identify the formal elements

    Pre-Writing: Make note of your response and try to identify the formal elements and content and that evoked this response. Do you think this response was intended by the artist or is it the product of the artist’s vision combining with your own associations? Make notes of the visual elements and how they are function in the work (as Adam Davies did with Turrell’s Skyspace). Finally, settle on an interpretation of the work that is a result of the relationship between form and content. Writing: Reverse this process: start by presenting you interpretation as you thesis and then argue for the validity of this interpretation through the visual evidence that is provided to the reader in the form of visual description. The paper must be typed, double-spaced, 12 pt font, about 900 words (3 pages). What is a visual analysis? A visual analysis is the basic unit of art historical writing in which the author makes a claim about a work of art. This claim is the result of careful observation and consideration of the formal elements (color, line, texture, size) of a work of art. The claim is presented and supported through detailed visual description. ** Style Notes: Observations are not arguments. If most people agree it looks windy, then it’s windy. Instead of writing “It seems windy” write “The wind blows the fabric towards the left.” Simple is plain, unadorned, easy. Simplistic is pejorative meaning too rudimentary. Instead of “The female appears to be standing under the tree in a pose that emotes sadness” write: “There is a woman standing under the tree, her head bowed, shoulders slumped. The posture suggests she is sad.” Or: “The posture of the woman under the tree produces a sense of melancholy in the viewer.” (female = adjective; woman = noun)