Humanities Homework Help

Please follow the instructions below for full credit. This means you should included the sub-headers and BOLD your visual elements and principles of design. If you do not know which words to bold, then you have not clearly identified elements or principles. Focus on the principles and elements, not function and/or meaning. Do not identify more than two elements and two principles each! Your classmates will need to identify different elements and principles in your work for the response portion of the assignment. You must post first before you can see other students’ posts.

!!!!!! My artwork choice is Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa. ca. 1503–05. Oil on panel, 30 1?4 × 21.(Living with Art, fig. 2.1)!!!!

    1. Description: Briefly describe your work. What does it look like? Is it representational, abstract, or non-objective? If it is representational or abstract, then is it a landscape, portrait, narrative, still life, etc.? (3 pts)

    2. Visual Elements: Identify and describe TWO visual elements. For example, if you select color, then consider the characteristics, harmony, temperature or value.  Or lines: are they implied or actual, contour or descriptive, horizontal, etc.  What elements do you see and how does the artist use the elements? (Identifying element, 3 pts; Describing element, 4 pts; 2 @ 7 pts = 14 pts)

    3. Principles of Design: Identify and describe TWO principles of design. For example, if you select balance, then is it symmetrical or asymmetrical? Why? Or focal point: Where is it and how does the artist draw your attention to it? What principles of design do you see and how does the artist use them? (Identifying principle of design, 3 pts; Describing principle of design, 4 pts; 2 @ 7 pts = 14 pts)

    4. Conclusion: State why you selected this particular work.(1 pt)

Part 4: Oct . 4, 11:59 PM: Student response posted: Post a response to another student’s analysis by identifying and describing a different visual element and principle of design. (8pts)

Review your classmates’ analyses. Select one and identify and describe another visual element and principle of design YOU see that your classmate DID NOT discuss. No credit earned for restating or agreeing with elements and principles selected in original critique. (Identify visual element, 2 pts; Describe visual element, 2 pts; Identify principle of design, 2 pts; Describe principle of design, 2 pts; Total 8 pts)

Students are required to use the terms from the elements and principles of art as studied in Ch. 4 and 5 of Living with Art.

Jacques Louis David.  The Oath of the Horatii.  1784-85, oil on canvas, approx. 11×14’ (Living with Art, fig. 17.18)

Description:  This painting is a narrative and depicts three men taking an oath in front of another man.  All of the figures are standing in front of a building with arches and columns. The groups of three stand in front of the first arch at left. Another man appears in front of the center arch facing them.  A seated and crying group of women and a child appear right in front on the third arch.  The painting is representational and the figures are rendered in a naturalistic manner.

Elements: David used actual and implied line. Actual line is visible in the lines of the floor tiles, and implied line in the men’s gazes and lifted arms of the three brothers and the father.  Most of the lines are diagonal and directional directing the eye as well as describing the figures. There is implied spatial depth created by the overlapping of the figures, swords, and diagonal lines in the floor tiles that indicate one-point linear perspective is used to create the illusion of space.

Principles: The focal point is the central area where the hands and swords and the implied lines of the men’s gazes meet; the lines in the painting point to the focal point.  The composition is balanced asymmetrically with greater visual weight (created by larger figures and more intense colors against two dark arch-shapes) on the left two-thirds of the canvas. 

I chose this painting because I have seen this painting in the Louvre museum and was amazed by its size, nearly 11′ x14’ with figures almost life-size.  The size and presentation made me feel a part of the painting when viewing it in the museum.  It hangs low on the wall so the floor seems to extend into the viewer’s space so the viewer becomes a “witness” to the oath ….almost!