Education - Lessons & Activities - Form in Works of Art

This free-standing sculpture is made up of panels and geometric shapes of vivid yellow, crimson red, white, and slate gray, all outlined with bold, jet-black lines, to create a simplified, cartoon-like, single-story house. The sculpture sits slightly off the ground on four metal feet, and is displayed on a grassy lawn with an iron fence and trees in the background. One short end of the house faces us, to our left. The peaked wall is white and is pierced with a window divided into six empty panes, two across and three down, and flanked by red shutters. Above the window is a tall, rectangular air vent with six horizontal slats. Below the window a loose grid of three horizontal lines and four short, vertical lines suggest an abstracted brick pattern. The long side of the house moves away from us to our right. It has a red chimney at the center of the gray roof. The wall of the front of the house is canary yellow. There is a white door at the middle and two more six-paned windows with red shutters to each side. Two shallow white steps leading down from the door are suggested by staggered, narrow rectangles. A dove-gray band runs along the bottom of both walls. All of the features, including the windows, shutters, door, chimney, roof, and gray band are outlined in black.

Roy Lichtenstein
American, 1923–1997
House I, model 1996, fabricated 1998
fabricated and painted aluminum, 292.1 x 447 x 132.1 cm (115 x 176 x 52 in.), gross weight: 1900 lb.
National Gallery of Art, Gift of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation

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A free-standing, stepped pyramid made of interlocking, white concrete blocks sits on a grassy lawn, rising above the bushes and low trees behind it. This photograph shows the pyramid with one corner coming straight at us so each side is a zigzag of twenty-four steps. The structure is lit from our left so casts gray shadows to our right. One tall tree behind the pyramid extends off the top edge of the photograph and buildings in the distance have cream-white walls and red roofs.

Sol LeWitt
American, 1928–2007
Four-Sided Pyramid, first installation 1997, fabricated 1999
concrete blocks and mortar, 458.2 x 1012.2 x 970.9 cm (180 3/8 x 398 1/2 x 382 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of the Donald Fisher Family

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Jean Arp
French, born Germany (Alsace), 1886–1966
Oriforme, model 1962, fabricated 1977
stainless steel, 227.9 x 214.6 x 60 cm (89 3/4 x 84 1/2 x 23 5/8 in.), gross weight: 1400 lb. (635.036 kg)
National Gallery of Art, To the American People in Gratitude - Leon Chalette, Arthur Lejwa and Madeleine Chalette Lejwa

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A woman’s face and neck are roughly modeled in this dark green, freestanding bronze sculpture. In this photograph, her face is angled to our right. She looks down, chin tucked back into her neck. She has deep-set eye sockets, a thin, blade-sharp nose, and her small mouth is closed, the corners downturned. Light from our left gleams off some of the surfaces, especially in the choppy hair and along the edge of her nose. A long diagonal ridge on the right side of her neck, our left, suggests a tendon stretching as she turns her head. Her neck acts as the sculpture's base. The background lightens from pale gray along the top to white along the bottom, where the sculpture casts a faint shadow to our right.

Pablo Picasso
Spanish, 1881–1973
Head of a Woman (Fernande), model 1909, cast before 1932
bronze, 41.2 x 20.5 x 25.5 cm (16 1/4 x 8 1/16 x 10 1/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Patrons' Permanent Fund and Gift of Mitchell P. Rales
© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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A gleaming, free-standing, abstract bronze sculpture made up of three rounded forms fills a two-story, covered entryway. The rounded, smooth forms sit side by side. The form on our right curves slightly inward up the left side and is lightly pinched at the center along the right side. The form on the left is shaped like a fat U with a deep, wide curve at the bottom. Most of the sculpture’s surface is lightly mottled in a rich honey-brown color, except at the top of the front face of the U’s arm, which looks as if it were cut vertically to expose an elongated oval shaped disk of highly polished, bright gold-colored bronze. A third form appears as a straight vertical element behind and to the left of the U-shaped piece. The building behind the sculpture has two stories of floor-to-ceiling windows, which reflect darkly in this photograph. The floor and ceiling above the sculpture, where the entryway covers it, are smooth, buff-pink stone. Two rows of deep-set triangles recede into the ceiling.

Henry Moore
British, 1898–1986
Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece, 1976–1978
bronze, 534.5 x 721.1 x 363.1 cm (210 7/16 x 283 7/8 x 142 15/16 in.) gross weight: 5 ton
National Gallery of Art, Gift of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation

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Martin Puryear
American, born 1941
Lever No. 3, 1989
carved and painted wood, 214.6 x 411.5 x 33 cm (84 1/2 x 162 x 13 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Gift of the Collectors Committee

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