Art 2202   Fall 2005  Museum Object Writing Assignment
(due Friday, September 23rd, beginning of class)
1.       print this assignment and take it with you to the museum (review the requirements thoroughly before you go; also bring paper and pencil, not pen)  The purpose of the assignment is to refine your skills of seeing and describing, as you visually and mentally investigate a work of art in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, selected from the list.  You will analyze and discuss that specific work in response to the 4 stages described below. 

 

2.        Go to the Museum by Thursday, September 22nd, plan to spend as much time there as you think you will need to complete the assignment as outlined below.  Please consult the website for directions to the  High Museum and information about their hours of operation, parking, etc.    http://www.high.org/  cost of entrance is $8.00 for students – bring your ID card

You must keep the stub from your museum entry ticket and attach it to your writing assignment when you submit it.

 

        3.     CHOOSE THE WORK OF ART FROM AMONG THE FOLLOWING: 

·         Barent Avercamp Games on the Ice

·         George Bellows Portrait of Anne

·         Albert Bierstadt Pioneers of the Woods

·         Eugene Fromentin Arabs on the Way to the Pastures of the Tell

·         G.B. Gaulli The Thanksgiving of Noah or The Sacrifice of Isaac

·         Adolph Gottlieb Duet, 1962

·         G. B. Luks Winter – High Bridge Park

·         Claude Monet Autumn on the Seine, Argenteuil

·         Reinier Nooms  A View of Amsterdam Harbor

·         Henry Ossawa Tanner Etaples Fisher Folk

·         Camille Pissarro Road at Louveciennes

·         Mark Rothko Number 73

·         Benvenuto Tisi (Il Garofalo) Adoration of the Magi

·         Romanino Madonna & Child with St. James Major and St. Jerome

·         Bellini  Madonna & Child

·         Tilman Riemenschneider St. Andrew

·         Nicolas Tournier  Denial of St. Peter

·         Pieter Lastman  Paris & Oenone

·         Albrecht Dürer The Knight, Death, &  the Devil

·         C. W. Peale  Robert Hazelhurst

·         J. S. Copley Elizabeth Deering Wentworth Gould Rogers

·         J. G. Brown  The Neighbors  or  The Deacon’s Visit

·         S.F.B. Morse Mrs. Morse and Two Children

·         Jo Davidson Gen. José Maja or Delores Ibarruri

·         Barbara Hepworth Figure (?)

·         Charles Sheeler  White Tulips

·         Man Ray  Lifesaver

·         Thomas Hart Benton  Woman at a Piano

·         Morris Louis  Number 1-81

·         Arshile Gorky  Garden in Sochi

·         Adolph Gottlieb Masquerade

·         Robert Rauschenberg  Overcast III

·         Deborah Butterfield  Untitled # 3-85

·         Howard Finster George Washington #6, 903

·         William Bradford  Coast of Labrador

·         Eastman Johnson  Life in the South (Old Kentucky Home)

·         Henry Inman  Misipee  or  Yoholo-Mico

·         Alfred Stieglitz  Winter – Fifth Avenue

·         Dorothea Lange  White Angel Breadline

 

Select your work by browsing through the museum works on the list as you visit the museum.  Pick something you like or that interests you in some way. But you do not have to have any knowledge about the work or the artist – it is perhaps better if you do not.  This is an exercise in observation, careful looking, and following directions.  This is not a research project.

 

4.       For the work you select from the museum, state the artist and title and list the museum number. The following steps are components of your Museum Object Writing Assignment.   This will require that you examine and analyze your choice from the attached images of works. The directions will guide you step by step through the process and result in a written paper of 2-3 pages in length. Make sure that you break down your writing task according to the directions and label the specific parts as the different phases of the writing requirements. Take thorough notes while you are looking at the work, and type the assignment before you turn it in.

OBJECT ANALYSIS IN FOUR PHASES

To criticize a work of art does not mean to say that you like or dislike it, rather, that you are judging its relative success on a number of aesthetic and technical points. Your personal response is important, and will be uniquely your own. What you see in the work and what you think will be different from what anyone else sees and thinks. The experience of the world which you bring to the task will differ from that of anyone else. Your response may be something entirely outside the range of reactions which the artist anticipated when the work was created. This will be true for any work of art, and will most certainly be the case when the artist lived in a previous time and place. One of the standards by which art is judged to be great, or by which a work is considered to be a masterpiece, is its ongoing power to stimulate the responses of viewers over time, and across cultures. The response, though, will not necessarily be that it is pleasing or "beautiful," rather that it is evocative in some way, striking deeper chords than mere physical/visual pleasure. When you learn to criticize art, whether you like it or not, you will gain skills in organizing your thought processes, and will become more objective and accountable for your likes and dislikes in visual experiences. You will also be able to go beyond those likes and dislikes to have an appreciation for a wider variety of works. This can make your aesthetic experiences more meaningful and more memorable, and will carry over to your understanding of your thoughts and reactions to all visual objects.  Before you decide if you like it or not, or try to discern its meaning, you must involve yourself an very careful looking at the physical object before you, in the most detached and objective ways possible.

You will need to be a bit of a detective in the process of learning art criticism. Approach the task of viewing the work of art with the idea that the artist has put some hidden messages into the work, as well as its more obvious effects, to which you might first respond. You need to start on a systematic program to analyze the work thoroughly and well. There are four steps to this approach: DESCRIPTION, ANALYSIS, INTERPRETATION, JUDGMENT. They need to be taken in order, and broken down into useful components.

I. DESCRIPTION: "What do I see?" (Relate to the idea of "pure seeing," the simple physical act of taking in visual sensations While it is, of course, impossible to divorce the act of seeing from cognition processes, you should suspend judgment and other thought processes as much as possible. Seek to divorce the mental and emotional responses from physical recognition, for a time.)

A. Make an objective list of what you see in the work. Give only facts, and make no suppositions or guesses.

B. Note or guess the size of the work, the medium (media) in which it was created. (Height, width, depth (if applicable) in inches, feet, centimeters.)

II. ANALYSIS: "How is the work organized and achieved?"

A. How has the artist used the formal elements at his disposal? What has been done with line, color, shape/form, value? Has the artist created an illusion of space? How? Is there an emphasis on texture? Is it implied or actual? Etc., etc., etc. (You might review the guide for this at http://www.westga.edu/~rtekippe/2201/form%20vocab1.htm)

B. How are the elements of design used? How is the composition laid out? Is there a sense of rhythm or movement? Balance? Proportion? Variety or unity? Emphasis or focus? Other design features? How were these effects achieved, in specific terms?

***** At this point you are still collecting facts – not ready to make your judgment yet.

III. INTERPRETATION: "What was the artist trying to ‘say’?" "What is happening in this work of art?"

A. Try to explain what the artist seems to have meant to say in the work. Is it narrative – telling a story? Does there seem to be a viewpoint taken? Does the artist seem to endorse the activity or make a statement in opposition? If it is non-narrative, is the work about observation of the material world or perhaps about the formal elements of art? Obviously, you must make some guesses here. Does the title influence your assessment? Is there a wall card which explains any part of it? If so, be sure to give credit to that.

B. Do not be afraid to make an interpretation which might differ from that of someone else. Your response can only come from you. Your interpretation will be affected by what you have seen and done and thought and learned in your life. However, you should be sure that your interpretation is based on facts and clues you gathered in the first two steps of the exercise. Back up your statement with what you have gleaned from careful observation. This helps you to learn what particular aspects of the work led to your own responses and feelings about the work.

IV. JUDGMENT: "What do I think of the work?" "How do I respond to it, personally?"

A. To formulate a credible judgment, you will need to be honest with yourself, and to critically evaluate your own feelings and the reasons why they emerge in response to the work of art. For example, if the work is of the Nativity of Christ, whether or not you endorse Christianity will color your response.

B. Evaluate (as appropriate) these three theories for judgment which are used by art critics:

1. Imitationalism: It may be important that the work of art imitates what we see in real life, in some manner. This is not necessarily a slavish copying of an exterior visual appearance, but may, rather, include the responses which one might have to a given visual experience. For example, the reddish glow of a sunset cast over a landscape may not seem entirely naturalistic, but may have a strong emotional appeal to you, or not.

2. Formalism: The work might seem successful because of careful or innovative use of formal elements or design principles – in ways which elicit your strong response. Such treatment by the artist may or may not be made in relationship to a narrative basis for the work. For example, the exaggeration and change of compositional emphasis which Giotto used in the rendition of The Lamentation.

3. Emotionalism: The work may derive its impact primarily from the visceral, emotional, reaction of the viewer, in what may be a communication of narrative content, or may rely entirely upon the effects of more or less pure formal elements. See  The Crucifixion, by Matthias Grünewald (23-2) versus Mas o Menos by Frank Stella (34-11).               

   C. You might apply one or two of these theories of judgment to a greater extent than the others, but it is necessary       to   consider the work in light of all three, even though you do not necessarily respond in writing to all three. Then you will be able to discover the most possible information about the work and your responses to it.

 

Not all of these points will be pertinent to the images here.  Use your own judgment as to which questions can be answered about the image you choose.

 

       

Avoid a generalized discourse on details of history, culture, style, or personal opinion.  Stick to what you see in the work through careful looking and thinking.

 

5.   Type your 4-stage assignment, putting your name, artist, title, and museum # of the work you are describing at the top of the first page. Clearly label the phases of your assessment as listed above.  Use page numbers; staple the pages, with your museum entrance ticket attached, and submit at the beginning of class on September 23rd.