1) As we did today in class, make a list of your own personal criteria for determining that something is a "good" work of art.
2) Now imagine the list of criteria that a professional art critic must carry around in his or her head. What are the differences?
3) What does this statement from the next Barrett reading mean to you? "To interpret a work of art is to make it meaningful."
This blog response should take shape within 150 words and will be the starting point for your first visual journal entry (2 pages). It is due at the start of class Monday, August 27th.
2) Now imagine the list of criteria that a professional art critic must carry around in his or her head. What are the differences?
3) What does this statement from the next Barrett reading mean to you? "To interpret a work of art is to make it meaningful."
This blog response should take shape within 150 words and will be the starting point for your first visual journal entry (2 pages). It is due at the start of class Monday, August 27th.
The key things a good work of art must have for me must have some sort of originality. Even if it’s inspired by another work of art, it must take that inspiration and be different if not better. It must also be engaging for me to want to learn more about it. Art critics might also look for those factors, along with the principles of design (or how the work deviates from them), and how the art work has been expressed. “To interpret a work of art is to make it meaningful.” When you are looking at an artwork that catches your attention, or that you find yourself in front of, usually you first see its face value. But, once you start to decode what you see in the piece and begin to react and form thoughts on what you believe the subject to possibly be, you start giving the painting more value. It no longer is empty when you see it, but full of your thoughts and perceptions- whether they are positive or negative has no consequence. The work now has some type of meaning for you, and can still be completely different for someone else.
ReplyDeleteI consider a work to be "good" if it evokes a reaction from me; I particularly enjoy connecting a work's content to an aspect of my life. I also value qualities of a work that exhibit the artist's creativity, knowledge of light and shadow, and use of both color and line. While I am more concerned with how the work affects me personally, an art critic would value the way the artist has impacted the art world with his or her contributions and how the artist uses techniques to convey meaning. It is the viewer's responsibility "to interpret a work of art...to make it meaningful." I could walk past one work and take nothing from its content. Meanwhile, I could research another work to understand the artist's intentions and then spend an hour appreciating the techniques the artist used to create meaning.
ReplyDeleteArt certainly is “good” for when it purely produces a meaning for someone. But art is about layers of prediction, a sense of knowing your audience. It is about knowing what is anticipated, then comprehending how to play with those qualities.
ReplyDeleteA critic must be on some parallel with beauty and significant intension (with exception to contemporary art). Critics create a mean of understanding works that have not necessarily seen certain discourse. A critic needs to have the ability to connect the mind and senses together, then translate what he or she sees into some mental image.
“To interpret a work of art is to make it meaningful” means many things. ‘Meaningful’ to me is about pushing boundaries. It is about applying some kind of past aesthetic property on to popular culture. Positive and negative evaluations are necessary. Without interpretation, art is just a pretty representation.
-PCP
For starters, to be “good art” I agree with Barrett that the piece must have a Subject. I want to know the Purpose behind the piece of art that I’m viewing in order to understand what the artist was trying to express. Emotional impact is another thing I think good art has. These types of works make a connection with the viewer and keep the memory of that work from disappearing into the millions of other works that have been viewed.
ReplyDeleteThe art critics job is hard, because they must interpret the meaning of a work; probably one of the most difficult things that they do. A critic must make aesthetic judgments about art and have an objective point of view. A professional art critic must also assess the composition of a piece of work, and focus on things like line, color, shape, and texture.
Interpreting a work of art, whether it elects a positive or negative response, rather any response, creates some type of meaning to the viewer. In my opinion, the artist has only done half of the work by creating the piece; the other half is for the viewer. The viewer is the one who gets to make up the story behind the work; ultimately they have the last say. In this part of the process, the viewer creates meaning behind an otherwise trivial work.
In order for an artwork to be “good art” I believe it should engage the viewer and illicit some type of reaction, good or bad. In fact, I think artworks that elicit negative reactions are some of the most interesting works. My strong response to the piece causes me to question why I have such a bad reaction to it and spend more time analyzing the piece and its meaning. “Good art” should make one think about the piece, however long or brief it may be. Art critics also look for pieces that illicit reactions from its audience but also emphasize the importance of the artist’s original ideas, interesting use of the principles of design, and how they convey a message through symbols, color, texture, etc. “To interpret a work of art is to make it meaningful” means that I can learn or gain something from the work. By having an emotional reaction to the work, analyzing the meaning behind the piece, or relating aspects of one’s life back to the work creates a bond between the work and viewer which is one of the reasons why art is so important and beautiful. The artist spends much time and effort making the piece and for it to be successful (meaningful) the viewer should be able to take something away from the piece after interpreting it.
ReplyDeleteA good work of art should be both engaging and innovative. Its engagement can stem from a work’s subject matter and/or composition while its innovation succeeds in setting the work apart from everything else. The list of criteria that a professional art critic refers to would most likely be a lengthier list that includes references to formal rules and comparison to other works from the artist's oeuvre. By interpreting a work of art, we engage with it – bridging the gap between artist and audience and forging a connection. Interpreting a work connects that work with emotion or feeling and animates it. Our interpretations, our striving to understand an artist’s work, create a dialogue for it as well as a context in which the work can reside.
ReplyDeleteMy personal criteria for discerning whether art is good or bad lies heavily on how the work makes me feel. If a work evokes a strong emotion from me than I would categorize it as good art. A few other criteria that would aid in the works' ability to evoke an emotion from me would be innovation, subject, and proper employment of principals of design. A professional art critic would have to have a mastery of the information surrounding the piece. The reading for today shows us that the critic should also be proficient in many different fields, such as philosophy, english, history, and depending on the subject matter of the art work, they may need to know far beyond that. Essentially I think a the best art critic would know everything about everything surrounding a work of art. Interpreting a work of art makes it meaningful because by researching and filtering the piece through ones personality, emotions, and life experience, meaning is then created for the specific viewer.
ReplyDeleteBarrett’s statement first caught me as an overarching generalization. To consider that by issuing thought regarding a piece of art makes a work meaningful seemed to be a broad statement. After all, school teachers and child psychologists may spend vast amounts of time dissecting the scribbles of kindergarteners for a sense of meaning, but these pieces are far from my definition of art. After further reading and thought I realized that Barrett is not stating that every work supplied with an interpretation is “good” art, yet it can be meaningful. This separation of the terms “meaningful” and “good” became key in my acceptance of Barrett’s statement. This fed in to a comment made in class last week regarding how everyone has the potential to make “art.” It may not meet our standards of a great work, but it is art nonetheless. “Good” art is that which demonstrates technical skill and knowledge of the craft and evokes a personal connection with the viewer. This connection may vary between each person and may contrast with the artist’s intended purpose, but it is that which makes art both meaningful and great. For art dealers, collectors, critics, and museum curators they may qualify “good” art as that which connects with a broad variety of viewers. Art that is able to connect with both people within the art world and those who rarely visit galleries may be considered great by art professionals looking to draw in a crowd. Overall, “good” art is about the emotions and responses it solicits.
ReplyDeleteThe foundations of any good artwork are passion and creativity. There is no good art without passion. There is no art at all without creativity. Enough said. The other major criterion of “good artwork” is that it has layers. Here’s what I mean:
ReplyDeleteEvery artists’ work is shaped by their experiences. Therefore, each piece an artist creates (whether sculpture, photography, printmaking, painting) has a subtext. Subtexts are the hidden layers behind an artwork that give it depth. When an artist is able to communicate his subtext in an innovative, creative, or provocative way, then he has created something of value: “a good artwork”
Professional critics vs. me:
Pros= Much more formal analysis
4 levels: description, analysis, interpretation, judgement
Dozens of sublevels under each category
Knowledge of historic or contemporary art used as basis of comparison
I value artwork for how I perceive it and how it connects with me. It’s hard not to. Like Barrett said, that’s what gives it meaning.
As Barrett points out in his principles of interpretation, everyone sees the world differently. Based on our location, experiences, and inspirations, we come to value different things in life, and connect with some artistic styles more than others. Therefore, there is no one interpretation of a single artwork, but rather endless interpretations of artwork, and it is up to each individual to give an art its meaning.
Good art is based off of what the individual thinks because it all comes down to perception. With that said no one has the same criteria when looking at art. The most important criteria when grading art to me is that it makes me have a reaction. This reaction however does not need to be good because sometimes a bad reaction to a piece makes you think on some deeper levels which then can change your opinion on that certain piece. I think art that tells a story either intentional from the artist or one that you see is important. I think if the art does this it will have the other criteria that we discussed in class and i would consider it "good" art. however it all comes back to perception and what the viewer sees and thinks.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between a professional artist and me is very vast. I have no formal training which can allow me to not see some mistakes or classic errors an artist might see. They might be more critical depending on the style, genre and time period where my knowledge might lack.
To me, a good work of art is aesthetically pleasing, engaging, and draws my attention. I am not big on context because I appreciate art the most as decoration- something to hang on the walls, or fashion. However, if I do view a more complex work of art with deeper meaning I can appreciate that too if it is well-constructed, speaks to me/relates to me in some way or is able to enlighten me or change my mind about a particular concept or worldview. It is difficult to decipher what constitutes a "good" work of art because "Starry Night" can be just as pleasing to me as a simple pink heart painted on a canvas. I do not think level of skill or execution of the artwork matters, but rather how it causes the viewer to react. Art criticism is very subjective, which makes it difficult to universally judge art. Professional art critics interpret meaning of a work while also assessing its composition, focusing on things like line, color, shape, and texture. The difference between myself and an art critic is that I look at a work and think about how it makes me feel and relate it to my life, whereas an art critic evaluates the technical component of an artwork and considers it in a way that can be universally understood (any bias can skew the meaning for other viewers). Critics must be careful not to base too much of their analysis on their own personal thoughts/feelings. Barrett's statement "To interpret a work of art is to make it meaningful" means, as I said before, that you have to give an artwork your own meaning to make it personable and memorable to you in order to appreciate it.
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