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Craftsy

How to Look at & Understand Great Art

via Craftsy

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Overview

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This introductory course teaches learners how to look at, interpret, and understand great art through visual analysis, artistic media, subject matter, and a chronological survey of major Western art movements. It concludes with guidance for applying these methods during a museum visit.

Syllabus

  • The Importance of First Impressions
  • Where Am I? Point of View & Focal Point
  • Color-Description, Symbol & More
  • Line-Description & Expression
  • Space, Shape, Shade & Shadow
  • Seeing the Big Picture-Composition
  • The Illusion-Getting the Right Perspective
  • Art That Moves Us-Time & Motion
  • Feeling with Our Eyes-Texture & Light
  • Drawing-Dry, Liquid & Modern Media
  • Printmaking-Relief & Intaglio
  • Modern Printmaking-Planographic
  • Sculpture-Salt Cellars to Monuments
  • Development of Painting-Tempera & Oils
  • Modern Painting-Acrylics & Assemblages
  • Subject Matters
  • Signs-Symbols, Icons & Indexes in Art
  • Portraits-How Artists See Others
  • Self-Portraits-How Artists See Themselves
  • Landscapes-Art of the Great Outdoors
  • Putting It All Together
  • Early Renaissance-Humanism Emergent
  • Northern Renaissance-Devil in the Details
  • High Renaissance-Humanism Perfected
  • Mannerism & Baroque-Distortion & Drama
  • Going Baroque-North versus South
  • 18th-Century Reality & Decorative Rococo
  • Revolutions-Neoclassicism & Romanticism
  • From Realism to Impressionism
  • Postimpressionism-Form & Content Re-Viewed
  • Expressionism-Empathy & Emotion
  • Cubism-An Experiment in Form
  • Abstraction/Modernism-New Visual Language
  • Dada Found Objects/Surreal Doodles & Dreams
  • Postmodernism-Focus on the Viewer
  • Your Next Museum Visit-Do It Yourself!

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