Assignment #1 – art, music & ideas (MUS 115)

 

LOOKING FOR DESIGN IN ART

 

Find 17 different images in the textbook for this assignment (one example for each item).  Identify page #, title [use italics for title], artist, medium, and add a brief comment (one phrase or sentence).  The purpose of #1-9 in this assignment is to practice looking at art analytically in terms of objectively observable qualities.  Don’t be afraid to state the obvious!  This assignment does not ask for your interpretation or reaction to the artwork.  While this is good–– it is not the point or purpose of this assignment.  Your comments of this sort will be read and enjoyed but will not affect your grade.

 

Types of Lines

1.  Identify a work with predominantly straight lines and describe what the lines do in the image.

2.  Identify a work with predominantly curving lines and describe what the lines do in the image.

3.  Identify a work with a jagged or zig-zag line in it and describe what the line does in the image.

4.  Identify a work with a mix of straight and curving lines and describe what the mix of line types do in the image.

 

Color

5.  Identify a painting that has many colors in it.  

6.  Identify a painting with only one or two hues or colors in it.  [don’t use black & white photos]

 

Perspective

7.  Identify a painting that creates a sense of perspective.  How is perspective achieved (geometry, size contrast, shading)?

8.  Identify a work that seems to have no foreground at all and that is rather more of a pattern emphasizing the flatness of the surface -- something that has no use of perspective at all. 

 

PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

For each of our 8 elements of design, find an example in the textbook.  Identify page #, title [use italics], artist, medium, and explain your choice in 1-2 sentences. 

 

  1. REPETITION – what specifically is repeated?  How exactly?
  2. VARIATION – what specifically is varied?
  3. CONTRAST #1– Identify a work that creates contrast of light and dark values
  4. CONTRAST #2– Identify a work that creates contrast of something other than light and dark values
  5. BALANCE – is your example of symmetry or asymmetry?
  6. PROPORTION – Identify an expressive use of relative sizes within the image; avoid photographs of buildings; and don’t merely seek something that is “well-proportioned.”
  7. SCALE – identify an image of a large or monumental work and speculate on how different the experience would be in encountering the full-size work.
  8. EMPHASIS – Identify a work that creates emphasis on something that is not in the dead center of the image; how is the emphasis created in addition to placement?
  9. ECONOMY – nothing to do with $$$, remember!  Avoid black & white photographs for this category.  Economy is the deliberate choice to restrict the range of possibilities within a wider range of possibilities in a medium or style.

 

Summary [DON’T FORGET THIS!]

18.  Comment on what you learned or experienced in doing this assignment.

  

TYPED OR PRINTED (10 pts off if not)