Page 109 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

STUDY 1: A META-THEORETICAL DESCRIPTION OF FORMAL ELEMENTS
Art theories analyze art on five levels: visual form, content/subject matter, historical and cultural context, function, and emotional reaction of the spectator including aesthetics (Van der Kamp & Cuijpers, 2015). Visual form analysis involves analyzing the objective pictorial qualities of the visual form and allows for better understanding and characterization of the art product (Acton, 2009; Taylor, 2014). This first level of “form” analysis is pertinent to this study and art theory literature will be reviewed and experts in the field consulted to gain meta-theoretical descriptions of formal elements.
Method
To describe the formal elements, a literature review was conducted on art theory. Art theories that presented a complete systematic “form analysis” of visual art were included, whereas theories that concerned only one category of form, such as “line,” art history, art criticism, art philosophy, neurology and art perception, and/or aesthetics were excluded. As art theories cannot be found in scientific databases, three other sources were used. First, existing books on art theory were found via the Internet and the university’s library. Additionally, six experts in the field of art theory, specifically art analysis, were consulted by email for advice regarding which art theories to include. These experts were chosen based on their expertise in the field of art theory, specifically form analysis, and/or in using formal elements in art therapy. Also, bibliographies of art therapy literature regarding formal elements in assessment were searched.
All included art theories were then incorporated into a comparative analysis to see which formal elements were included and how they were described. We focused on formal elements that were stated as being appropriate for two-dimensional art.
Results
We began with four theories that incorporated a complete systematic “form analysis” of visual art: Acton (2009), the KPC model (Gerrits, 2000), the ILOUvA model (Van der Kamp & Cuijpers, 2015); and Tate Modern (Gale, 2016; Wilson & Lack, 2016). Additionally, the consultation of the experts
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