Close Reading Guide: Art Adapted by Mary Ellen Dakin from a student guide published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from Teaching Meaning in Artmaking, Sydney R. Walker, and from contributions from RHS Art teacher June Krinksy-Rudder John Singleton Copley, "Watson and the Shark" A. FORM: In a painting, the basic structure is composed of color, light, line, and texture. Color: Cool colors suggest rest and calm (blues, greens, purples).
Light: The presence of light tends to suggest openness, honesty, and/or tranquility. Light tends to create the feeling that all is well. The absence of light, in the form of darkness and shadows, tends to suggest mystery, fear, and sometimes danger.
Lines: Vertical lines suggest strength. Horizontal lines suggest rest. Diagonal lines suggest motion and energy.
B. COMPOSITION: Paintings can tell a story without words. In a painting, the subject, the setting, the characters, the arrangement, the mood, and the use of symbols create the “composition.” Subject: Most realistic paintings have a recognizable subject, such as a landscape, a person or groups of people, and/or an event like a battle.
Setting: The time and place suggested in the painting. Characters:
Arrangment: People in a painting can be close together or separated. They can look relaxed and natural or stiff and formal, or caught in the middle of some great action.
Symbols: A symbol is any object that stands for something greater than itself. For example, a serpent may be a symbol for evil, a lily a symbol for purity.
Mood and Tone: The emotional impact of the work of art is of central importance. How the artist feels about the subject, and wants us to feel, is expressed through the elements of form and composition.
Themes and Ideas: Like writers, artists question their world and explore issues of profound importance – life, death, power, justice, suffering, hope.
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