Researching a piece of Art

Find a piece of Art that you find interesting. PART A Step 1 Save this document to your Art folder on your desktop.

Raphael The School of Athens 1510-11 Fresco Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura, Rome Source: http://www.artchive.com/ftp_site.htm

This is an example of how we reference an artwork 1/ The Title of the Piece of Art 2/The Artist 3/The Date it was created, and Where if known 4/ Where you found the work (website, book, magazine...)

TASK 1: Go to www.artchive.com click on the Mona Lisa and this will bring you to the Artchive. Use the scroll list on the left had side and go to Renaissance art. Browse and choose one you find interesting.

PART B Answer the following questions on the next page. The word bank and the posters can help you.
1/ CONTENT
What is the artwork of? What do you think it might be about? What is your first one-word response? When do you think it was made?

2/ FORM:
What does the picture look like? What kinds of shapes and textures make up the picture? How would this picture look in a different material, size, or colour? Is it big or small? Is it the size of something in your house? Make some comparisons with familiar objects. Is there a front and a back? Are you meant to look at it from different angles? Is it figurative (based on the human figure) or abstract (about colour, shape and form)?

3/ PROCESS
How do you think it was made? What materials do you think were used? What is it made of? Do you know of any artists who work in this medium today? What tools do you think the artist used? What techniques?

4/ MOOD: What do I SEE/ THINK/ WONDER?

Puzzling confusing accurate amusing sad angry thoughtful busy angular mysterious fragmented curvy messy precise happy still

5/ THINK Why do you think the artist created this?

Why did he or she create it in this way? 6/ What do you WONDER?

7/ What questions might you have if you could talk to the artist or the person in the artwork?

Enter your picture and answer the questions here

The burning of the Borgo/The fire in the Borgo Raphael 1514 Fresco Stanza dellIncedio, Vatican Palace, Rome www.artchive.com
I think that this art work is about the burning of the Borgo of course. Something about fire burning something. The first word that I think of when I look at this art work is chaotic because you can see that people are trying to go somewhere else and their startled. The picture was made in 1514. The picture describes the reaction of the people when there is a fire in Borgo, Borgo is an historic district in Rome. Its really hard to describe the shapes in this picture because its a very detailed photo with a lot of information. There are many curves and many drawings of human in the art work. I think that Raphael used very realistic colours so if the colours changed then the drawing might not look as realistic. If it is as big as a house then it would give the effect of people wanting to get closer to see the paint and the details will become clearer. I am not sure of the size of the original painting but I dont think that this painting is the same size as anything in my house. No I dont think that there is a back to this painting. Im not sure if we have to look at this painting in any different angles but if you looked at it normally it looks perfectly fine and Im pretty sure that most people understand that theres a fire and the town is chaotic. It is figurative and abstract because you can see parts of Borgo and the fire and theres the background but there are also figures that are in the painting but the artist didnt focus on the abstractness or the figures in the painting. Im not sure how Raphael made this but I think its with paint brush and oil paint? I think its oil paint because I used to paint oil paintings and it looks really similar but Im not sure. The materials that were used to make this painting are probably a thin brush, a canvas and some paint. Its made from oil pain I think. The techniques the author used was probably to paint it slowly so there werent any mistakes and to focus on adding details to the figures and their facial expressions and the district. I can see something really nice is a young man carrying an older man who is helping him and also a man passing another man a baby. I wonder what the people in the middle of the photo are doing. Are they frightened of the fire or are they doing something else? Also in the background since we are learning about Renaissance in humanities I think that it is the priest collecting the tax from the people, excusing that paying more is for people who have done many sins and the priest will forgive them for all the bad sins that they have done. So why do I think that the author created this painting? Maybe it is because he has lived near Borgo before and he had a past there that he loved so hed love to express about the fire that happened in Borgo, to highlight the

events there? Im not so sure. I think he painted it this way because it is to show the different parts of Borgo and what happens? If I could meet the artist Id ask him why he chose to paint about the burning in Borgo. I would also ask how did he capture the image in his head and paint it out, because it is pretty hard if you werent there at Borgo when it is burning WORD BANK

TEXTURE

FLAT

ORGANISED

PURE

CHAOTIC

STRONG SHADE

TONE CONTRAST

COLOUR CHIAOROSCURO

LINE SCALE

FORM

LIGHT PROPORTION

FOREGROUND

DEPTH

BACKGROUND

MIDDLEGROUND

SHAPE

PATTERN

PERSPECTIVE

AERIAL

LINEAR

ATMOSPHERE

COLLAGE

PAINTING

MIXED MEDIA

SCULPTURE

PRINT

PHOTOGRAPH

VIDEO

NATURAL

IMAGINED

OBSERVED

SENSITIVE

ROUGH

REALISTIC

ABSTRACT

HUE

MONOCHROME

COMPOSITION

SHAPE

CROSS-HATCHING

FROTTAGE

MEDIA

BRUSHMARK

MODELLING

OPAQUE

CLEAR

DULL

BRIGHT

COOL

HOT

WARM

CALM

BUSY

STILL

MEANING

Principles of Design

Elements of Art