ART APPRECIATION FINALS Tempera
PAINTING  Shares qualities with both watercolor and oil paint
 Is the process of applying pigment on a smooth surface (paper,
cloth, canvas, wood or plaster) to secure an interesting
arrangement of forms, lines and colors
Components of Paint
 Paint is made of pigment, powdered color, compounded with a
medium or vehicle, a liquid that holds the particles of pigment
together without dissolving them
 The vehicle generally acts as or includes a binder, an ingredients
that ensures that the paint, even when diluted and spread thinly,
will adhere to the surface.
 Without a binder, pigments would simply powder off as the
paint dried
 Paints are applied to a support, which is the canvas, paper or
wood panel or other surface on which the artists works
o The support may be prepared to receive paint with a
ground or primer, a preliminary coating
Medium
 The material from which a work of art is made of
MEDIUMS IN PAINTING
Encaustic
 Consists of pigments mixed with wax and resin
 When the colors are heated, the wax melts and the paint can
be brushed easily
 When the wax cools, the paint hardens
 After the painting is completed, there may be a final
“burning in: as a heaty source is passed close to the surface
of the painting to fuse the colors
 It is generally applied to wooden panels and is associated
with ancient paintings
o Egyptians (Mummified paintings)
o Limited color palette and materials dry fast (work
needs to be fast)
o Retain color very well
Fresco
 With fresco, pigments are mixed with water and a applied
to a plaster support, usually a wall or a ceiling coated in
plaster
 Usually found in rich homes (floors)
 There is nothing tentative about fresco
 Every touch of the brush in fresco is a commitment
 The only way an artist can correct mistakes or change the
forms is to let the plaster dry, chip it away and start all over
again
 Not for people who work slow
 The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci
o He generally used tempera (pigments did not
adhere properly)
 The plaster may be dry in which the technique is known as
fresco secco, Italian for “dry fresco”
 But most often when speaking about fresco, we mean buon
fresco or “true fresco”, in which paint made simply of
pigment and water is applied to wet lime plaster
 As the plaster dries, the lime undergoes a chemical
transformation and acts as a binder, fusing the pigment with
the plaster surface
 Like watercolor, tempera is an aqueous medium
 Like oil paint, it dries to a tough, insoluble film
 Yet whereas oil paint tends to yellow and darken with age,
tempera colors retain their brilliance and clarity for
centuries
 Tempera dries very quickly and so colors cannot be
blended easily once they are set down
 Technically, tempera is paint in which the vehicle is an
emulsion, which is a stable mixture of an aqueous liquid
with an oil, fat, wax or resin
 The most famous tempera vehicle is another naturally
occurring emulsion, egg yolk
 Used for icons (images)
Oil
 Oil paints consist of pigment compounded with oil, usually
linseed oil. The oil acts as a binder, creating as it dries a
transparent film in which the pigment is suspended
 Oil paint dries very slowly, allowing artists far more time to
manipulate the paint, Colors can be laid down next to each
other and blended softly and seamlessly
 Oil paint can be applied in a range of consistencies, from
very thick to very thin
 Can be used to simulate more details (fabric, flesh etc.)
Watercolor and Gouache
 Watercolor consists of pigment in a vehicle of water and
gum Arabic, a sticky plant substance that acts as the binder
 The leading characteristic of watercolors is their
transparency. They are applied thinly in translucent washes
Gouache
 Is a watercolor with inert white pigment added
 Inert pigment is pigment that becomes colorless or virtually
colorless in paint
 In gouache, it serves to make the colors opaque, which
means that when used at full strength, they can completely
hide any ground or other color they are painted over
 Like watercolor, it can be applied in a translucent wash,
although…that is not its primary use
 It dries quickly and uniformly and is especially well suited
to large areas of flat, saturated color
Acrylic
 A synthetic plastic resin used as a binder for artist’s paints
 As acrylic paint dries, the resin particles coalesce to form a
tough, flexible and waterproof film
 Depending on how they are used, acrylics can mimic the
effects of other painting media
THREE-DIMENSIONAL ART
Sculpture
 It is an artistic form in which hard or plastic materials are
worked into three-dimensional art objects
 It is also one of the oldest and most enduring of all the arts
Two Basic Processes
Subtractive Processes
  Common materials include bronze, plastic, clay or synthetic
 The sculptor begins with a mass of material larger than the resins
finished work and removes material, subtracting from that mass  Lost-wax Process (beeswax)
until the work achieves its finished form
 Ex: Carving Carving

Additive Processes  A subtractive technique in which a mass of material such as

stone or wood is shaped by cutting and/or abrasion
 The sculptor builds the work, adding material as the work
proceeds Assembling
 Ex: modeling, construction and assemblage
 The technique of creating a sculpture by grouping or piercing
Three Basic Ways to Experience Sculpture together distinct elements, as opposed to casting, modeling or
carving
 Relief  An assembled sculpture may be called an assemblage
 In the Round
 Environment ARCHITECTURE

Types of Sculpture  Is the art and technique of designing and building as

Relief
 Sculpture in which figures are attached to a background and
project from it to some degree
 In low relief, also called basic relief, the figure projects
minimally, as on a coin
 In high relief, figures project substantially form the background,
often by half their full depth or more
 In sunken relief, outlines are carved into the surface and the
figure is modeled within them, from the surface down
In the Round
 It is a work fully finished on all sides and standing free of a
background
Performance
 Contemporary events design to be ephemeral, lasting only in
memory
distinguished from the skills associated with construction
 The practice of architecture is employed to fulfill both practical
and expressive requirements, and this it serves both utilitarian
and aesthetic ends
 Architecture satisfies a basic, universal human need for a roof
over one’s head
 More than walls, more than a chair to sit on or a soft bed to lie
on, a roof is the classic symbol of protection and security
Two Basic Families of Structural Systems
Shell System
 One building material provides both structural support and
sheathing
Skeleton-and-Skin System
 The sheathing is supported by an internal frame
Tensile Strength

Installations  Refers to the amount of tensile (stretching) stress a material can

withstand before it bends or breaks
 A room-sized multimedia sculpture constructed in a gallery,  As applies to architecture, it especially concerns the ability of a
museum or public space material to span horizontal distances without continuous support
 It is meant to surround the viewer with a unique artistic form below
experience
 More interactive and makes you feel like you’re a part of it Structural Systems in Architecture
 Carries a level of subjectivity
Load-Bearing Construction
Earthwork
 This is the simplest method of making a building, and it is
 Large-scale environmental sculpture outside of a gallery or suitable for brick, stone, adobe ice blocks and certain modern
museum materials
 Interacts directly with nature  Essentially, the builder constructs the walls by piing layer upon
layer, starting thick at the bottom, getting thinner s the structure
Methods and Materials in Scuplture rises, and usually tapering inward near the highest point
 Dark and little to no ventilation
Modeling  A window can be a weak spot

 It is the manipulation of a plastic material such as clay or wax to Post-and Lintel

create a form
 It is composed of two uprights (the posts) supporting a
Casting horizontal crosspiece (the lintel or beam)
 This configuration can be be continued indefinitely, so that
 The process of making a sculpture or some other object by there may be one very long horizontal supported at critical
pouring a liquid into a mold, letting it harden, and then releasing points along the way by vertical posts to carry its weight to
it the ground.
  The most common materials for post-and-lintel
construction are stone and wood.
 Since neither has great tensile strength, these materials will
yield and cave in when forced to span long distances, so the
architect must provide supporting posts at close intervals.
Round Arch and Vault
 A curved structure, usually made of wedge-shaped stones,
that serves to span an opening
 An arch may be semicircular or rise to a point at the top
 Because of tensions and compressions inherent in the form,
the arch is stable only when it is complete, when the
topmost stone, the keystone has been set in place
 Not invented by Romans but used extensively by them
 A barrel vault is a half-round arch extended in depth
 A groin vault is formed by intersection of two barrel vaults
of equal size at right angles
Geodesic Domes
 It is essentially a bubble, formed by a network of metal
rods arranged in triangles and further organized into
tetrahedrons
 This metal framework can be sheathed in any of several
lightweight materials, including wood, glass, and plastic.
 Although very light in weight in relation to size, it is
amazingly strong, because its structure rests on a
mathematically sophisticated use of the triangle.
 Because it requires no interior support, all the space
encompassed by the dome can be used with total freedom

Pointed Arch and Vault

 The pointed arch, though seemingly not different from the

round one, offers many advantages
o Because the sides arc up to a point, weight is
channeled down to the ground at a steeper angle,
and therefore the arch can be taller.
 Architects of the Gothic period found they did not need
heavy masses of material throughout the curve of the vault,
as long as the major points of intersection were reinforced.
o These reinforcements are called ribs

Dome

 In architecture, a convex, evenly curved roof; technically

an arch rotated 360 degrees on its vertical axis
 Like an arch, a dome may be hemispherical or pointed

Cast-Iron Construction

 Iron had been known for thousands of years and had been
used for tools and objects of all kinds
 Only in the 19th century did architects realize that its great
strength offered promise for structural support

Steel-Frame Construction

 Rather than piling floor upon floor with each of the lower
stories supporting those above it, the builders first erect a
steel “cage” that is capable of sustaining the entire weight
of the building; then they apply a skin of some other
material

Suspension
 The concept of suspension was developed for bridges late
in the 19th century
 In essence, the weight of the structure is suspended form
steel cables supported on vertical pylons, driven into the
ground

Reinforced Concrete

 Also known as ferroconcrete, has been used in a wide

variety of structure, often in those with free-form, organic
shapes. Although it may seem at first to be a skeleton-and-
skin construction, ferroconcrete actually works more like a
shell, because the iron rods (or sometimes a steel mesh) and
concrete are bonded permanently and can form structures
that are self-sustaining, even when very thin