Formal Analysis Questions: Painting

Formal, Technique, Materials

  • Is the painting oil, acrylic, tempera, or another material? What is the like?
  • Are there visible brushstrokes? Are the layers of paint thin or thick?
  • Is there any difference in techniques used across the work?
  • Consider the scale of the painting and its effect.

Composition and Subject Matter

  • Is the painting representational (with recognizable figures and objects), abstract, or a combination of both?
  • Does the work suggest a narrative (a story)?
  • If the painting is representational, is it a historical scene, a portrait, a biblical narrative, a still life, a genre scene, or something else?
  • How do the different parts of the composition relate to each other and to the whole scene? Does the composition have unity?
  • Is the scene symmetrical or asymmetrical? Is there significant use of cropping?
  • What forms the background, and what is the focus of the scene Is there anything that draws your eye into or across the work?
  • What framing devices are used (aside from the actual frame, if there is one)?

If your work is figural

  • What is the relationship of your gaze to the figure's gaze or figures's gazes (for example, is the figure looking at you)? Is the view of the figure frontal, three-quarters, or profile? If the view is three-quarters, does it suggest motion? If there is more than one figure, od they look at each other?
  • Is the figure (or are the figures) placed in a setting? If so, what is there relationship to that setting? Do the objects or figures share the space evenly, or is more emphasis placed on one figure?

If your work is a landscape

  • Do the landscape features share the space evenly, or does one overpower the other? What is the focus of the composition? Is there a suggestion of motion in the landscape?
  • Are there animals or figures in the landscape? What is there relationship to the landscape?

Light, Color, Perspective

  • How many light sources are present in the work? What is the effect of light and shadow (chiaroscuro) in the picture–is it even, or sharply contrasting? Natural or theatrical?
  • Are the colors warm, cool, monochrome? Saturated or muted? Howa re they placed across the work?
  • Does the artist convey a sense of perspective? How? Is the space intentionally distorted?
  • Consider four different ways of creating depth in a painting: overlapping figures; aerial or atmospheric perspective (the scene becomes increasingly out of focus and fades to a blue in the painted distance); relative scale; linear perspective (a mathematical system of creating  the illusion of depth on a flat surface in which parallel lines converge at a single vanishing point on the horizon).

Function and Context

  • What might be significant about the time period in which the work was created?
  • What is the present state or condition of this photograph? What has led to this state?
  • What is the museum's title or description of the work? How does it affect your interpretation of the work?
  • When did the work come into the collection? What is the provenance?
  • With which area of the collection is it associated?
  • How is it displayed, and in relation to which other objects? How is it lit?
  • How are visitors expected to read this object in a museum setting?