Topic: Form
Resource created by: Cathy LeBouef

Form is an element of art that is three-dimensional and encloses space. The flat, two-dimensional appearance of shape sets it apart from form. Like a shape, a form has length and width, but it also has depth. Forms can viewed from many different angles to show the object's curves, indentions, concave, convex, extensions, and edges. Solidity and depth is achieved by painting shapes light and dark values. This gives the individual a sense of roundness/depth, which makes the object appear solid. Two techniques that can be used are value graduation and cross-hatching. For value gradation the artist uses a gradual change from dark to light areas. Cross-hatching can also be used to create areas of differing degrees of darkness.

Three important features of a form are:

1. Volume
2. Mass
3. Three-dimensional

There are many different types of forms:

1. Architectural forms - buildings.
2. Geometric Forms - angular, square, cubic, and straight edged.
3. Natural Forms - in nature, forms are rocks, trees, mountains, flowers, animals, and people.
4. Organic forms - natural curves, rounded, flowing, swelling, and often spherical.
5. Realistic forms - depicts people, animals, birds, and plants as they actually appear.
6. Abstract forms - simple natural forms with basic characteristics.
7. Nonobjective Forms - do not represent any natural forms.

This is a good example of an Architectural form. The space between and in around objects helps to recognize and identify three-dimensional forms.

Geometric forms are usually exact and regular.  Shapes are flat circles, triangles or squares. Forms are three-dimensional spheres, cones, pyramids, or cubes.

Organic shapes look like the natural curves in trees, clouds, and people. This is an image of a tree close up. The edges look bulging and rounded.

This image of a skull represents a natural form that was created by nature.

These are a free-form objects created by art students at Danbury. A free-form is an invented shape or form.

1) The Portinari Altarpiece--The Adoration of the Shepherds (right panel) by Hugo van der Goes. 1475. Uffizi, Florence. Royal collection, on loan to National Gallery of Scotland.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/goes/right.jpg

Hugo van der Goes, (d. 1482) is the greatest Netherlands painter of the second half of the 15th century. No paintings by Hugo are signed and his only securely documented work is his masterpiece, a Nativity scene known as the Portinari Altarpiece. This particular painting's surface is very ornate and detailed; however, this is combined with clear organization of the key figures and it leaves an impression of depth.

2) Still Life with Oranges, Jars, and Boxes of Sweets by Luis Meléndez. c. 1760-65. Acquired in 1985 by Kimbell Art Museum.
http://www.kimbellart.org/database/index.cfm?detail=yes&ID=AP%201985.13

Luis Meléndez (1716-1780) is a Spanish painter that lived in the seventeenth-century. His still-life paintings is a unique style, which included the finest of both Spanish and Italian traditions. This particular painting is a good example of an abstract form with the bold, spherical shapes of the oranges in the foreground, together with the piled wooden crates in the background.

Bibliography:

Chapman, Laura H. (1992). Art: Images and Ideas. Worcester, Massachusetts: Davis Publications, Inc.

Mittler, Gene A. (1994). Art in Focus. Westerville, Ohio: Glencoe/Macmillan/McGraw-Hill.

Mittler, Gene A. and Howze, James D. (1995). Creating and Understanding Drawings. Mission Hills, CA: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.
http://www.kimbellart.org/

WebMuseum, Paris.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/