Minor Assignment - Video Quiz: Style

Watch the video below and answer the questions.

Video 1 - Style

Transcript:

Let's talk now about style.

We are looking at a painting by an artist whose work you have already seen. So, you tell me, who do you think painted this painting?

If you said Vincent van Gogh, you are absolutely correct. This is a painting by Van Gogh. So, my question for you is, how did you know? What clued you in? Well, what you probably did is you probably thought about the previous painting we saw, which is called "Starry Night," and you'll notice that there are some similarities in the way Van Gogh painted these two paintings. You'll recall that in "Starry Night," he used this thick, swirling brush stroke to depict the night sky and the stars. You notice those similarities in the way he painted the clouds in this daytime sky. You'll also probably notice that the cypress tree, which resembles almost a flame, has a very similar counterpart in "Starry Night." Also, if you look at the gold, especially in the moon in "Starry Night," and compare that to the gold in the wheat field, you can see that it's pretty much the same paint that he used. In fact, one of his favorite colors of paint was this particular gold. So what you actually just did is recognize Van Gogh's style. This is really important in helping us understand an image. It tells us, or can help tell us, who painted an image or what time period or culture an image came from. Style is a very useful tool.

So, the question is, what is style? Well, at its simplest, style is a consistent use of elements, or to use the textbook definition, it's a characteristic or number of characteristics that we can identify as constant, recurring, or coherent. But let's think about this: we all have our own personal style, right? We have our own personal fashion style. This means that you probably wear similar things. You wear similar colors, similar cuts of clothes, or certain brands of clothing. Let's say one day you skipped laundry too much and you have to wear something old that you never wear anymore. When you show up to school or work, people might comment on what you're wearing because it's not consistent with what you normally wear. It's not your normal style. The interesting thing about style is that once you know somebody well enough, you could just see a stack of their clothes and pretty much be able to identify who that person is simply by the clothing they wear without even seeing the person because you have recognized a consistency.

This kind of use of style can be used in art to determine the origin of a work of art. Take a look at these two images. Both of these images depict the same story; in other words, they have the same content. The content is the narrative or the story that an image is trying to convey. Both of these images are telling the story of a woman getting her hair brushed. They are very different in style, however. The image on the right is much more realistic. It has a three-dimensional background, it actually has a background, it has a realistic use of color, and the proportions of the figure are relatively normal. There is also a use of shading to give the body a feeling of mass, weight, and three-dimensional form. The image on the left, however, is rather abstract. The women in the image appear flat; there is no shading to give them form. They have a black outline surrounding all of their features, which is completely unrealistic unless you have a black outline around you.

Also, their facial features are just very simple marks and lines and in no way resemble real human features. Their heads are strangely proportioned; they have large egg-shaped heads and tiny, weirdly shaped hands.

So what we just did is use our knowledge of style to determine the origin of these two images. We know immediately that they were probably not made by the same person and were probably not made at the same time or from the same culture because the styles are not consistent with each other. But if we look at the artist on the left a little further, a Japanese artist named Utamaro, we can see a consistency in his style. If I laid out a hundred of these prints by Utamaro, you would realize that there are things he does over and over again. He always uses this flat white background, he always uses these egg-shaped heads, and he has these weird, strange little hands and arms. I wonder if she's part T-Rex. By seeing these images all in a row, you start to notice things that you wouldn't just notice in one singular image, like the fact that he really liked this hairstyle and used it over and over again, and that he used these bold patterns in the kimonos, often using only one color, and would do this over and over again. So, style is a consistent use of elements, and it's very useful in helping us to determine the origin of a work.