Rutgers. The State University of New Jersey – New Brunswick/Piscataway Art Appreciation
2 images for each unit.
Unit One
Look for relationships in the images you find to post that relate to the Formal Elements of unit one’s visual art terms: line, shape, color, texture, spacial qualities and composition. Tell us about it.
Unit Two
Look for relationships in the images you choose that relate to the Unit Two art terms, more formal elements: texture, positive negative space, mass, volume, scale, proportion, rhythm, symmetry, composition, etc.
Unit Three
This unit’s visual art terms explains content. In the two images you post think about and give a clue to what the content might be. You do not have to write an essay for each post. Write some notation that connects the image to the course. The reason you are collecting images is for you to look back at the end of the course to see if you got more focused, or maybe the entire blog will tell a story. If all your images are read like what people do in graphic novels or visual books what would it say? You are to be looking for images that please you! I have seen some wonderful images in your blogs!
Unit Four
Style is the big art term and concept in this weeks reading. You also have the classifications of representational and non-representational, there are other words that can be substituted for these, first learn these two and their distinctions and practice using them in preparation for your essay assignments. The words: line, mark and painterly are all unique to themselves, observe their distinct differences. Continue to find the images that resonate with you!
Unit Five
The classification of style is continued in this weeks reading. Realistic, naturalistic, idealistic are different presentations of the world we see. Learn the characteristics and differences of these art terms. Practice using them in preparation for your essay assignments. The term, abstract, can be more clearly understood when you understand the differences between the styles used to portray the world we see. Think about the difference between the adjectives, abstract, and abstracted. Pure abstraction portrays an image that is “disassociated from any specific instance”; but a depiction from the visible or imagined world can be abstracted to present an image that is recognizable but with less detail, accurate color, etc. than what a camera might capture.
Unit Six
The classification of medium is introduced in this weeks reading. Painting, drawing, printmaking are all mediums used by artists to record their messages. Artists can use two dimensional or three dimensional mediums. And the ephemeral work of installation and performance have entered our crowded world. Art does not need to be permanent, it can be expressed, its reality captured in written accounts and photographic images. In those documentations the art work continues to “exist”.
Unit Seven
This week’s unit holds the final group of visual art terms. Most of those terms define different types and mediums used in art making, graphic arts, graphic design, photography video, film and sculpture are all types of art making. They are areas where the technical demands and equipment are more specific. Edge qualities, chiaroscuro and perspective are visual art terms in unit seven.
Unit Eight
Landscape as a subject matter, as environment for human activity and as a vehicle to describe space is an important element for artists to include in their work. The lecture shows many examples of the use of landscape. You can add that sense of environment and space to your blog images. Tie them to the space and perspective systems with a few words that describe the images.
Unit Nine
This week’s lecture packs information from an entire field of human making into one lesson. There are so many areas of human activity that require architectural solutions. For your blogs look at the architecture around you. Is it monumental? is it welcoming or exclusive? is it designed for today’s needs with an expectation that it will be torn down for other needs in the future? What do you see?
Unit Ten
How different from photographic detail is human optical recollection? Can you reflect in your posts this week the differences between the look of photographic visual information and human direct observational information? There is also plenty of information about printmaking to think about in your blog posts.
Unit Eleven
The focus in this unit is on the multiplicity of visual expression that calls itself visual art. The camera liberated the visual artist from the responsibility to record the world around him or her as they see it. Communication of ideas from beauty to politics are replacing the artist’s need to locate humans in the world. Art for Art’s sake is a powerful reason to make art on its own. What do you see as art?
