Form, Function, Content, and Context: The Elements of Art History

Puzzle Pieces of Form, Context, Function, Content

The Elements of Art History

As complex as art may seem to be, there are really only four general categories of statements one can make about them. A statement addresses form, function, content or context.

Form

Form describes component materials and how they are employed to create physical and visual elements that coalesce into a work of art. Form is investigated by applying design elements and principles to analyze the work's fundamental visual components and their relationship to the work in its entirety.

Form simply means how was the work of art arranged compositionally. Formal elements include the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design. These design elements will be discussed more fully later in this module.

Function

Function includes the artist's intended use(s) for the work and the actual use(s) of the work. The use may change according to the context of audience, time, location, and culture. Functions may be for utility, intercession, decoration, communication, and commemoration and may be spiritual, social, political, and/or personally expressive.

Content

Content of a work of art consists of interacting, communicative elements of design, representation, and presentation within a work of art. Content includes subject matter: visible imagery that may be formal depictions (e.g., minimalist or nonobjective works), representative depictions (e.g., portraiture and landscape), and/or symbolic depictions (e.g., emblems and logos). Content may be narrative, symbolic, spiritual, historical, mythological, supernatural, and/or propagandistic (e.g., satirical and/or protest oriented).

Content simply means "message." This message may be organized in genres, or categories. Here are a few content genres:

history: important events like famous battles, political triumphs, social movements, etc.
mythology: stories of gods and goddesses from diverse cultures.
religion: the portrayal of sacred narratives from holy texts.
portraiture: likenesses of people.
landscape: representations of places (real or imaginary).
genre: the depiction of scenes of everyday life.
still life: arrangement of objects without specific narrative intent.

The primary content is the simplest way of taking inventory of what you see, as in literal images, straightforward subjects and imagery. You might think, "What you see is what you get." The secondary content includes things that push "what you see" into "what you understand." Seeing a winged, bow holding baby and understanding that the winged child is Cupid and a symbol of romantic love is secondary content.

Secondary content can be presented in the following ways:

allegories: stories in which people, things, and events signify abstract concepts and values.
attributes: usual devices identifying the person by what they carry, wear, etc. (Trident carrying man is Poseidon.)
personifications: individuals signifying abstract ideas or values. (Statue of Liberty)
customary signs: anything that is understood in a given context to mean something other than what it actually is. (Skull is a memento mori.)

Context

Simply put, content is "WHAT" the work is about, form is "HOW" the work is, and context is "IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES" the work is (and was). Context includes original and subsequent historical and cultural milieu of a work of art. Context includes information about the time, place, and culture in which a work of art was created, as well as information about when, where, and how subsequent audiences interacted with the work. The artist's intended purpose for a work of art is contextual information, as is the chosen site for the work (which may be public or private), as well as subsequent locations of the work. Modes of display of a work of art can include associated paraphernalia (e.g., ceremonial objects and attire) and multisensory stimuli (e.g., scent and sound).

Characteristics of the artist and audience — including aesthetic, intellectual, religious, political, social, and economic characteristics — are context. Patronage, ownership of a work of art, and other power relationships are also aspects of context. Contextual information includes audience response to a work of art. Contextual information may be provided through records, reports, religious chronicles, personal reflections, manifestos, academic publications, mass media, sociological data, cultural studies, geographic data, artifacts, narrative and/or performance, documentation, archaeology, and research.

[CC BY 4.0] UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED | IMAGES: LICENSED AND USED ACCORDING TO TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION