Introduction
Appreciating, rather than merely observing an artwork or cultural object, requires that we go above and beyond our everyday experiences. We need to engage in art in a way that, done repetitively, allows us to ultimately become more sensitive to the gradual nuances of interpretation that art is capable of producing. If we acknowledge that art has the capacity to produce mediated emotions, the next step is to consider and discuss those emotions, so that we may continue investigating and growing our interpretative skills.
Art can be analyzed in a wide variety of ways. These different modes of analysis include, among others, how a work of art might make a viewer feel, how we might assume one particular viewer’s reception of the work, or scholarly, institutional, and historical perspectives. While each mode of analysis—what may be referenced as a “lens” to account for its specificities—is an important part of engaging in art, it is essential to note that no one lens will provide a comprehensive understanding of art. Take the case of one's “feelings” as an example: valuing a specific affective reaction to a work will limit its interpretation if viewers are compelled to interact with an artwork solely on “personal” grounds. Instead, I would argue that the different lenses of analysis need to be integrated in some way.
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Formal Analysis
Formal analysis is the structural or formal characteristics of an artwork – an analysis of the mere "form" of a work and how these forms create meaning. For visual works of art, this includes the materials used; the color, shape, line, and texture of the art elements; and how these principles of composition are put together to create an effect. The formal qualities of an artwork are those visual elements that give it form and are largely concerned with design or organization. These absolutely essential qualities can be observed from the surface of the artwork; the creative expression of the work solely depends upon these elements as well. The formal qualities are what you notice initially when viewing such an art piece. Formal qualities are often considered the fundamental approach to elements and principles and are indispensable for several encounters with regular visual art pieces in the community.
Formal analysis assists the viewer in comprehending that these elements make up the formal qualities that are evident in the actual experience of seeing the artwork. This level of analysis is a basic technique in looking at all visual art. Through a formal analysis, visual skills, ability, artistic techniques, effects, foreground, background, and presentation of how the content of the work is arranged are reflected upon. In every art piece, formal qualities provide the practical foundation for artistic expression. They, to a great extent, determine how to convey an intended meaning and create a particular experience. Such an interdependence of technique and expression is an essential aspect of art. Directors of such times who develop the theories of harmony and proportion made dimensions of the visual elements more general and more common to such craft traditions. In the writings about form that have developed since the rebirth in the late 1800s, formal analysis established a foundation for understanding art in all artistic media as a making out of a form and a technique. Form and content are aggregated in the art world.
Iconographic Analysis
Iconography is a systematic and reflective mode of analysis of a work of art that focuses on an interpretation of the meaning of a work without excluding others, casually named "iconographic" or "symbolic." Works can have several different meanings, each equally well-founded; one or the other may prevail (without being exclusive) according to a particular historical and cultural moment. In the history of thought, the great role of symbolic forms has also been pointed out, capable of revealing a complexity of meaning inaccessible to everyday language, often used because they can move on veins of poetic and moving imagination. Thus, we speak of "symbolist" in the approach to "symbolic" works, which is always open and rather complex; it necessarily involves a general interpretation of the work, and "iconography" is often indispensable in critical commentary in general, while structural analysis first and, in some ways, semiotic analysis first explore the meaning of the work or, better, uncover the "languages" of the work. However, each result of structural analysis must necessarily "return" to the meanings' level, even acknowledging that different approaches can lead to different iconographic progresses.
Iconography can then provide useful indications for the primitive and essential understanding of a work of art, a certain stylistic citation or linguistic innovation: the pictorially pregnant study of "motifs" (through constant recurrences in different periods), of allegorical figures or recurrent psychological configurations, visionary epiphany, dream contradictions, but also topographical, architectural, costume, animate, and inanimate symbols gives an essential contribution to the possible reading of any compulsory interpretive reading and therefore passes in an exemplary manner to the possible visit paths, also fundamental for exhibitions, as well as for the publication inserted in widely visited art monographs. The true "meaning" is based on the personal and cultural background of the single observer, who experiences the "resonance" of the image in a different way. The meaning must also, if possible, confront the traces of modern and contemporary theory and "criticism" which often accompany the iconographic approach to the works of the past, i.e., of a positivistic approach and an historicist one closely linked to the history of tradition and mythology. The meaning, then, is forced to cope with the possible changes in mentality, in its deep essence. It is, in fact, an "essentially comic vision of life," or is it deeply different for different social classes?
Contextual Analysis
Contextual analysis offers meaningful ways to approach understanding or interpreting an art object. Insight into the artist’s life is important in contextual analysis. Knowledge of biography, historic or artistic movements, and external social conditions are also important factors to consider. A major retrospective of Alberto Giacometti’s work took place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The show featured an extensive "Paris" portrait set, as well as a selection from his many sculptures and drawings.
Prior to the exhibition, another show of Giacometti’s work took place at the Kunsthaus in Zurich. Held at the height of his career, the Zurich exhibition was the first to showcase Giacometti’s sculpture. Most of the sculptures exhibited were from the "spooky period"—the Surrealist phase during which his signature elongated images emerged. During this period, Giacometti lived in the heart of Paris, the right-bank studio district of Montparnasse, where he worked with and was influenced by many of the leading artists of Europe. Giacometti’s personal story is framed by the historic events of the early 20th century: the artist’s Spanish-French heritage, a war-blighted childhood, and a youth torn between translation and evasion. His personal life also parallels the greater socio-political issues of the time when various movements came and went, shaping our world and the painter’s work during his earliest years. Art is a reflection of the historic conditions that created it. In the visual arts, interpretation is heightened by integrating context into the process of understanding and appreciating art. True insight arises when a viewer has accepted and understood both historical conditions and the artist’s concept.
Conclusion
Based on the explorations of the three modes of analysis of art undertaken in this essay, we can draw a few conclusions. The formal mode gives insight into the technical and aesthetic skill and decisions present within a work and thus allows for an avenue of deep technical appreciation, particularly when viewed through the individual theoretical lens of art's various media. The iconographic mode unearths the careful symbolic layers of meaning placed in a work of art or architecture, giving a new level of symbolic, often contextual, interpretation. In other terms, iconographic analysis considers what this specific work was saying at the time of its making and in the place it was made. The contextual nature of this interpretation is shared by the contextual mode, which, rather than deciphering symbols, uses historical and cultural evidence to explicate the possible meanings and implications of a work alongside the life of the artist. Note that sometimes this is the same as the iconographic interpretation, especially in the case of public commission art and architecture. An approach that treats these methods in isolation, however, does not do the discussion justice. The examples above show that, in effect, there is always interaction between the three modes.
By bringing them together, a viewer can get a more rounded and integrated impression that is more contextually accurate, with nuances of emerging readings appearing only when the viewer starts to combine the insights from two or three of the modes. This allows us to see art not just as aesthetically pleasing but also as informed by the artist's own visual language which can be proved to be culturally informed. However, it also articulates the 'voices' of the artist and context engaged in a meaningful and historical social dialogue of discovery which is also charged with specific meaning. Most viewers of art already view works of art through a mixture of these methods. Most don't admire a work just because it is technically good, or because it is pretty, or because they like the way in which it embodies such a rich web of ideas. They see the work enriched by all these factors and more in a holistic interpretation of voice, form and meaning. The 'more' is that they also see the work in relation to their own beliefs and lives, that is, as a contemporary entity not bracketed off in a past that has nothing to do with the 'now'. A work of art is not dead.
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