Has Art Shown to Be a Good Indicator of Absorbing Information
What'due south the key to understanding art? Could there be some piece of cake steps to unpacking the meaning of an artwork?
The short answer is: yes.
I recently wrote an article for The Chat called Iii questions not to ask of art – and four to ask instead, which tackled some age-old questions that get asked of art: Why is that art? What is information technology meant to exist? Couldn't a iv-year-old exercise that?
I suggested 4 better questions to ask, taken from Australian art academic Terry Smith.
Here'south a simple three-step method I utilise, adjusted from an old technique by the fine art historian Erwin Panofsky:
ane) Look
2) See
iii) Think
The beginning two – look and see – are just about using your eyes, and observational skills. The third requires a bit of idea, drawing on what we already know and creatively interpreting what we've observed inside an artwork's broader contexts.
When we see anything, whether it's a work of fine art, a pic or a billboard, our brains perform a massively circuitous split-second process of reading and making pregnant. We absorb a whole range of clues that brand upward our understanding of any image, many of which nosotros're not even conscious of.
Any process of understanding fine art, and then, is well-nigh slowing down that process, breaking down the image deliberately and belongings off from jumping to any snap conclusions until afterward.
Step 1: Await
Isn't it obvious nosotros "await" at fine art? Non really. When nosotros visit a gallery, we tend to spend only a few seconds in front of any one work. In fact, some estimates accept it at nether ii seconds.
So await at what's there, literally right in front of you lot. Start with the well-nigh bones: what medium or cloth is information technology – a photo, an object, a painting? How does it look? Crude and quick? Slick and neat? Shiny? Dirty? Carefully fabricated? Thrown together?
The creative person will accept made some very deliberate decisions about the materials, style and approach, and these will feed direct into the overall feel and pregnant of the piece of work.
Expect at this work past Spanish-born Australian artist Dani Marti chosen It's all almost Peter, fabricated in 2009.
Information technology hangs on the wall like a painting, simply is made up of hundreds of melted plastic objects bowls, orange juicers, plastic domestic appliances, all different colours. Marti wants us to recall of it in the tradition of a painting, even if it's fabricated up of 3D plastic objects.
Footstep two: See
What's the departure between looking and seeing in the context of art? Looking is about literally describing what is in front of you, while seeing is well-nigh applying meaning to it. When we run across nosotros understand what is seen as symbols, and we interpret what's there in front of us.
Erwin Panofsky calls the symbols in an artwork "iconography", and whatsoever prototype tin can be hands broken down into the iconography that makes it up.
Consider the iconography in Pablo Picasso's epic painting, Guernica (1937). In the eye, at that place'south that screaming horse, with a dismembered arm but below information technology. On the left, a woman is wailing and holding a dead babe, and dominating the epitome is the calorie-free shade that looks similar an explosion. Those private elements combine to produce the overall meaning of the painting, which in this example is regarded equally one of the most powerful anti-war art works created.
The iconography in Marti's It's all nigh Peter is not so obvious – it'south more abstracted, which means it's removed from a simple literal depiction of something. But the actual melted plastic objects are everyday items – things you might have in your home, the objects a person would surround themselves with that make upwardly their life. Brand a mental annotation of iconography similar this, and take it to the final step.
Footstep 3: Retrieve
The concluding step involves thinking nearly what you've observed, drawing together what you've gleaned from the first two steps and thinking nigh possible meanings. Importantly, this is a process of estimation. It's not a science. It'due south non about finding the "right answers", but nigh thinking creatively most the most plausible understandings of a piece of work.
The key here is context. The broader context of an artwork volition help make sense of what you've already observed. Much of the data about context is usually given in those dull little labels that tell you lot the creative person'southward proper name, the championship of the work and the year. And at that place are ofttimes other valuable morsels of information included too, such every bit the place and year an artist was born.
Who is the creative person? Is it someone whose work y'all know something nearly? If so, what do you know about them? Fifty-fifty if this is "Picasso was a womaniser", or "Jackson Pollock was a drunk", if y'all've heard of the creative person, you have some existing knowledge you can bring to bear.
If you've never heard of the artist, what does his or her proper name suggest well-nigh where they might be from? Text panels in galleries commonly take the artist's dates and where he or she was built-in. These are important clues. Naturally, an artist born in the Soviet Wedlock in the 1930s is going to accept very different life experiences from one built-in in Kingdom of spain in the 1960s.
When was the piece of work made? What do you know about what was happening at the time, even if it'south this year? Text panels sometimes say where the artist works, and so where was the work made? Artists produce work that responds to the world they're immersed in every 24-hour interval, so the "when" and "where" volition requite clues equally to what was happening.
Importantly, bring to bear everything you know – you'd be surprised how much you know of the context of an artwork just from your general knowledge, a lot of which comes from conversations, television, the internet, all those things that are "informal learning".
In the example of Marti's It'due south all nigh Peter, the title is a major key. Marti is literally telling us that this work is all near someone chosen Peter. We might not know who Peter is, merely we do know from the title that this is a kind of an abstracted portrait of him – recollect of how the artist has hung this on the wall similar a painting, wanting us to think of the tradition of portraiture.
The iconography – those everyday plastic objects in this work – are a portrait of "Peter", perhaps 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 say about them? Colourful and complex, perhaps? We're guessing. But nosotros've unlocked that It's all about Peter is a personal portrait near the artist's connexion with Peter.
Hold on …
Y'all might exist thinking, "concord on, if I did these iii steps every fourth dimension I see a work of fine art, information technology's going to accept years to see everything in the gallery".
And so here's an important tip – you don't have to look at (or like) everything. You lot don't like those Old Master paintings of rich dead white people? Fine, don't waste your time on them. Alternatively, if you lot love that stuff and hate modern art, go wild.
Trying to meet everything in a major gallery in an hour is like going to a multiplex picture palace and trying to meet all 12 movies in an hour by dashing from theatre to theatre. Nothing would make sense.
Myself, I beloved fine art that pokes me to call up differently almost something I idea I already knew. Other people prefer heart processed. It'due south all valid.
Simply give yourself a moment to slow down, to wait, see and think, and y'all'll find something that really speaks to you.
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Source: https://theconversation.com/three-simple-steps-to-understand-art-look-see-think-33020
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