Tiered Content, Form, Process and Mood questions for analysing artwork

Art students need to be encouraged to talk about, discuss, compare and give opinions on all types of works of art. Being familiar with and understanding specialist terminology and vocabulary is essential if students are to develop the ability to describe, explain and justify their own work and that of other artists.

Using Rod Taylor’s model of ‘Content, Form, Process, Mood’ is a way to enable art students to engage with and talk about art work without burdening them with historical and social contextual facts and details. Only by regular reflection and discussion will art students begin to make connections across time, place and cultures.

This set of resources explain the meaning of some of the words that students can struggle to understand in the context of art. Visual representations through the use of famous artworks help students to understand the meaning of the questions further. The set of resources are tiered so students can build on the experience of understanding artwork from creating a mind map, list and then written paragraph responding to the questions.