Art Critique

The Starry Night, 1889

Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890

These are the questions you must answer in your essay. If you know which questions to ask yourself, you can easily write the essay. Just state the facts!

Description

1. The name of the artwork is ________.
2. The artist who created this work is _________.
3. Give a literal description of the painting. (In this painting I see a farmhouse with a mountain in the background.)
4. What kind of lines do you see. Describe them. (Short, choppy, flowing, fine, thick etc.)
5. What kind of texture do you see. Don't confuse the smooth texture of the paper with the visual texture of the painting. (Rough, smooth, pebbly, fuzzy etc.)
6. What kind of shapes do you see. (organic, geometric?)
7. What kind of colors does the artist use? Be specific. Is there a color scheme apparent in the artwork?
8. What kinds of forms do you see? Form talks about an object having height, width and depth. On a painting the artist creates the illusion of form by shading objects so they have solidity and mass. 

Analysis

1. How is the painting balanced?
2. Where are the light areas?
3. Where are the dark areas? (Contrast)
4. What is the first thing I see when I look at the painting. (Emphasis)
5. What king of space is used? (Deep or shallow? Is perspective used? Is the painting flat or two dimentional?
6. What do you see repeated in the art work. Which element of design is used over and over again? Texture? A particular color? (Rhythm and Repetition)
7. What particular element of design helps keep the art work unified?  (ie. The texture in a pointillism painting.)

Interpretation

1. Does the artist seem primarily concerned with imitating nature? This means he/she is trying to paint realistically.
2. Does the artist seem mostly interested in expressing a feeling or emotion? (The Scream)
3. Does the prime concern of the artist seem to be the elements of design. (Broadway Boogie Woogie)
4. Does the name of the artwork tell you about it's meaning or purpose?
5. Create a sentence that describes what you think is the meaning of the painting.

Judgement

The artwork is an excellent/good/ bad example of :

• Imitationalism (Highly realistic)
• Emotionalism (Makes the viewer feel a certain way.)
• Formalism (The subject is the elements and principles of design, usually a non-objective work of art.)

Does the artist exaggerate, distort or abstract the image?

I like or dislike the painting with a rational. ( A rationale is a reason. Stating your like or dislike of the painting.)