Why study artists
- Researching artists, designers and craftspeople (contextual sources) develops your ideas and meets AO1.
- Good research doesn't just copy: it analyses how and why the work was made, then uses those ideas in your own work.
Analysing an artwork
- A useful framework is content, form, process and mood.
- Content: what is it, and what is it about? Form: how are the formal elements (colour, line, tone, composition) used? Process: what materials and techniques were used, and how? Mood: how does it make you feel, and why?
- Context: when, where and why was it made? What was happening at the time?
- Give your own opinion, backed up with reasons, using art vocabulary.
Examples of artists students often study
- Vincent van Gogh used thick paint (impasto) and expressive brushstrokes and colour.
- Claude Monet (Impressionism) painted changing light with quick, broken brushstrokes. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, another Impressionist, painted the bays at Moulin Huet during a visit to Guernsey in 1883.
- Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism, showing objects from several viewpoints at once.
- Andy Warhol (Pop Art) used screen printing and repetition of everyday and celebrity images.
- Frida Kahlo painted vivid self-portraits about identity and pain. Georgia O'Keeffe painted huge close-ups of flowers.
Using research well
- Make studies of the artist's work in the same technique, then apply the technique to your own subject.
- Present research with images, your own studies and annotation that shows understanding, not just facts copied from the internet.
Key terms
- Contextual source
- An artist, designer or other source that informs your work.
- Impasto
- Paint applied thickly so brushstrokes show.
- Impressionism
- A movement that captured light and moments with quick, broken brushstrokes.
- Cubism
- A movement showing objects from several viewpoints at once.
- Pop Art
- A movement using images from popular culture and advertising.
- Artist study
- A copy or response made to understand an artist's methods.