Art Title Generator

How the Art / Painting Title Generator works

Art title generator: how the names are built

An artwork's title lives on a wall label and in a catalogue, set small beside the medium and the year, so the conventions are older and more formal than any other title on this site and most of them describe the work rather than name it, which is why the Convention select is the main control and the Style select changes the words inside it. The Untitled-with-a-parenthesis form, Untitled (Blue Kitchen), Untitled (Interval), Untitled No. 4 (Grid), is the twentieth-century convention for a work the artist declined to name, with the bracket added by the artist, the gallery or the estate to tell the untitled works apart, and it now reads as a deliberate style rather than an absence. The Study or Sketch form, Study for a Harbour, Study in Ochre, Sketch of a Seated Figure, is the preparatory work, and it is honest when the piece is one and a fashion when it is not. The numbered composition, Composition No. 7, Composition in Blue No. 3, Interval IX, is the abstract painter's convention from the early twentieth century, a title that refuses to be a subject, and a series of them reads as a body of work. The Figure-with-object form, Woman with a Lantern, Man with a Coat, Girl with a Small Bird, is the portrait convention from the Renaissance onward, the sitter unnamed and the object named, and it is the shape a viewer most readily recognises as a painting title. The Still-life-with form, Still Life with Oranges and Wire, Still Life with Lemons, Interior with Bottles, is the still life's own convention, a list of what is on the table, and the modern version adds one thing that should not be there. The Landscape-near form, Landscape near Ashford, View of the Estuary, The Quarry, Winter, Cold Harbour at Dusk, is the landscape painter's, a place and often a season or a time, and it is also how a photograph is titled when the photographer wants the place and not the picture to be the subject. The moment title, After the Flood, Before the Wedding, The Morning of the Fire, Dusk, Northfield, is the narrative painting and the documentary photograph, a title that names the moment just before or after the one shown. And the Self-Portrait-as form, Self-Portrait as a Stranger, Self-Portrait with Mirror, Self-Portrait as Absence, is the contemporary portrait convention, the artist as a subject in costume or in idea.

The words are ordinary English and the places are invented, so a result is a new title rather than a real work by design, though Untitled, Composition and Still Life with are shared by thousands of works and titles are not owned, so a coincidence is normal and expected. A title is also set on a wall label next to a year and a medium, so the shapes here are short and read well in a catalogue list.

For the artist's name, the Pen name page in the People section; for the gallery or the studio, the Business section; for a photograph series or a zine, the Book title page; for the album cover that uses the painting, the Album name page; and for a title with the same grammar for a poem, the Poem title page.

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