Since the 1900s, there have been many different styles and trends of sculpture. Sculptures by the artists Otto Gutfreund and Raymond Duchamp-Villon were inspired by the Cubist movement in the early 1900s.
Painting for Beginners: What Is Form In Art, And What Are The 2 Types of Form?
On the other hand, organic forms are natural and don’t have a regular shape. Sometimes, organic forms in art may seem flowing and unpredictable.
The most obvious example of organic forms is realistic representations of the natural world or living things, for example, humans, animals, nature, landscapes, etc.
Is it okay to use both geometric and organic form in art?
Most artworks are based on organic forms, or even mixed together with geometric forms, to represent an object. For example, organic shapes such as trees can be broken down into cylinders and cones, and then made more organic with the addition of defining features.
The history of art shows the development of different techniques through time. Over the past centuries, abstract art created the perfect environment where two categories of forms are mixed together. This way of creating art is very unique and we can see it in the example below.
Does form in art have mass?
Form in art can also have mass. The mass of a form is result of its size and the material it is made from. The greater the mass the heavier a form appears to the eyes of people who look the artwork.
Historically, painting was centered to two dimensional art, without any real form. Artists realized that by adding light and contrast, which are essential for creating three dimensional objects, they could achieve more realistic paintings. Form in art became an illusion of real life objects, represented by the use of contrasts and light.
Sculpture has all the necessary elements to fully represent form and mass in its “real” sense since a sculpture itself is a three-dimensional object.
Definition of form in Art
Form can be defined as the physical structure or shape of a work of art. It is an element of art that describes how artists represent three dimensional shapes. Artists can represent three dimensional form on a two dimensional surface by rendering shape, highlights and shadows. Another method is to draw a third axis. Elements of sculptures are defined as a forms, rather than shapes, because shapes are defined a broadly as being two dimensional.
Form can be seen in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography and illustration. For example, a painting may contain curved lines, shadows and highlights which form the shape of a human figure. Then a clay sculpture may be comprised of multiple cubes, spheres or more complex forms which create a three dimensional piece.
Laocoön and His Sons shows the Trojan priest and his sons being attacked by serpents. Carved out of marble, the sculptors created defined muscles and deep set features to casts shadows and emphasise the forms. The forms of the marble can be seen in the contouring, highlighting and shadows. The different shapes created by the folds and creases of the drapery contribute to the overall form of the sculpture.
In this etching by Rembrandt, he has rendered the form of the grass and building using the hatching and cross hatching techniques. This creates highlights and shadows, therefore giving the illusion of form, even though it was drawn on a flat surface.
Elements of Art: Form
Form is an element of art, alongside colour, line, texture, shape, space and values. These are the elements with which artists can conduct formal analyses of an artwork. By looking at the elements and principles of art, artists can decipher the meaning, artists’ intent and age of a piece. Form relates closely to other elements of art, in that texture and space can be used to create form, then value, colours and line can be used to create the appearance of form.
Shapes are two dimensional forms which are created with lines or curves. While forms are three dimensional shapes which have depth and volume. Artists use both shapes and forms to create interesting compositions. It can be difficult to represent forms in traditional media such as painting and drawing but there are some techniques which can be used to create the illusion of three dimensional form. These include shading and using dark and light pigments to represent shadow and highlights.
Types of Form
There are two main types of forms in art: geometric and organic. Geometric forms are based on mathematical shapes such as circles, squares and triangles while organic forms are more free-flowing and natural such as clouds or trees.
Geometric Form
Forms that are geometric are based on mathematical equations and shapes which have been used by humans since ancient times. These forms can be used to create regular patterns in artwork or to draw attention to certain areas of a composition. Examples of geometric forms include cubes and pyramids.
Organic Form
Organic forms are more free-flowing and irregular in shape. They can be used to create natural or abstract compositions which have a softer feel to them than geometric forms. Examples of organic forms include clouds, mountains and trees.
