What is a Formal Analysis?
A formal analysis does not involve outside research beyond the most basic information on a work of art (artist, title, date, medium, etc.) Instead, it revolves around your ability to look (and look and look) closely at a work of art, to pay attention to its forms. The following terms will guide you in your looking. I recommend spending at least one hour studying a painting and writing your observations. Only after looking and notating should you begin the process of writing your own analysis. This analysis should have a framing thesis that guides your reader through the work as you see it. (We will practice formal analyses throughout our course. I will send you an example of a formal analysis in advance of your first assignment.)
Example of a Formal Analysis. This is a 500 word example of a formal analysis of two works (a comparative analysis). Note the student’s use of a framing “thesis” sentence, advanced through their attention to visual qualities within the work(s).
Preliminary Terms for Formal Analysis
Medium; technique, size. How do these effect your encounter with the image?
Scale of figures relative to the total object. Does this suggest something about the relative importance of figures?
Treatment of the human body (or animal body; or drapery; etc.). Naturalistic? Schematized or abstracted? Idealized? Note proportions. Is it a portrait? What is the attitude towards the person/animal?
Composition. How is it organized? Is there a focal point? Is the composition unified? Fragmented? Does color affect the composition? Hierarchy? Symmetry? Many or few forms included? Geometrically ordered or free and seemingly accidental? Crowdedness or spaciousness? Variety or repetition? Does the composition help to direct viewers’ attention: in what way and how?
Pictorial Space. How is it handled—essentially two-dimensionally or three-dimensionally? Shallow or deep? Open or screened off? What kind of perspective used? Atmospheric; one-point; worm’s eye, bird’s eye? Is space suggested by planes in depth or by recession? What is relation of “shape” of space to picture plane? How does the handling of space affect the relationship of the image to viewers?
Atmospheric Perspective. Use of color and scale to articulate recession or distance.
Linear Perspective. Use of orthogonal lines to articulate recession.
Form. What natural, human, and/or built forms? Which forms are solid, open, tough, delicate. Often defined by line.
Contour line. A line which defines contour, or edge.
Brushstroke (or Facture). Painterly or linear? Tight (almost invisible) or free (very visible). Emphasis on the boundaries (edges) of objects? Or do they appear to merge with adjacent forms? Are lines used at all? What effect does this have on the image?
Color. Bright or subdued? Primary (red, blue, yellow)? Many or few? Any one(s) dominant? Warm or cool? Recede or push forward? Complementary colors juxtaposed? To what effect?
Light. Is there a consistent source? Inside or outside the picture? Strong or muted contrasts (“spot-light-lighting”)? Shadows used? What is the function of shadow (e.g., to clarify form or space, or to emphasize a mood)?
Chiaroscuro. (literally, “light–dark”) A particular use of light and shadow, in which tonal contrasts create the illusion of three-dimensionality.
Tone. The light or darkness of a color. (e.g. dark as opposed to light red.)
Hue. The difference between colors (e.g. blue green as opposed to yellow-green).
Pattern (or Ornamentation). A repeated decorative design, often denying pictorial space. Do forms repeat themselves?
(This list was assembled from Skidmore’s Visual Analysis Guidelines, Khan Academy’s SmartHistory, and tate.org.)