1. Understanding Art Criticism
Art criticism is studying, understanding, and judging works of art.
Henri Matisse, The Dessert: Harmony in Red, 1908, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

2. Solving art mysteries is one of the jobs that art critics set out to accomplish.
What if you don’t know what an artwork is communicating?
How can you figure it out?
Following the steps of art criticism can help you discover lots of clues to really understand and appreciate a work of art.

3. The Steps of Art Criticism
In each step of art criticism, you are answering a different question. The four steps of art criticism are:
Description: What do I see?
Analysis: How is the work organized?
Interpretation: What is the artist trying to communicate?
Judgment: Is this a successful work of art?

4. Description
Look at the work of art here:
What do you see?

5. Red room
Wall paper
Chairs, wooden, cane seat
Table, table cloth
Woman
Fruit & wine
Cut flowers in vase
Window
Landscape
Trees, bushes, flowers, building
Colors- red, blue,green, yellow, white, black

6. Analysis
Look again at the painting by Henri Matisse
How is the work arranged?
Break down the painting into its composition, or the way the art principles are used to organize the art elements.

7. ELEMENTS OF ART/DESIGN
Line=
Shape=
Form=
Space=
Color=
Texture=

8. ELEMENTS OF ART/DESIGN
Line=straight-outline table, chairs / curvy- flower pattern
Shape=geometric / organic
Form= flattened
Space=crowded space, flattened plane
Color=red- jarring color blue, yellow, green, black, white
Texture=patterns

9. PRINCIPLES OF ART/DESIGN
Unity=
Balance=
Contrast=
Focal Point=
Movement=
Pattern=
Proportion=

10. PRINCIPLES OF ART/DESIGN
Unity= organic shapes
Balance= informal/asymmetrical
Contrast= red-green, black-white pattern-solid, curve-straight
Focal Point= woman arranging fruit
Movement= blue lines draw your eye up from the bottom
Pattern= repeated- curved pattern (wall paper, cloth, trees), dots of color (lemons/flowers)
Proportion= accurate/normal

11. Interpretation
What do you think Matisse is trying to communicate?
Give your opinion based on the clues you have collected.
What ideas, moods, emotions, and stories do you think the artwork communicates?

12. How does the predominant redness make you feel?
In Matisse's Harmony in Red (Red Room) , red is the predominant color in the painting.
How does the predominant redness make you feel?

13. The color red usually makes one feel warm because it is associated with the sun and fire, but also because the color red has a physiological affect that excites and stimulates.

14. Artists understand the power of color in affecting the viewer's feelings. Throughout art history, artists have used color to convey and heighten the emotional content of a painting. In the early twentieth century, artists began to focus on color as a direct translation of their feelings, and to use color as an emotional force.
This group of artists was called the Fauves (or the wild beasts in French) and they included Henri Matisse ( ), Maurice de Vlaminck ( ), and Andre Derain ( )

15. How would you feel about the painting if it was mostly green
How would you feel about the painting if it was mostly green? Or overwhelmingly blue instead of red?
This painting went through three successive stages. First it was green, then blue, after it hung at an exhibit in It was finally delivered in scarlet to a Russian art collector to decorate his dining room.

16. Matisse also limits his perspective in this work. He. makes
Matisse also limits his perspective in this work. He makes breaks in the line around the table, frames the chair, the window, and the little house in an innovative manner by cutting them off, and encloses two of the planes, the green and the blue in a window.

17. Judgment
Do you think this work is successful? Why or why not?
What reasons can you give for your idea of why this is a good or bad artwork?

18. Now look at the painting
by Marc Chagall:
Paris Through the Window.
Answer each of the
criticism questions
on your own:
Description: What do I see? Analysis: How are elements and principles of art used? Interpretation: What is the artist trying to communicate? Judgment: Is this a successful work of art?

19. Description: What do I see?

20. Analysis:
How are the
elements and principles
of art used?
Elements: line, shape, form, space, color, value, texture
Principles: Unity, Balance, Contrast, Focal Point, Movement,
Pattern, Proportion

21. Interpretation:
What is the artist trying to communicate? (story and mood)

22. Judgment: Is this a successful work of art?
Why or why not? (use your analysis!)

23. TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING!
Look at the painting by Marc Chagall called Paris Through the Window and choose the Art Criticism step that each statement belongs in.

24. 1. I see a city in the background with a cat on a ledge in the middle ground and a man with two faces in the foreground.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

25. This seems like a magical place.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

26. The artist uses neutral colors to contrast with the bright primary colors.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

27. The artist is depicting his vision of Paris.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

28. 5. The artist used informal balance.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

29. 6. The artist successfully uses confusing imagery
to intrigue the viewer.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

30. 7. The cat represents the artist looking out at Paris.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

31. Answers:
a. description
c. interpretation
b. analysis
d. judgment