If you have ever analyzed a poem or developed an understanding of a historical period, you are prepared to think and write like an art historian. The message of such artworks reads that only via this ultimate bond is happiness and harmony possible on this planet.
Some professors prefer to take a less traditional approach to the assignments they write, and they may be looking for less traditional responses from their students. Most art historians include formal analysis at some point in their essays, so there are a lot of examples to look at in the textbook and other readings, but you will probably have to be more in-depth than they are.
The thematic affinity of the two paintings can be traced in the way Walsh manages the formal elements: the color, the light, and the composition.
What is art history? You may also wish to keep an image of the object or objects in view as you write. Trough observation of modern artworks, it becomes possible to realize how much significance is given by artists to the connection between the man and the nature. In the bottom left part of the embroidery, there is a body of a naked man whose green hair reminds grass blades and who is stretching his hand — in shape of a sunflower — to the woman.
Barnet, Sylvan. Although art historians vary in their approaches to art, there are a few common approaches that form the backbone of the field.
Such a contrast suggests a semantic opposition between the world of nature filled with color and love, and the colorless world of civilization. The light falls on both the rose and the woman from the right, which is emphasized by a distinct shift in the tints of the color from a very light beige to the darkest brown.
However, in some courses, particularly in Modern Art courses, you may be asked to look beyond or through the object toward theoretical, historical, or social contexts of the object, artist, or time period.