Reading Assignment #2: Quiz next week!

Art 105: Two-Dimensional Design

Professor: Kyle Stevenson

Project 2 vocabulary: SHAPE

Reading: Pipes- Intro to Design, Chapter 2

The Vocabulary of Shape and Form:

Motif: 

A designed unit or pattern that is repeated often enough in the total composition to make it a significant or dominant feature.  Motif is similar to theme or melody in a musical composition.

Geometric shapes:
Simple mechanical shapes defined by mathematical formulas, which can be produced using the implements found in geometry sets: triangles, rectangles, and circles.

Rectilinear shapes:
A subset of geometric shapes, produced using straight lines, usually parallel to the horizontal and vertical.

Curvilinear shapes:
Shapes based on the sinuous organic shapes found in nature.

Biomorphic shapes:
Blobby shapes, reminiscent of single-cell creatures such as amebas, derived from organic or natural forms.

Abstract:
Describing an object or representation that has been simplified or distorted down to its basic essentials, with superfluous detail removed to communicate a fundamental aspect of a form or concept.

Non-Representational:
Entirely imaginary shapes and forms with no reference to, or representation of, the natural world.  The artwork is the reality.  Also called subjective or non-objective shapes.

Positive Space:
Where the creation of elements, or their combination, produces a figure or field against a ground.

Negative Space:
The unoccupied or empty area left after positive elements have been created by the artist.

Distortion:
A departure from the accepted perception of a form or object, often manipulating conventional proportions.

Idealism (idealized):
The world depicted as an artist thinks it should be, rather than as in naturalism, in which it is depicted as it is, warts and all.  All flaws and deviations from the norm are corrected.

Picture Plane:
A transparent plane of reference used to establish the illusion of forms existing in three-dimensional space, usually coinciding with the surface of the paper or canvas.

(Picture) Frame:
The outermost limits or boundary of the picture plane.  This can be a physically surrounding form, the edge of a sheet of paper, or an arbitrary boundary.

Amorphous Shapes:
A formless and indistinct shape without obvious edges, like, for example, a cloud.

Shape:
An enclosed area identifiably distinct from its background and other shapes.  It can be bounded by an actual outline or by a difference in texture, color, or value surrounding a visually perceived edge.  A shape has width and height, but no perceived depth.  It is two-dimensional, but can exist on a plane other than the picture plane.

Form:
The apparent solidity or three-dimensionality of a drawn or painted object.  Also the composition and structure of the work as a whole.

Mass:
The apparent solidity of a form.  The illusion of bulk and weight achieved by shading and lighting, or by overlapping and merging forms.  In sculpture and architecture, it is the actual or apparent material substance and density of a form.  It can be thought of as positive space, volume as negative space.

Volume:
The illusion of enclosed space surrounded by or implied by a shape or form, and the space immediately adjacent to and around a painted form.  In sculpture and architecture, the space occupied by the form and/or the immediate surrounding space.   It can be thought of as positive space, volume as negative space.

Figure:
The recognizable object we are depicting; a human figure, vase, or flower, for example.  Traditionally, it is described as a positive shape, the ground as a negative shape.

Field:
A synonym for figure, taking in the possibility of color fields-colored shapes against a ground or contrasting value or color, as in the work of abstract expressionists.

Ground:
The unoccupied or relatively unimportant space in the picture, as in background.  Traditionally, the ground is a negative shape; the figure a positive shape.  Also a name for the substrate onto which we paint.

Equivocal Space:
An ambiguous space where it is difficult to distinguish figure from ground or positive from negative shapes, and our perception alternates from one to the other.  Many optical illusions make use of this phenomenon.

Golden Section:
A rectangle in which the ratio of the shorter side to the longer is the golden ratio.  It is a system of proportion related to the geometry of squares and circles, and also to the Fibonacci series of numbers.

Golden Ratio:
A mathematical ratio discovered by the ancient Greeks derived when a line is divided into two sections such that the smaller part is to the larger as the larger is to the whole.  The ratio is 0.618:1 or 1:1.618, or roughly 8:13.  It can also be found in natural forms; also called the Golden Mean.

Symbolic:
Inverted shapes communicating ideas or meaning beyond their literal form.  Meanings are assigned and agreed upon by the community, for example, in musical notation, signage, and technical diagrams.

Pictograms:
An image in which a highly stylized shape represents a person or object, for example, in map symbols, warning signs, and Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Logotype:
A symbol, often incorporating some lettering, used to identify an organization, corporation, or product.  Usually shortened to logo.

Objective:
Having real, tangible existence outside of the artist’s mind, not influenced by personal feelings or opinions.

Tessellation:
Covering a plane with an interlocking pattern, leaving no region uncovered.  From the Latin tessera, meaning a small square piece of stone or tile used for mosaics.

Naturalistic:
The skillful representation of a scene as seen in nature with the illusion of volume and three-dimensional space.  The opposite of idealistic.