formal criticism Archives | Carol L. Douglas

When someone disregards all the voices telling them they can’t do something, and they challenge themselves with hard work and dedication, they ought to be encouraged.

Beth Carr

Linda DeLorey

I’m up at Schoodic Institute teaching my Sea & Sky workshop. We’ve had four days of fog, but my students have responded beautifully, working hard and turning out some wonderful paintings. It helped to remember that the fog is the product of the heat wave blanketing the rest of the northeast right now. We’re standing in Mother Nature’s air conditioner, where all that hot air meets the cold North Atlantic.

Hayley R.

Last evening, we had a critique session. This isn’t just about learning what’s wrong with our paintings. It’s also about learning what’s right. I want students to learn to read and write artwork that is clear, strong and intelligible.

Becky Bense

To this end, we considered formal structure, including:

Focal point
Line
Value
Color
Balance
Shape and form
Rhythm and movement

Carrie O’Brien

We could have equally asked:

“What do you notice first? Second?”
“Why did you see those things in that order?”
“Does this evoke a feeling or response in you?”
“What is the point of this work?”

Leanne Nickon

The first set of questions are objective. The second, while subjective, are not judgmental. Rather, they ask us to observe our responses to the paintings. That’s intentional. “Do you like this?” is not going to garner useful responses.

Terrie Perrine

As a teacher, I generally use the “sandwich rule” to critique paintings. I start by pointing out something the person did well. We then discuss what might have been handled differently. I finish by pointing out something else that the person did well, so that each session ends on a positive note.

Robert Tyzik

This method has been mocked as “fluffy bun—meat—fluffy bun,” but that misses the point. Most people are all too aware of their failures and not aware of their strengths. Their own self-doubt gets in the way of seeing what is successful in their painting. That needs articulation as much as the negatives do.

Lauren Hammond

Last night, one student said she has a hard time taking criticism. “You can say a hundred good things about me and one negative thing, and all I remember is the negative,” she said. She’s not alone in that; it’s how we’re all wired, and it takes a lot to work past our natural defenses.

Nancy Lloyd

It’s a sign of how well these students trust each other that they put in not their best paintings, but the ones where they felt they needed another person’s insight. And I apologize for the photo quality; Jennifer took the photos under incandescent light, which wrecks the color.

Jennifer Johnson

People are capable of wonderful things, but our society routinely discourages us from daring to be great. When someone disregards all the voices telling them they can’t do something, and they challenge themselves with hard work and dedication, they ought to be encouraged.

The artist’s job is to invite the viewer into his world. That doesn’t happen by accident.

I and the Village, 1911, Marc Chagall, courtesy MOMA. In this painting, line is a dominant design element, articulating the relationship between man, beast and place. However, proportion (relative size of the objects) is playing a part as well.

Line

In math, a line is straight, has no thickness and extends in both directions through space. Sometimes that’s what we mean by a line in art—for example, a horizon line.

More typically in art, a line is just a path through space. Wherever you have an edge, you also have a line. However, lines also refer to mark-making, so in that sense they can be fat, thin, punctuated, tapering, diffident, bold or whispering.

Diagonals and curves seem to keep us more engaged than unbroken verticals, as they’re more difficult for the eye to ‘solve.’

Interior of the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam, 1664-66, Cornelis de Man, courtesy Mauritshuis. The illusion of three-dimensional form is created with perspective and value.

Shape and form

Shape and form define objects in space. Shapes have two dimensions–height and width–and are bounded by lines. Forms are three-dimensional. The artist’s dilemma is to give the illusion of three-dimensional form in a two-dimensional painting.

Ploughing in the Nivernais, 1849, Rosa Bonheur, courtesy Musée d’Orsay. The vast sky and field create as much narrative as do the team of oxen.

Space

Space in the real world is three-dimensional. In art, the term refers to a sense of depth, or the artist’s use of the area within the picture plane. The illusion of three-dimensional space is created with perspective drawing, atmospherics, relative proportion (size), positioning, and defining volume through modeling.

Sometimes we refer to negative and positive space, which means the division between the primary object(s) and what we perceive as the background. Positive and negative space were a very big deal in much twentieth-century design, which often used the vast emptiness of the page as a counterweight to the primary object.

The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, 1601, Caravaggio, courtesy Cerasi Chapel. Chiaroscuro relies primarily on value to drive the eye.

Color

Color has three essential characteristics:

Hue—where it falls on the color wheel (red, blue, etc.),
Chroma—how brilliant or dull it is,
Value—how light or dark it is.

Color is also described as ‘warm’ or ‘cool,’ but these are useful artistic conventions and not measurable as fact.

Historically, value did much of the heavy lifting in painting, and it remains the most important characteristic in your painting. The Impressionists began using hue and chroma to define volume, and that is essentially how most alla prima painters work today.

Portrait of the Baronness James de Rothschild, 1848, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, private collection. We see satin, lace, tulle, feathers and jewels primarily due to Ingres’ exquisite control of reflected light.

Texture

Texture refers to the surface quality of an object. Paintings have implied texture, conveyed by color, line and brushwork. They also have real texture in the form of smooth or impasto surfaces.

Ejiri in Suruga Province, 1830, Katsushika Hokusai, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art. Great winds have blown away the clouds on Mount Fuji, and they’re also blowing the travelers and their packs around. This movement is echoed and amplified by the brushstrokes.

Movement

Movement can be either suggested or depicted—as in the wind in the painting above—or implied by brushwork. Most paintings have a major thrust of energy, which I call its motive line.

Your assignment is to take one of your own paintings and subject it to formal analysis. Consider each of these elements of design in turn. How are you using them? How could you use them better?

(This post originally appeared in July, 2020.)

Category: formal criticism

Learning to critique paintings