Looking at artists
Art & Design · Key Stage 1 · The School
Describe before you judge
'I like it' is where most people start and it teaches nothing. Start instead with what is actually there: what can you see, what colours, what marks, what is big and what is small, where does your eye go first? Judgement is much more interesting once description has done its work.
Useful words
COMPOSITION — how things are arranged. FOREGROUND, MIDDLE GROUND, BACKGROUND — near, middle, far. PALETTE — the set of colours used. TONE — how light or dark. Using the right word makes you notice the right thing; that is why the vocabulary exists.
Comparing two works
Put two pieces side by side — a Japanese woodblock print and an Islamic geometric tile panel, say. What do they share? Where do they differ? What did each maker care about most? Comparison shows you far more than either would alone.
Take any painting. Spend two minutes saying only what is THERE: how many figures, what colours dominate, where the light comes from, where your eye goes first and second, what is in shadow. Only after that, say whether you like it and why. Do it the other way round and the first thing you notice fixes everything else — which is why galleries put the description on the wall, not the verdict.