Unit 5: Artistic Media
Artists find ways to express themselves with almost any resource available. It is a mark of creativity to make extraordinary images and objects from various, but often somewhat ordinary, materials. Using charcoal, paper, thread, paint, ink – and even found objects such as leaves – artists continue to search for ways to construct and deliver their message. In this unit, we look at artworks created from two- and three-dimensional media and arts made using different types of cameras.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 10 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- identify and describe specific characteristics of the media that artists use;
- explain how the advance of technology affected art practices;
- explain the effect photography had on traditional artistic media; and
- differentiate between two-dimensional and three-dimensional media.
- identify and describe specific characteristics of the media that artists use;
5.1: Two-Dimensional Media
- When most people in Western societies think of art, painting is probably the medium that comes immediately to mind. However, did you know there are actually six major distinct painting mediums?
- This article examines the three basic techniques of printmaking: relief, intaglio, and planar.
Read this article to understand the development of collage as a new approach to creating 2D media.
Marshall McLuhan's quote that "the medium is the message" helps us understand the frontiers and limits of the tools we use. Artistic mediums are not only extensions of our creativity but avenues that help define changes in scale. For example, the introduction of painting extends by leaps and bounds what drawing could do.
Using this list of online galleries, find one example of each two-dimensional medium we have covered: drawing, painting, printmaking and collage. Write a short summary of how the nature of each medium dictates the expression of the artist using it. In other words, what makes each medium unique, and how does it limit or expand what the artist is able to do with it?
5.2: The Camera
Reflect on this discussion prompt. If you wish, post your thoughts on the discussion forum. Leave a reply to your classmates' posts as well!
Visual information is the key in making social networking so popular. From digital cameras to mobile phones, taking pictures has become an everyday experience for most of us.
- How often do you take pictures?
- What device do you usually use to take them?
- How much attention do you devote to composition, lighting or arrangement in your pictures?
- How do you use the images?
- How do you think you can improve your photos?
- How often do you take pictures?
Read this article to get a sense of how the advent of photography caused changes in the use of other two-dimensional media.
Photographers must consider form and content just as much as artists in other mediums. Read on to learn more.
This section discusses the difficulties inherent in photography and detailed processes that occur in the darkroom.
Perhaps due to its ability to recreate images as the human eye would see them, the human element is an enduring central theme in photography.
The use of color film changed the aesthetics of photography, which had been primarily based on black and white (greyscale) before 1935.
Because it enables artists to replicate and reproduce many copies of reality, photography lends itself naturally to reporting on human events via photojournalism.
- Camera technology changed at a rapid pace. Barely three generations after Edwin Land invented the instant camera in 1947, smartphone companies began putting cameras (and sometimes more than one!) in phones.
This article introduces the time-based representations in art introduced by film and video, and discusses the impact that computers and digital technology have had on the visual arts through software and interactivity.
Reflect on this discussion prompt. If you wish, please post your thoughts on the discussion forum. Leave a reply to your classmates' posts as well!
The film industry is a major part of the economy and, like other artistic mediums, it reflects and anticipates the culture surrounding it, although Hollywood arguably has a culture all its own. Now, independent films (those made outside of the big Hollywood studios) are having a larger effect on audiences because they can examine themes and ideas beyond what the big studios decide to finance.
- How often do you see a film?
- Do you view films in a theatre or on other digital media?
- What kind of films do you like; human interest stories, action films, romances, fantasy or animation?
- What are your thoughts on film’s role to entertain and inform?
- What is your favorite film? Why?
- How often do you see a film?
Complete this ungraded assignment using the interpretive skills that you have learned so far in this course.
Use this ungraded quiz to see how well you understand the material presented in this subunit. Be sure to go back and strengthen your understanding of the concepts which you feel less sure of.
5.3: Three-Dimensional Media
Three-dimensional art includes much more than sculpture. This article provides an overview.
- Read this section on the main types of sculptural media. Make sure you can identify them by name.
This article details the major methods involved in creating three-dimensional art: carving, casting, modeling, and construction (which is sometimes also called assemblage).
Installation art and performance art are also varieties of three-dimensional art.
This ungraded activity provides another opportunity for you to add to your portfolio of interpretive reflections. With each of these activities, you are strengthening your skills at interpreting art, which will help you appreciate art even more!
The final kind of three-dimensional art we will examine is decorative art. Reflect on how decorative art is different from the other kinds of two- and three-dimensional art that we have learned about so far in this course
Reflect on this discussion prompt. If you wish, post your thoughts on the discussion forum. Leave a reply to your classmates' posts as well!
For thousands of years sculpture has (literally) been the bedrock of three-dimensional art. Carved from stone or wood, or cast in bronze, so often figurative and, from a western cultural perspective, in a realistic style.
The advent of modern art in the first half of the twentieth century has radically changed the formal characteristics of sculpture and, in some cases, the content. View these three sculptures and comment on the issues of form and content in each one.
- Egyptian Sculpture
- Picasso’s Woman in the Garden
- Louise Bourgeois' Cell: Eyes and Mirrors
Take this ungraded quiz, which will assess your understanding of three-dimensional media in art.
Unit 5 Assessment
- Receive a grade
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.
- This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
- You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
- You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.
