Lesson 4

 CONTENT AND ARTWORK ANALYSIS

CONTENT
Content in art is the meaning or the message that is expressed or communicated
by the artist in his artwork. To better understand and appreciate the content of any
artworks, it is important to note that there are three various levels of meaning: the
factual, the conventional and the subjective meaning.

1. The factual level is the most basic level because it may be extracted from the
identifiable forms in the artwork such as the lines, colors and shapes in a
painting; the lyrics and form of a song or the words and form of a poem. These
elements and basic rudiments of any artwork interplay to convey a message.
2. The conventional level pertains to the acknowledged interpretation of the
artwork using motif, signs and symbols and other cyphers as bases of its meaning.
These conventions are established through generations and strengthened by
recurrent use and is widely accepted by its viewers or audience and scholars who
study them.
3. When we talk about the subjective level, a variety of meanings may arise that
stems out from a viewers’ or audience’s circumstances that come into play when
engaging in art such as our own interpretation and understanding based from our
knowledge, learning, experiences and values we carry.

CREATION OF ADAM(1814)
By Michaelangelo, in the ceiling of Sistine Chapel
Analysis
Subject: biblical art
Factual meaning: creation story
Conventional meaning: man was created in the image and likeness of God
Subjective meaning: endowment of intellect to man from God
ARTWORK ANALYSIS
The analytic study of how the various elements and material features of the
artwork should lead to a more stable consensual field of meaning leading to a better
understanding of an artwork by an ordinary audience or viewer. Taking into
consideration the basic documentation of the artwork, there are three planes of
analysis: the semiotic, the iconic, the contextual.
1. Semiotic contains the name of the artist, title of the work, year of the work was
created, dimension or size, medium or technique, location of the work, whose
collection or gallery. This is like a credit line that lists important facts about a
work of art.
2. Iconic contains subject: the type, the kind and the source and how the artist
describes the subject.
3. Contextual contains the meaning of the work, symbols, ideas and concepts. The
work of art may contain references and allusions, direct or indirect, to historical
figures and events as well as to religious, literary, and philosophical ideas and
values, which are part of the meaning of the work.
Below is an example of an artwork analysis using the three planes of analysis:

1. Using Semiotic
Title: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Artist: Georges-Pierre Seurat
Dimensions : 2.08 m x 3.08 m(81.7 in x 121.25 in)
Location: Art Institute of Chicago
Genre: history painting
Medium: oil on canvas
Periods: pointillism, neo-impressionism
Year: 1884-1886
Subject: people relaxing at La Grande Jatte, Paris

2. Iconic
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was initially started in 1884
with a layer of small horizontal brushstrokes of complementary colors. Seurat later
added small dots that appear as solid and luminous forms when seen from a long enough
distance. This was the way he spectacularly proved his theory, showing that employing
tiny juxtaposed dots of multi-colored paint really can allow the viewer's eye to blend
colors optically. This turned out to be a revolutionary alternative to the way traditional
painters went about defining forms within their artworks' compositions. When he
painted this work, Georges Seurat was a mere 25-year-old who had only seven more
years to live. He was an ambitious young man with a scientific theory to prove,
something totally unique for the elite of the modern art world. Seurat's theory was an
optical one - he had the conviction that painting in dots was able to produce a brighter
color than painting in strokes.

3. Contextual
This Seurat's painting was actually a mirror impression of his own earlier painting
executed in the same year, Bathers at Asnières. Whereas the figures in the earlier
painting are doused in light, everyone portrayed in A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of
La Grande Jatte appears to be cast in shadow, either under trees or an umbrella, or
from another person. At first glance, the viewer sees many different people relaxing in
a park by the river and nothing appears out of the ordinary. On the right, a fashionable
couple is on a stroll. On the left, another well-dressed woman extends her fishing pole
over the water. There is a small man with a black hat looking at the river, a white dog
with a brown head, a man playing a horn, two soldiers standing at attention, a couple
admiring their infant child, etc. It is only after close inspection that the viewer sees
some curious things happening. The lady on the right side has a monkey on a leash. The
lady on the left that's fishing is a metaphor for prostitution, something this part of Paris
was well-known for back in the day. In the painting's center stands a little girl dressed
in white, the only figure that is not in a shadow. She stares directly at the viewer as if
she's silently questioning the audience. Other than the little girl, all of the figures in A
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte are cloaked in shadow, almost
robbed of their identities.

The Painting Mona Lisa’s lips took 12 years to complete by Leonardo Da Vinci. While some
claim that Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting is a self-portrait of the artist himself
in drag, research has concluded it is likely a portrait of a woman named Lisa Gherardini,
a member of a prominent Florentine family and wife of a wealthy silk merchant.
Leonardo’s father allegedly knew Gherardini’s father very well, and the painting was
possibly commissioned by him. Lisa Gherardini was the wife of a Florentine cloth merchant
named Francesco delGiocondo - hence the alternative title, La Gioconda. However,
Leonardo seems to have taken the completed portrait to France rather than giving it to
the person who commissioned it. In addition, Leonardo da Vinci fought for animal rights
during his time. He was a vegetarian too.