ART THEORY
The process of making art can be approached from four different vantage points: the medium, the subject, the composition, and the function of the work. These elements can be discussed separately, but in practice they must integrate into a single expressive whole. Each contributes something different to the final work, and each places different demands upon the artist.
THE MEDIUM
Every medium has a voice. It has particular physical qualities, limitations, associations, and expressive possibilities. Part of learning an art medium is learning what it naturally does well and what it does not. Papier-mâché, for example, would be an inappropriate material for a Civil War monument, while bronze carries qualities of permanence, gravity, and historical significance that make it particularly appropriate for such a task. On the other hand, papier-mâché may be an excellent medium for a Halloween mask, where exaggeration, lightness, humor, and the speed with which it can be used are virtues. Bronze would be considerably less appropriate.
The same principle applies to painting. Watercolor behaves differently from oil paint, tempera, or acrylic. It has its own transparency, fluidity, spontaneity, and limitations. Oil paint permits a different kind of depth, correction, layering, and physical presence. Learning technique, therefore, is not simply learning how to control a material. It is learning to recognize the particular voice of the medium and how that voice can serve the larger purpose of the work.
COMPOSITION
The Theory of Composition concerns the way visual elements—line, shape, color, value, texture, space, rhythm, proportion, emphasis, and movement—are brought into relationship with one another. A painting is not simply a collection of colors and shapes, any more than a piece of music is merely a collection of individual notes. Meaning emerges from relationship. The task of composition is to create the coherence through which separate elements become a single expressive form.
Musical, kinetic, theatrical, and written compositions address the same fundamental problem: how do all the elements within a composition integrate into a singular whole that is more than the sum of its parts?
SUBJECT
The subject of a work concerns what the artwork addresses, but subject should not be confused simply with what is depicted. A painting of a crucifixion, a landscape, a mother and child, or a battle carries meanings that extend far beyond the objects represented. The subject may be underwritten by mythology, religion, history, personal experience, or a larger symbolic grammar belonging to the culture that produced it. Subject and function are therefore closely allied. What an artwork represents cannot be entirely separated from a deeper underlying meaning.
For this reason, understanding a work of art requires more than identifying its style or technique. A Renaissance altarpiece commissioned by the Church, a royal portrait commissioned by a monarch, and a monument commissioned by a group of merchants all exist within networks of expectations and purposes that influence both their subject and their form.
FUNCTION
Subject and function are closely allied. Art has served many functions throughout human history. It has commemorated the dead, represented gods, legitimized rulers, transmitted myths, preserved memory, instructed communities with civic values, marked sacred places, celebrated beauty, protested injustice, explored perception, and given form to experiences for which ordinary language is inadequate. The image to the right is an etching by Kathe Kallwitz (1894) that protested the working conditions of the poor.