drawing

Probably made in France, AD 1530-40

Color

Objects have color as a result of certain rays of ambient light being absorbed and certain rays of light being reflecting into our eyes. These reflected rays are translated by our eyes into identifiable colors called hues. Some properties of color are value, shade, tint, and intensity (or chroma).

The type of material an artist uses effects how color reacts. Artists using additive color systems, found in light-emitting media like computer or theatre lights, can combine its primary colors to produce white light. Artists using subtractive color systems, found in painting media, produce progressively dull and darker values as colors mixed together.

Color perception is relative, changing depending on surrounding light and color and eye fatigue. Colors suggest ideas, and can evoke emotions.

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