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Creating A Top-Quality Art Visual Analysis Essay


The main objective of a visual analysis is to identify and comprehend the graphic choices the artist made while creating the artwork. Some of the elements of a piece of art that need to be analysed in a visual analysis are the colour, line, size, texture, interpretations of these, etc.

On mastering this, you will be able to analyse any work of art that comes your way. These include art magazines, undergraduate research papers, scholarly books and the like. This skill is required when you’ve been assigned an assignment on the topic itself.

Following are a few tips if you want to write a good art visual analysis essay:


  • Write down your observations after observing the piece of art- You have to be simple and to the point with the deductions you make while doing the analysis. It’ll be the best if you express your opinions on the piece of art from the viewer’s point of view. In order to do so, use the present tense for your descriptions.
  • Come up with a central claim- This claim of yours is going to reflect the overall analysis of the artwork. This main claim has to be supported with the help of visual details as well.
  • You should only bother about the elements that are relevant to your main claim.
  • You also need to have the knowledge of the basic visual elements. These are also known as the formal elements. They are:

    • Line- These are used to define figures and shapes. These are also used to indicate emotions, motion and the like.
    • Shape- These are areas in two-dimensions with boundaries defined by colours and lines.
    • Colour- This can be defined on different scales such as that of value, hue, local colour, arbitrary colour, optical colour and saturation.
    • Naturalism- This an attribute which is used to define a piece of art that looks like the real world.
    • Form- These are shapes in three-dimensions which might be either illusive or real.

  • Before writing such a composition, consider the following aspects of the artwork as well:
    • Composition- It is the sum of all the formal elements and compositional devices such as symmetry, proportion and scale, etc.
    • Space- The methods used to create space, the relation of the object to the space around it and the like fall under this.
    • Medium- The materials used to create the artwork, the handling of the substance while creating it comes under this category.
    • Technique- When you’re describing the technique used by the artist, you need to explain and give details about the ways by which the artist has produced an effect.

I hope you’ll find these tips and information pretty useful while writing your art visual analysis essay.