CHAPTER 7 Other formal elements: texture, time, & motion
Texture: the surface quality of a two-dimensional shape or a threedimensional volume. Types of texture: Actual Texture: the surface of the material. This can be smooth, like marble, thick paint, rough fabric, etc. Implied texture (visual texture): The surface appears to be one way, but is not. For example, a marble statue can appear to be soft, folded fabric but is actually smooth stone. It is an illusion. Invented Texture: texture that is made up on a surface and does not relate to what is depicted in the work.
Texture is used to describe a work of art's ability to call forth certain tactile sensations and feelings. It may seem rough or smooth, as coarse as sandpaper or as fine as powder. If it seems slimy, like a slug, it may repel us. If it seems soft as fur, it may make us want to touch it. In face, most of us are compelled to touch what we see. It is one of the ways we come to understand our world. That's why signs in museums and galleries saying "Please do not touch" are necessary. If, for example, every visitor to the Vatican in Rome had touched the marble body of Christ in Michelangelo's Pieta, the rounded, sculptural forms would have been reduced to utter flatness long ago.
Michelangelo, Pietà, 1501.
Actual Texture Marble is one of the most tactile of all artistic mediums. Michelangelo was able to turn marble into a lifelike form, compelling the viewer to reach out and confirm that the work is stone. The drapery seems soft, falling in gentle folds. The visual experience of this work defies what we know is materially true. Besides its emotional content, part of Pieta's power derives from extraordinary texture. Paint can also be tactile, and used abstractly and contain actual texture through thickly applied material or additives that alter the body of the paint. The following two slides are examples of actual texture in abstract and representational paintings.
Robert Ryman, Long, 2002. The artist thickly applies the paint, and each brushstroke is not only evident but seems to have a body of its own. This textural effect if referred to as impasto. Ryman s subject matter is actually the brushstroke itself, and its relation to the canvas on which he layers it.
Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888.
Visual Texture Visual texture appears to be actual but is not. Like the representation of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface, a visual texture is an illusion. If you were to touch the painting The Horde (next slide), it would feel primarily smooth, despite the fact that it seems to possess all sorts of actual surface texture and bumps. This work is an example of a technique called frottage, from the French word frotter, "to rub". By putting a sheet of paper over textured materials, like an unraveled spool of string, and then rubbing across the paper with a pencil or crayon, he was able to create a wide variety of textured effects.
Max Ernst, The Horde, 1927. The surface appears to have rough texturized areas to it, while it actually feels rather smooth, as the paint remains close to the surface of the paper.
One of the most traditional distinctions made between the plastic arts- painting and sculpture- and the written arts- such as music and literature- is that the plastic arts are spacial and the written arts are temporal. We experience a painting or sculpture all at once; the work of art is complete and in front of you at all times. But, we experience music and literature over time, in a linear way. A temporal work possesses a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Time plays a greater role in the plastic arts than that suggests. Some works of art actually move, like film and video do. Those are narrative arts and may seem closer to literature than painting or sculpture, but they also rely on their visual presence for narrative structure. Sculptures often require you to move around them, and some sculptures actually move, such as mobiles. Works that actually move or seem to move are known as kinetic art.
Sculptures by Alexander Calder, who worked primarily in the 1970's. These are an example of kinetic art.
Time and Motion It is often unclear how to determine a work of art s beginning, middle, and end with reference to time. Time still plays an active role in art. Even representational works that strive to give us a photographic frozen moment are often part of a larger narrative, or story.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, David, 1623. Marble, life size. Although this moment is captured forever in solid marble, Bernini presents a piece that is inevitably part of a larger story. The action suggested through David s defensive stance, the sling ready to shoot the rock, and David s intense stare, all leads us to perceive the events that preceded this event, as well as the events to follow.
Isidro Escamilla, Virgin of Guadalupe, 1824. Oil on canvas. This painting tells the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In the top-left corner, we see Juan Diego first encountering the Virgin. In the bottom-left corner, we see him picking the miraculous roses, as instructed by the Virgin. In the bottom-right corner, we see Juan Diego opening the cloak, and the miraculous image of the virgin on it. In the top-right corner, we see a group of saints (winged like angels) accepting the Virgin as one of them.
Seeing Over Time To appreciate large scale works of art, it may be necessary to move and around and view them from all sides, or to see them from a number of vantage points- to view them over time. Claude Monet's famous paintings of his lily pond at Giverny were designed to compell the viewer to move. They encircle the room, and to be in the midst of this work is to find oneself suddenly in the middle of a world that has turned into a pond itself. The paintings cannot be seen all at once.
Claude Monet, Waterlilies, 1916-1926 Triptych, each panel 6 ft. 8 in. by 14. ft. 2 in Musée d l'orangerie, Paris, France