Part One

Read the introduction and the chapter on vision in Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of Senses. For each of the section headings within the vision chapter (The Beholder's Eye, How to Watch the Sky, Light, Color, Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall, Animals, The Painter's Eye, The Face of Beauty, Watching a Night Launch of the Space Shuttle, The Force of an Image: Ring Cycle, The Round Walls of Home), write a sentence or two, briefly summarizing or characterizing the point she is making in that section.

Part Two

Select five of the 20 images provided, and for each image, apply at least two of the following terms or concepts to analyze the visual content of the image. The assignment is not to interpret or assign a meaning to the image. This is an exercise in looking and looking analytically without interpretation. This focuses more on the sense then imagination. The 20 images for this assignment are available in PowerPoint or PDF format. (Both versions are about 2.2 MB each).

Identify the image by title.

Describe the image in terms of line (straight, curved, jagged, zigzag, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, implied). For example, you might say an image uses only straight lines, or, for another image, it might use a mix of straight and curved lines. The lecture presentation on lines is online; here is a link to the PowerPoint file.

Describe the composition of the image, the arrangement of elements within the image. The PowerPoint lecture file on composition is online.

Describe the use of color in an image. Color terms include complementary colors, analogous colors, triadic (primary or secondary) color schemes, monochromatic color schemes; note the use of very few or very many colors. The PowerPoint lecture file on color is online.

Describe in the image in terms of principles of design such as repetition, variation, contrast, balance, proportion and emphasis. (Two other principles of design, economy and scale, are not necessarily applicable to the selections for this assignment.)

Links: The PowerPoint lecture files on principles of design Part 1 & Part 2
a handout on principles of design. (html format)

1 point off (10%) if not typed.

DC Meckler

Jan 2008

HUM117 The Arts, The Senses & The Imagination