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?
Formal 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. Formal Analysis
Look again at the painting by Henri Matisse
How is the work arranged?
Break down the composition - the way the art principles are used to organize the art elements.

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

8. Line=straight - outline table, chairs / curvy- flower pattern
Shape=geometric – chair, building, window / organic – fruit, pattern
Form= flattened
Space=crowded space, flattened plane
Color=red - jarring color blue, yellow, green, black, white
Texture=patterns
Value=single values of colours
ELEMENTS OF ART

9. PRINCIPLES OF ART
Emphasis=
Balance=
Proportion=
Pattern=
Variety=
Rhythm/Movement=
Unity=

10. Emphasis= woman arranging fruit Balance= woman-chair & window
PRINCIPLES OF ART
Emphasis= woman arranging fruit
Balance= woman-chair & window
Proportion= large with small square
Pattern= wall paper, cloth, trees
Movement= diagonal bottom right to top left, curved lines of pattern & trees
Unity= color, shape & line

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. In Matisse's Harmony in Red (Red Room) 1908-9, red is the predominant color in the painting.
How does this make you feel?

13. The color red usually makes one feel warmth because it is associated with the sun and fire, but also because the color red has a physiological affect that excites and stimulates.
More energy is reflected from warm colors than from the cooler ones. "Warm" colors - red, yellow and orange - traditionally are thought to evoke feelings of heat, whether psychological or real.

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 20th C, 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 the Salon d'Automne in It was finally delivered in its present state to the Russian collector Shchukin to decorate his dining room.
Did you know that the color red in many restaurants is there only to make customers hungry, and to encourage them to order more than they normally would. Red walls and décor also cause people to eat faster, since the color increases our normal levels of energy.

16. What affect did the final location for the painting
What affect did the final location for the painting (Shchukin’s dining room) have on Matisse’s color and subject choice?

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. 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.

19. 1. This painting was painted with oil paints on canvas.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

20. I really like the painting; it seems like a very happy time for the artist.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

21. The artist uses the element of color to add
The artist uses the element of color to add visual interest to the painting.
a. description
b. analysis
c. interpretation
d. judgment

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