Formal analysis concepts and methods

¶ … difficult to write in prose about certain aspects of art and music. The emotions that one feels based on the experience of art often do not translate into prose, yet it is important to be able to share one's experiences to lay and scholarly audiences both. One technique, called formal analysis, is not meant to evoke the work of art in the audience's mind, but instead, to explain structure and the way visual or musical elements have been arranged by the artist and how they function within a certain composition. The main idea of this format is to find a more factual way of describing the work(s) so that the reader could imagine them prior to experiencing the pieces themselves.

In order to construct a formal analysis, one must assume that a work of art is: 1) somehow constructed by humans; 2) has a stable meaning, and 3) that the meaning might be explained by studying the relationship between individual elements within the work. We must be able to quantify elements within the work: shape, color, texture, technique, volume, tonality, etc. The artwork must also be representative enough of the particular genre that the terms used to describe it are familiar enough with the general public that they can easily understand the work and appreciate what is happening artistically

Too, a formal analysis is not a description, for a description is once again more quantitative than anything. A description is more impersonal, and simply inventories the work: "the piece shows a woman in a white dress sitting at a table," "the piece is in the key of f-minor and in sonata form," or "the table is highly polished and appears to be an expensive wood." Instead, what formal analysis is trying to do is to get behind the obvious and help the reader understand and reveal a more thorough analysis of the piece. The analysis must be more of a thesis, meaning the writer must take a stance on the piece for the benefit of the analysis, and then communicate that cogently to the audience.

Response- It is interesting to note that descriptions of art seem to go through their own set of interpretations, too. During the last century, for instance, even the interpretation of art has undergone a different set of theories and ideas based on what art even is, or what its intended mission might be. Some, of course, believe that art is a uniquely personal and emotional experience for the individual, and that what we bring based on past knowledge and taste. Thus, art is an extremely personal experience, one that is unique and emotional. Different art speaks differently to the individual based on their own interpretation or likes/dislikes. For some, art was supposed to tell a story (e.g. The romantics); for others, art told the story, but in a more general, societal manner; and yet still others peel away the emotion of art and say that art is compositional, and it is not about how the art makes one feel, as much as it is as to how art expresses parts of the society in question

For this writer, art is experimental; it maybe formal or informal, but it is about the emotional quality of a piece of music, a sculpture, a poem, a novel, or a painting. It has less to do with the deconstruction of the piece (parts explained), and more to do with the synthesis (sum of the parts) and how those parts act in congruence to give one a sense of some emotion. Thus, art is evocative but still individualistic.