Study Guide – Artforms – Pages 68-84
THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
1. What is the meaning of the term “design” or “composition”?
2. How do artists avoid the boredom of too much sameness in a composition?
Briefly explain.
3. What is another name for the achievement of equilibrium in a visual composition?
4. What is the fundamental difference between symmetry and asymmetry in a composition?
a. symmetry:
b. asymmetry:
5. What are three principles that control the visual weight and balance of form?
a.
b.
c.
6. What three principles that control the visual weight of color can overturn those which control
the visual balance of form?
a.
b.
c.
7. Regardless of the “rules” and “principles” of design, what do artists rely upon in order to arrive
at a dynamic balance?
8. How do artists keep us from being distracted from areas of emphasis? What is the term for
this?
9. Artists use Emphasis to draw our attention to a specific area of a composition. What is the
name for that area?
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10. How do artists create “paths” for the eye to follow in a composition?
11. How do artists use directional lines to create a sense of stability in a composition?
12. What is tenebrism?
13. What is Contrast? Name three examples.
a.
b.
c.
14. We generally associate rhythm with temporal arts such as music or dance. How is rhythm
created in the visual arts?
15. What does the repetition of visual elements contribute to a composition?
16. What is the difference between scale and proportion?
a. scale:
b. proportion:
17. In hierarchical scale, what does the size of the figures represent?
18. What is meant by the term format?
19. Briefly explain how Michelangelo altered proportion to create a serene composition in his
famous Pieta (1501).
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Study Guide – Artforms – Pages 43-53
VISUAL ELEMENTS: Space, Time and Motion
1. What is the fundamental difference between the visual arts and music?
a. Visual arts:
b. Music:
2. In architecture, how do we experience the following:
a. The outside of the building:
b. The inside of a building:
3. What defines the actual space of a two-dimensional artwork?
4. List three ways of creating implied depth in a composition.
a.
b.
c.
5. In Still Life with Apples (1890), how does Cezanne create an absorbing and unstable visual
experience?
6. What spatial system was developed by Italian architects and painters in the fifteenth century?
7. In the Linear Perspective system, what is “eye level”? Briefly explain.
8. What is the name of the position in the linear perspective system from which
the entire picture is constructed?
9. In what three ways is depth created with atmospheric or aerial perspective? Briefly explain each.
a.
b.
c.
10. How do traditional Chinese depictions of landforms differ from Western representations?
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11. What is the fundamental difference in the perception of time between traditional Asian
culture and Western culture?
a. Asian:
b. Western:
12. In what ways can the impression of time be manipulated in film and television?
13. How can art act as a “time capsule”?

14. What type of motion is exemplified by the following two artworks from the text?
a. Dancing Krishna (c. 1300):
b. Untitled (1972):
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Study Guide – Artforms – Pages 53-66
VISUAL ELEMENTS: Light, Value, and Color
1. What term is used to refer to the relative lightness and darkness of surfaces?
2. What Italian Renaissance technique is used to create the illusion that objects depicted on a flat
surface are three-dimensional?
3. What causes the effect of color on our eyes?
4. What is the name for the color that appears to our eyes as the actual color of an object?
5. What type of colors are white, black and gray? Briefly Explain.
6. What are the three basic variables that are used to identify colors?
Briefly explain each.
a.
b.
c.
7. How is color intensity (or saturation) different from value?
8. What type of color mixtures are produced when pigments of different hues are mixed
together?
9. In additive color mixtures, what do you get when you combine the three light primaries redorange, green, and blue violet?
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10. What are the three basic color groups? Name an example of a color from each.
a.
b.
c.
11. What type of color mixture do artists use when dots of pure hues are placed together so that
they blend in the eye and mind?
12. Optical color mixing creates the most vibrant color sensations. Briefly explain.
13. Name three basic color schemes?
a.
b.
c.
14. Complementary color schemes emphasize opposite hues. What are analogous color schemes?
15. What type of texture is evident in Meret Oppenheim’s Object (Breakfast in Fur)?
16. What type of texture is evident in Jan van Eyck’s painting, The Arnolfini Portrait?
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Study Guide – Artforms – Pages 36-43
VISUAL ELEMENTS: Line, Shape, Mass, Volume
1. List five of the basic visual elements.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
2. Briefly explain the meaning of the idea that line is a “mental concept.”
3. How do implied lines serve as an underlying organizational structure in a work of art?
4. What are background areas of a composition commonly referred to as?
5. Why does it take a shift in awareness to see the negative shapes in a composition?
6. What phenomenon is illustrated in Escher’s Sky and Water I (1938)?
7. What is the difference between mass and volume?
a. Mass:
b. Volume:
8. What two aspects of 3-D form are represented in the following two sculptures?
a. Man Pointing by Giacometti. 1947. Bronze
b. The Horse by Fernando Botero. 2008. Bronze. Plaza Centenario, Monterrey, Mexico.
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