When we are referring to something boring, or seemingly old, like its something you’ve seen it before and you think it’s a lame idea, you can say it’s cliché. “The painting seems very cliché.”
When we refer to men’s gentialia; the actual stuff or the idea /representation of it, we can say ‘phallic’. As in “The sculpture suggests a phallic shape”. Some people think that really tall towers are 'phallic symbols'. (google it to get the idea)
When you are asked to describe subject matter, you are asked to discuss the story presented by the work. You know the story from the objects, people, landscape, clothing, lighting, colours, etc that the artist choose to use. For example, if the painting is full of herons, then the subject matter is going to be herons, perhaps wildlife, or feeding time; wild herons near a pond all crowding around a small opening in the grasses to try to catch fish. If the herons are geometric representations of a heron, without real faces, then the identity of each particular heron is not important, just the fact that they are all herons, so the joining of many herons becomes a part of the subject matter…… and so on…….
When are you asked to describe the composition, this is when you use your knowledge of the elements and principles. You are to explain how different elements are put together to create the work.
NOTE: Whenever you are asked to describe, imagine you are talking to a blind man and you must describe in HIGH SPECIFIC detail exactly what you see, so he/she can re-draw the picture exactly. Of course make sure you throw in some opinions and art vocab just for fun…..and higher marks.
When you are asked about the theme; they are referring to a general idea. When we study SOVA we studied 4 major themes. (actually, we did.. remember at the beginning of the year when i showed you all those slides and asked you (shock!) to do written assignments, like we visited the art galleries….that um…. not many of you did….yeah……) They are Self Relationships, Culture and Society, Space and Structure and Ideas and Imagination. As you can see, themes are general ideas that we can use to classify something. So we can say “the theme of school is education.” (I will try to post the theme questions and answers we did earlier in the year to jolt your remembering…key word: try.)
When you are asked about social commentary; they are referring to what comment is being made about society. How does the art work detail some social idea or issue that is relevant to the time the art work is made. There may be more than one comment being made as society, as we know, is very complex these days.
When you are asked about tone; they are referring to shading and depth in a painting, how the artist uses light effects, tints, shades, highlights to create 3D forms or effects of texture. Also, when you are talking about tone if you use the word depth, for example, “the tone added by the artist creates depth” it just makes you sound smart.
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