Briefly explain your first reaction to the work – What’s your first response to this work? How does this make you feel?
2. Description and Analysis:
a. Describe the work in detail using vivid descriptors, colorful adjectives and adverbs, lively verbs, and revealing
comparisons. Paint with your words. Your goal here is creating a written equivalent of the work that you’re
observing.
b. Working from the same descriptive inventory, explore further how subject matter, basic elements, principles of
design, and other pertinent qualities function and interact with one another. For example, how texture and
color work together to create an emotional impact, or how rhythm and line relate to yield visualharmony.
c. In order to find “What else is there?”, do some contextual examination. Consider other aspects such as
historical and cultural context, title, date, information about the artist, etc.
3. Interpretation:
Through the processes of describing and analyzing, what do you think this work means?
4. Evaluation:
a. Personal judgment – What was your experience in critiquing this work? Have your perception/feelings of it
changed since you started? How? Would you like to have it for your own? Why or why not?
b. Aesthetic judgment – Do you think the work is good in and of itself? Why or why not? What criteria do you
based that on?
c. Final judgment – Was the work up to the task you have determined that set for itself? Was it worth making?
Ultimately was it worth examining? Why or why not?
While addressing these five items, keep in mind the following instructions:
1. Again, be specific in your analysis – point to the details.
2. Description, analysis, and interpretation are not necessarily separate, step-wise processes. In writing there is a
natural interweaving among all three. Remember that the ultimate goal for analysis and interpretation is to find
meaning, to arrive at a reasoned, supportable explanation of what you are looking at.
3. Every comment has to be substantiated. For example, do not just state that linear perspective has been employed
in a work, but explain why you can say so based on what visual evidences or clues.
4. Your explanations should be logical and clear. Avoid generalizations and write specific remarks that clearly
express your thoughts.
