What is visual analysis?

Visual analysis is when we look at an artwork and try to understand what is going on inside the frame. This could be as simple as identifying the story (or the narrative), or it could be analysing the colours which tell us about the emotion of the artist or the subject. We may go deeper than this, though, and try to understand what is happening outside of the frame, too. That means that sometimes the artist is using their artwork to represent what is happening in their social or cultural surroundings. This is different for every artwork and artist -- sometimes there is no relationship, this might be experienced in abstract art or conceptual art, but this does not mean that we cannot still carry out visual analysis on the work of art we are looking at. Visual analysis is the most important tool we can have as art historians and is the first method of understanding the artwork in front of us. After that we need the knowledge of biography, art theory, and of course history.