Grade 12 Art 2025
GRADE 12
ART
___
Notes
Question 1 - Visual Literacy
Pay attention to:
- Textual clues
- Medium use
- Title meaning and relation to work
Art Elements
Line:
● Type – curved, straight etc
● Direction – horizontal, diagonal, vertical
● Function – contour lines, decorative, formed by objects etc
Shape and Form:
● Positive and Negative
● Organic and Geometric
● Form = three-dimensional and has mass
Texture:
● Tactile or Implied
Space:
● Actual space – exists around forms and is real
● Real space – three-dimensional artworks.
, ● Illusionist space – two-dimensional artworks
Tone/Value:
● Light and Dark areas
● Contrast and atmosphere
Colour:
● Dominant colour, monochromatic?
● Use of primary and secondary
● Use of complementary colours
● Use of tints shades, colour intensity
● Psychological effects — warm and cool
● Meaning and emotional effect
Design Principles
- Composition
- Emphasis
- Scale and Proportion
- Balance
- Rhythm
- Pattern
- Atmosphere
,Question 2 - 20th Century Art: Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism
- Non-traditional, mocking and shocking, comparisons
Dada
Facts and Background:
● Revolt (protest against WWI)
● Artists shared an outlook of protest . Founded for artistic and political purposes
● Paintings - intuition without control
● Events - chaotic, intuitive, irrational (crucial to founding of Dada)
● Name caught on because it sounded childlike. It spoke to their freedom and new
beginnings
● Avoided logic, rationality and order, originated from the disillusionment and disgust of
the senseless barbarity of war
● War showed result of governments being greedy and materialistic
Characteristics:
● Wanted to mock and shock
● Protest and revolt against logic and reason
● Traditional art medium was solemn used (disregarded completely)
● Exploration of the subconscious (surrealism would continue with this)
Artist: Marcel Duchamp, French artist considered to be the most important and influential
artists of the 20th century.
ANTI-ART AND THE READY-MADE:
, Duchamp mocks traditional art values by choosing a manufactured object and declaring it to be
art eg. a bicycle wheel mounted on a chair. An object becomes art because the artist declared it
to be art, for instance the Bottle Rack and Fountain. The ready-made is thus an ordinary
manufactured object that becomes “art” because of the artist’s choice, it is also anti-art,
because it is against the idea of the artwork as labour intensive. No choice object (without
aesthetic) It is anti-art because it goes against the idea of the uniqueness of the artwork and
makes a mockery of the art museum system.
The Fountain, Marcel Duchamp: industrially produced urinal, to which the artist made three
changes:
- He placed it on a plinth
- He has signed and dated it
- He has entered it for an art competition
*Nude descending a staircase, Marcel Duchamp: simplification, stylisation, and the nude
is reduced to base shapes (cubism)
GRADE 12
ART
___
Notes
Question 1 - Visual Literacy
Pay attention to:
- Textual clues
- Medium use
- Title meaning and relation to work
Art Elements
Line:
● Type – curved, straight etc
● Direction – horizontal, diagonal, vertical
● Function – contour lines, decorative, formed by objects etc
Shape and Form:
● Positive and Negative
● Organic and Geometric
● Form = three-dimensional and has mass
Texture:
● Tactile or Implied
Space:
● Actual space – exists around forms and is real
● Real space – three-dimensional artworks.
, ● Illusionist space – two-dimensional artworks
Tone/Value:
● Light and Dark areas
● Contrast and atmosphere
Colour:
● Dominant colour, monochromatic?
● Use of primary and secondary
● Use of complementary colours
● Use of tints shades, colour intensity
● Psychological effects — warm and cool
● Meaning and emotional effect
Design Principles
- Composition
- Emphasis
- Scale and Proportion
- Balance
- Rhythm
- Pattern
- Atmosphere
,Question 2 - 20th Century Art: Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism
- Non-traditional, mocking and shocking, comparisons
Dada
Facts and Background:
● Revolt (protest against WWI)
● Artists shared an outlook of protest . Founded for artistic and political purposes
● Paintings - intuition without control
● Events - chaotic, intuitive, irrational (crucial to founding of Dada)
● Name caught on because it sounded childlike. It spoke to their freedom and new
beginnings
● Avoided logic, rationality and order, originated from the disillusionment and disgust of
the senseless barbarity of war
● War showed result of governments being greedy and materialistic
Characteristics:
● Wanted to mock and shock
● Protest and revolt against logic and reason
● Traditional art medium was solemn used (disregarded completely)
● Exploration of the subconscious (surrealism would continue with this)
Artist: Marcel Duchamp, French artist considered to be the most important and influential
artists of the 20th century.
ANTI-ART AND THE READY-MADE:
, Duchamp mocks traditional art values by choosing a manufactured object and declaring it to be
art eg. a bicycle wheel mounted on a chair. An object becomes art because the artist declared it
to be art, for instance the Bottle Rack and Fountain. The ready-made is thus an ordinary
manufactured object that becomes “art” because of the artist’s choice, it is also anti-art,
because it is against the idea of the artwork as labour intensive. No choice object (without
aesthetic) It is anti-art because it goes against the idea of the uniqueness of the artwork and
makes a mockery of the art museum system.
The Fountain, Marcel Duchamp: industrially produced urinal, to which the artist made three
changes:
- He placed it on a plinth
- He has signed and dated it
- He has entered it for an art competition
*Nude descending a staircase, Marcel Duchamp: simplification, stylisation, and the nude
is reduced to base shapes (cubism)
