What is Art?
Something of value
A way to see the world
How we define or express ourselves
How we express ideas
Categorize the Arts
Fine art
Craft
Fine Art
Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture
Craft
Practical arts like textiles, glass, ceramics, furniture, metalwork and jewelry
How Value Gets Assigned to Art
Money
Influence in the art market
Limited amount of artist works(especially after artist death)
Personal connection to the work
How pop culture or mass media influence our desire
Mona Lisa
The most famous work of art in the world
Leonardo de Vinci
Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo
Fisherman's Cottage on the Cliffs at Varengeville
Claude Monet's
Everyone finds easy to like
Clear and bright colors
No difficult subject matter that needs explaining
Claude Monet
Lived long enough to see his art triumph
Impressionist
History of Art
- Fine art did not exist prior to the late 1600's
- All art, from the cave painting through the Renaissance, was considered a form of labor
- During the late 1600's a breakdown occurred which created the division of the fine arts and craft
- Also during t
Andrea del Verrocchio
Renaissance
Did not create what he wanted but what his clients asked for
David
The artist Verrocchio worked more like
an apprentice rather than an artist. As a
young boy, his labor paid for his room
and board.
David
Commissioned by the Medici family
Later sold to the city of Florence, which had adopted the story of David as an emblem of its own determination to stand up to larger powers
James Hampton
Had no formal training in art
Throne of the third heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly
Throne of the third heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly
Represents Hampton's vision of the preparation of the second coming
Humble objects and cast off furniture are transformed by silver and gold foil
What defines art as beautiful?
Personal aesthetic
Cultural influence
Deemed beautiful by a higher authority
A sense of symmetry
Visual power/message
Personal Aesthetic
Something we find pleasurable
Aesthetics
The branch of philosophy that studies art and the nature of beauty
Outsider Art
Art by so called self taught artists
These artists have little or no formal training
Live far from the urban centers traditionally associated with artistic creativity
Does not label a recognizable style or movement
Raw Vision
Magazine devoted to outsider art
Sense of Symmetry
Giovanni Bellini, Pieta
Simple geometrical shapes and pure colors
Pieta
Sadness
Italian for pity
Mary holding Jesus after he was taken down from the cross
Although it is sad and moving, as apposed to pleasurable, it is still beautiful
Visual Power/Message
Francisco de Goya, Saturn devouring one of his children Grabs us by the throat and shows an image of pure horror
Painted on the walls of his own house
Most fundamental change in artistic history
First realizing we could create an image
Second most fundamental change in artistic history
Photography
Photography
A mechanical approach was now available to create an image rather than by that of the hand
Picasso and Photography
Photography meant liberation from a lifetime spent copying nature
"Now we know at least everything that painting isn't
Pablo Picasso
First Communion - 15
Cubism
Seated Woman Holding a Fan
Cubism; Picasso
Abstract
Used appearances as a starting point, he selected certain aspects and simplified or exaggerated them
First Communion
Picasso
Representational
Representational
Resembles the real world
Naturalistic
Faithful to visual experience
Personages
A personage is a fictional character
Woman with packages
Woman with Packages
Louis Bourgeois
Louis Bourgeois
Art is deeply rooted in memories of her childhood and adolescence
Through her art she tries to come to terms with a past she cannot let go of
Illusionistic
So natural that it creates the illusion of being real
Trompe L'oeil
Housepainter III, Duane Hanson
Abstract
A deviation from the natural world, but still from it
Stylized
Representational art that conforms to a a present style or set of conventions for depicting the world
Egypt is highly stylized; Hathor and Sety
Head of a King
Naturalistic brass sculptures; Outer physical reality
Accompanied by a smaller abstract version; Inner spiritual reality
Nonrepresentational
Nonobjective
Searches for the essence of art
Kandinsky
Vasily Kandinsky
Drew comparisons between nonobjective painting and music
Swinging
Chin Up
Rebecca Purdum
Misty and vague
Luminous world that remains forever just out of reach
Style
Characteristics that we recognize asconstant, recurring, or coherent
A serious of choices when an artis makes work
Can be influenced by history, culture, training/education
Types of Style
Cultural
Historical
School
Movement
A stylistic or aesthetic break from the current trend shared by a number of artists, has a significant fultural impact
Art and Meaning
How to break down what the artist is trying to say
How to interpret what you are seeing
Key terms related to meaning
Form
Content
Iconography
Context
Form
The overall visual structure of the work
The materials used to make it
The way it employs various formal elements like size, shape, color
What it looks like
Content
What it means
Literally, symbolically, emotionally, psychologically, culturally
Subject Matter
What is literally depicted
Iconography
The study or system of symbolic structures
Arnolfini Double Portrait
Pregnant - fertility
Dog - fidelity and love
Candles - presence of God
Independent wealth
Context
A setting for the art, where it comes from
The connection to it's society, audience, culture
20th Century Artists
Felt that something was lost about the artistic practices
Galleries, museums, private spaces segregated art from perhaps its original context.
Much like Andy Warhol and his "pop" art, capitalizing off of popular culture, shopping and department stores see
Sand Painting
Navajo
Journey, not destination
Non Objective
Does not refer the material or real world
How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare
Joseph Beuys
Covered in honey
Believed that an artist's role in a materialistic society was to remind people of human and spiritual values
Installation
A space is presented as a work of art that can be entered, explored, experienced, and reflected upon
Ann Hamilton
Mantle; flowers
Her installations are site-specific, developed for a particular location and not repeated
Impermanent
Seven Steps to thinking critically about art
Identify the artist's decisions and choices
Ask questions. Be curious
Describe the object
Question your assumptions
Avoid a complete emotional response
Don't oversimplify or misrepresent the art object
Tolerate uncertainty