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Artwork Analysis

This document provides an analysis of Georges-Pierre Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. It examines the painting through three planes: semiotic details facts about the work, iconic analysis of subjects and style, and contextual analysis of meaning and references. The analysis describes Seurat's pointillist technique, the various social classes depicted relaxing in the park scene, and scholarly interpretations of the painting representing leisure or tensions in modern society. Principles of design and composition like balance, harmony, proportion, and the rule of thirds are also explained.

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April Jade Mendoza
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2K views22 pages

Artwork Analysis

This document provides an analysis of Georges-Pierre Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. It examines the painting through three planes: semiotic details facts about the work, iconic analysis of subjects and style, and contextual analysis of meaning and references. The analysis describes Seurat's pointillist technique, the various social classes depicted relaxing in the park scene, and scholarly interpretations of the painting representing leisure or tensions in modern society. Principles of design and composition like balance, harmony, proportion, and the rule of thirds are also explained.

Uploaded by

April Jade Mendoza
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ARTWORK ANALYSIS

ARTWORK ANALYSIS
• The analytic study of how the various elements and
materials features of the art work produce meaning
should lead to a more stable and consensual field of
meaning leading to a better understanding of an
artwork by an ordinary audience or viewer.
Three Planes of Analysis or in Reading the
Image:
• Semiotic – this is like a credit line, which lists important
facts about a work of art.
• Iconic (Subject – type, kind, source, and how the artist
describes the subject).
• Contextual – 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.
Artwork Analysis of a Painting
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 Building
Genre: History Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Periods: Pointillism, Neo-impressionism
Year: 1884-1886
Subject: People relaxing at La Grande Jatte, Paris
Iconic
• Seurat spent two years working on his most famous work, composed of
tiny dots of contrasting or complementary colors intended to fuse in the
viewer’s eye a vibrant effect.
• The artist depicted people, city dwellers, gathered and relaxing in a
suburban park on an island in the Seine River called La Grande Jatte.
• On an enormous canvas, the artist depicted all kinds of people stroll,
lounge sail, and fish in the park.
• The picture was unusual in showing people belonging to different social
classes frequenting the same park on an island in the Seine.
Cont…
• The artwork itself highlighted the
controlled surface of the painting, the use
of aerial perspective, which gives an
impression of space, and Seurat’s deeply
shadowed foreground that leads into a
light, bright distance.
Contextual
• Seurat uses the technique of optical color mixture, also known as
pointillism or divisionism, to really accent and express his ideas and
originality.
• When dots of pure color are placed close together, they blend and create
the illusion of some other hues.
• Using newly discovered optical and color theories, Seurat rendered his
subject by placing tiny, precise brushstrokes of different colors close to one
another so that they blend at a distance.
Cont…
• Over the past several decades, many scholars
have attempted to explain the meaning of
this great composition. For some it shows the
growing middle class at leisure.
• Others see it as a representation of social
tensions between modern city dwellers of
different social classes, who gather in the
same public space but do not communicate
or interact.
The Rule of Thirds
• One of the most useful composition techniques in
photography.
• It is considered to be an important concept to learn
as it can be used in all types of photography to
produce images, which are more engaging and better
balanced.
What is the Rule of Thirds?
• In its simplest form, the rule of thirds suggests that you
should imagine a tic-tac-toe or a pick-pack-boom board
on the frame of the picture.
• It involves mentally diving up your image using two
horizontal lines and two vertical lines.
• You then position the important elements in your scene
at the points where they meet along those lines.
41% 20%

25% 14%
How to Use the Rule of
Thirds
• When you are framing a photo,
you just have to imagine that
the scene is divided into three.
• When photographing moving
subjects, position them as
normal, but also pay attention
to the direction they are
moving.
• As a general rule, you should
leave more space in front of
them than behind, to show
where they are going.
Principles of Art
• Principles of Design refer to the visual
strategies used by artists, in conjunction
with the visual elements of arts – for
expressive purposes.
1. Balance
• It is one of the principle of design; it is classified into three:
a. Symmetrical: also known as formal balance, as two equal parts of the
pictorial plane of an artwork placed like mirror images of each other.
b. Asymmetrical: also known as informal balance, where
elements on either side of a composition do not reflect one
another or when several smaller items on one side are
balanced by a large item on the other side, or smaller items
are placed further away from the center of the screen than
larger items.
c. Radial Symmetry: balance where all elements
radiate out from a center point in a circular fashion
to all four quadrants of the shape’s constraining
plane.
2. Harmony – in the 3. Proportion – this is the size
principles of design, this can relationship of forms and
be described as sameness, shapes. Good proportion
the belonging of one thing causes a sense of unity and
with another. harmony.
4. Dominance/Emphasis – this 5. Variety – this is a principle
happens when the artist of design that refers to a way
creates an area of the of combining visual elements
composition that is visually to achieve intricate and
dominant and commands the complex relationships. It is a
viewer’s attention. This is technique used by artists who
often achieved by contrast. wish to increase the visual
interest of their work.
6. Movement
• This is the result using the
elements of art such that
they move the viewer’s eye
around and within the
image.
• A sense of movement can be
created by diagonal or curvy
lines, either real or implied,
by edges, by the illusion of
space, by repetition, by
energetic mark-making.
7. Rhythm
• In the principles of
design, this is a
continuance, a flow,
or a feeling of
movement achieved
by the repetition of
regulated visual
information.

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