1. HART1 – The formal analysis of art and architecture:
The first minutes of your first 6 or 7 art history lessons will be using, practicing and honing your ability to describe a work of art or architecture using formal analysis. Almost 40% of your AS will be based on your ability to do this well! We’ll then continue to do this over the course of the rest of the year so that you are fully familiar with the language and skills you’ll need by the time you get to the summer.

2. Formal Analysis: Formal analysis is the description of the formal features of a work of art or architecture. Just as when you’d describe anything in life, you will need to develop the right vocabulary to do this well, and that process will be a gradual one. By the end of this year you will have a whole new lexicon, which will allow you to look at visual culture all around you with new eyes. Once you have it, you will never lose it, and it is a vital and continually rewarding and fascinating way of seeing the world.

3. Once you are able to accurately describe a work of art or architecture using appropriate and specialised vocabulary, you will be able to make reasonable inferences (informed judgments) based on your observations about the topic you’ve been asked to make. This is a crucial skill and one which will also be examined in your AS exam if you want to get a chance of hitting the top grade.
Discussion and interpretation of art and architecture.
Piecing together the significance of the features and elements described, how they relate to one another and why they might have been used.
Accurate description using appropriate vocabulary.

4. Interpretation:
In order to be able to interpret and infer from a work of art in a reasoned way, you must understand and remember the following:
The features and qualities of a work of art or architecture are almost never accidental.
Artists and architects think about every decision they make.
By looking at the features and qualities of a work of art, we can piece together and infer a lot about the work of art or architecture, the methods of its creation and the ideas, beliefs and references of the artist him or herself.

5. Within the HART 1 exam you will be asked to look at a painting, piece of sculpture and building and discuss them in relation to one of the following themes. It is therefore crucial that you have a clear understanding of what these things are, and what discussion would therefore be relevant. Obviously, talking about the wrong thing in an answer would get you 0 marks!
Composition – Composition is about the organisaton, positioning, arrangements and relationship of features and elements in a work of art or architecture.
Colour – Though seemingly obvious, discussing colour is of enormous importance. You must be able to understand how colour has been used by artists and eventually, to be able to infer why it has been used.
Pictorial Space – Pictures (whether paintings or not) and even relief sculpture (sculpture which has been carved from a flat base) have a ‘pictorial space’. You must be able to understand and describe how three dimensional space, or the depth of the work, is created.

6. Light and Tone – This is not the same thing as colour
Light and Tone – This is not the same thing as colour! The simple use of light and dark can do many things, including emphasising part of a narrative, clarifying details or creating a ‘mood’ within the painting.
Materials, Processes and Techniques – You will not need to know an exhaustive amount about how works of art are created, but you will need to know a little, and have an understanding of why they have been employed in a particular way to achieve a particular effect.
Scale, Volume and Mass – Like anything else, the size, volume and/or mass of a work of art or architecture is not accidental. To understand how the scale, volume or mass of a work of art or architecture might affect its interpretation is important!

7. Composition:
Given that developing HART 1 skills will be new and tough and even a little embarrassing to try begin with, take a ‘Formal Analysis checklist’ sheet to help you find things to comment on when we start to look at images. In this lesson we will only be looking at composition, so stick to looking at that column for now.
Composition covers a number of different considerations, but as we looked at last lesson ultimately looks at the organisaton, positioning, arrangements and relationship of features and elements in a work of art or architecture.

8. Composition:
Using the word bank below, as well as your checklist, quickly jot down observations about the composition of these two buildings. Think about the differences between them to help you describe them.
Word bank:
Symmetry, Geometry, Convention, Horizontal, Vertical, Axis, Placement.

9. What was easy? What was hard?
Take it in turns to try and describe the two buildings’ composition (using the word bank) to the other people in your group for 40 seconds!
What was easy? What was hard?
San Miniato al Monte, Florence, begun 1018
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Word bank:
Symmetry, Geometry, Convention, Horizontal, Vertical, Axis, Placement.

10. Composition:
Looking over your description of the previous buildings, did you stick to describing the composition or did you talk about anything else?
Sandro Botticelli, La Primavera, c Panel painting, 6ft 8 ins x 10ft 4 ins
Edgar Degas, Ballet Rehearsal, Canvas, 23x33 ins.

11. Duccio, Virgin and Child Enthroned in Majesty, main panel of the Maesta altarpiece, Panel, 7x13 ft.
Gerrit Rietveld, Schroder House, 1924

12. Liubov Serbeevna Popova, Painterly Architectonic, 1917
Liubov Serbeevna Popova, Painterly Architectonic, Oil on Canvas, 31 ½ x 38 ½ ins.
Piero della Francesca, Baptism of Christ, c. 1445, Panel Painting, 5ft 6 x 3 ft 9 ¾ ins
Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition, Black Trapezium and Red Square, after Canvas. 24 3/8 x 39 ¾ ins

13. Piero della Francesca, Baptism of Christ, c
Piero della Francesca, Baptism of Christ, c. 1445, Panel Painting, 5ft 6 x 3 ft 9 ¾ ins

14. Hart 2 – Introduction to Greece and Rome.
Using your historical background to Greece and Rome sheets we need to make an annotated timeline for our wall which we will add to over the course of the year, adding images, historical background and art historical info.
1, Divide into three groups of three.
Group 1 will cover the Dark Ages, the Archaic Period and the Classical Period till the end of the Persian Wars (half way down p2)
Group 2 will cover the Classical Period (from the Persian Wars) to the end of the Hellenistic Period.
Group 3 will cover The Rise and Fall of Rome.
2, Read through the section preceding yours (if there is one) followed by your section. Work out what dates, periods etc you can identify in the reading and what information you need to include, where to include it, and how to include it.
Colour code your information. Historical periods in one colour, events/people in another and cultural achievements in a third.

15. Homework: Homework is in two parts for this lesson:
1, Read over and revise the Historical Background to Greece and Rome sheets, so that you have a basis on which to built an understanding of the art and architecture of the period. You’ll have a short test at the beginning of the third lesson on this.
2, Find a Greek or Roman sculpture (with the name and date please!) which you like. Write a brief description of it, trying to use the words and prompts on your Formal Analysis sheet.
Write about WHY you like it or WHAT you like about it, and HOW that is achieved. For example; “I like the drama of the sculpture, which is achieved by using flowing lines suggesting movement, and the expression of the faces, which I think is due to careful observation and realistic rendering.” Aim for about 300 words and bring it to next lesson.
It doesn’t have to be complicated or poetic…just think about what you like, why you like it, and how it is done.