B Wurtz Dont Look at Art Look at the World 1994
What'south the key to agreement fine art? Could in that location be some easy steps to unpacking the meaning of an artwork?
The short answer is: yes.
I recently wrote an article for The Chat called 3 questions not to ask of art – and four to ask instead, which tackled some age-old questions that get asked of fine art: Why is that art? What is it meant to be? Couldn't a four-twelvemonth-quondam do that?
I suggested 4 meliorate questions to ask, taken from Australian art bookish Terry Smith.
Here'southward a simple three-step method I use, adapted from an old technique past the art historian Erwin Panofsky:
i) Look
2) Meet
3) Think
The first two – wait and encounter – are just nigh using your optics, and observational skills. The third requires a scrap of thought, drawing on what nosotros already know and creatively interpreting what we've observed within an artwork'due south broader contexts.
When nosotros encounter annihilation, whether it'southward a work of fine art, a movie or a billboard, our brains perform a massively circuitous dissever-second procedure of reading and making significant. We blot a whole range of clues that make upward our understanding of any epitome, many of which we're not even witting of.
Whatever procedure of agreement art, and then, is about slowing downward that process, breaking down the epitome deliberately and property off from jumping to whatsoever snap conclusions until subsequently.
Pace ane: Expect
Isn't it obvious we "wait" at art? Non really. When we visit a gallery, nosotros tend to spend simply a few seconds in front of whatsoever one work. In fact, some estimates have it at nether two seconds.
Then look at what's in that location, literally right in front end of yous. Start with the most basic: what medium or material is it – a photograph, an object, a painting? How does it look? Rough and quick? Slick and not bad? Shiny? Dirty? Carefully made? Thrown together?
The artist volition have made some very deliberate decisions nearly the materials, style and arroyo, and these volition feed directly into the overall feel and meaning of the work.
Look at this work by Spanish-born Australian artist Dani Marti called Information technology's all about Peter, made in 2009.
It hangs on the wall like a painting, but is made up of hundreds of melted plastic objects bowls, orangish juicers, plastic domestic appliances, all unlike colours. Marti wants u.s. to call back of it in the tradition of a painting, even if it's fabricated up of 3D plastic objects.
Stride two: Run into
What's the divergence between looking and seeing in the context of fine art? Looking is about literally describing what is in front of yous, while seeing is virtually applying meaning to it. When nosotros see we understand what is seen as symbols, and we interpret what's there in front of u.s.a..
Erwin Panofsky calls the symbols in an artwork "iconography", and any image tin be easily broken down into the iconography that makes it upwards.
Consider the iconography in Pablo Picasso's epic painting, Guernica (1937). In the centre, there's that screaming horse, with a dismembered arm merely beneath information technology. On the left, a adult female is wailing and holding a dead infant, and dominating the image is the light shade that looks similar an explosion. Those private elements combine to produce the overall meaning of the painting, which in this case is regarded every bit one of the near powerful anti-war art works created.
The iconography in Marti's Information technology's all about Peter is not so obvious – it'due south more abstracted, which means information technology'due south removed from a simple literal depiction of something. Simply the actual melted plastic objects are everyday items – things you might have in your domicile, the objects a person would environment themselves with that make up their life. Brand a mental notation of iconography similar this, and take it to the final step.
Step iii: Think
The concluding step involves thinking about what you've observed, drawing together what you've gleaned from the offset two steps and thinking nearly possible meanings. Chiefly, this is a process of interpretation. It's not a science. It'southward non near finding the "right answers", just about thinking creatively about the most plausible understandings of a work.
The key hither is context. The broader context of an artwork will aid brand sense of what you've already observed. Much of the information near context is ordinarily given in those dull footling labels that tell you the artist'due south name, the title of the work and the year. And at that place are often other valuable morsels of information included too, such equally the place and year an artist was born.
Who is the artist? Is it someone whose work y'all know something about? If and so, what do you know nearly them? Even if this is "Picasso was a womaniser", or "Jackson Pollock was a drunk", if you've heard of the artist, yous have some existing knowledge you tin can bring to bear.
If you lot've never heard of the creative person, what does his or her name suggest virtually where they might be from? Text panels in galleries ordinarily have the creative person'due south dates and where he or she was born. These are important clues. Naturally, an creative person built-in in the Soviet Union in the 1930s is going to have very different life experiences from one born in Spain in the 1960s.
When was the piece of work made? What do y'all know nigh what was happening at the fourth dimension, fifty-fifty if it'south this yr? Text panels sometimes say where the artist works, then where was the work made? Artists produce work that responds to the world they're immersed in every day, and then the "when" and "where" will give clues as to what was happening.
Importantly, bring to carry everything y'all know – you'd be surprised how much you know of the context of an artwork just from your general cognition, a lot of which comes from conversations, tv, the internet, all those things that are "breezy learning".
In the case of Marti's It's all about Peter, the championship is a major key. Marti is literally telling us that this work is all about someone called Peter. We might non know who Peter is, but we exercise know from the title that this is a kind of an abstracted portrait of him – think of how the artist has hung this on the wall like a painting, wanting us to think of the tradition of portraiture.
The iconography – those everyday plastic objects in this piece of work – are a portrait of "Peter", peradventure things owned by him, that say something about the colours of the things he chooses to surround himself with. If this work was a person, what could you lot say virtually them? Colourful and complex, perhaps? We're guessing. But we've unlocked that Information technology's all about Peter is a personal portrait about the creative person's connection with Peter.
Hold on …
You might be thinking, "hold on, if I did these 3 steps every fourth dimension I encounter a work of fine art, information technology's going to take years to come across everything in the gallery".
So here'due south an important tip – you don't take to wait at (or like) everything. Y'all don't similar those Old Master paintings of rich dead white people? Fine, don't waste your time on them. Alternatively, if you dear that stuff and hate modern art, get wild.
Trying to see everything in a major gallery in an hour is like going to a multiplex movie theater and trying to run into all 12 movies in an hour by dashing from theatre to theatre. Nil would make sense.
Myself, I beloved art that pokes me to call up differently nigh something I idea I already knew. Other people prefer middle candy. Information technology's all valid.
Merely give yourself a moment to slow down, to expect, see and recall, and you'll find something that really speaks to you.
Source: https://theconversation.com/three-simple-steps-to-understand-art-look-see-think-33020
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