Learning to Look / Looking to Learn

Not everyone will become an artist, but we all will be art appreciators and consumers. In order to understand art better, we must learn how to look and know what to look for. Art critics are masters at looking and asking questions. They are like detectives. Be an art critic detective and answer the questions that the art critic asks (Based on Mittler's [1986/89] ARTS IN FOCUS; originally designed by Ed Feldman [1970]).

Description: Searching for Internal Clues

• What do you see? What subject matter? What is happening in the picture? Look closely.
  
  
• What art elements do you see? What lines dominate the art work? (straight, curvy, other)
  
  
• What shapes dominate the artwork? (geometric, organic)
  
  
• What colors dominate the picture? Name them.
  
  
• Name the patterns/texture that you find.

Analysis:

Elements

• How has the picture (art elements) been arranged? (Artists repeat lines, shapes, colors, and patterns in exciting ways to make an artwork more interesting.)
  
  
• How are the shapes arranged? (symmetrical, triangle, vertical, circular, grid) Use tracing paper to find the major directional flow.
  
  
• How are the colors arranged? Are the colors predominantly light or dark? Are they bright or dull?
  
  
• How is the space arranged? (flat, overlapping, or deep dimensional)

Technique

• How did the artist make this picture? (draw, paint, collage, model or carve, other)
  
  
• What materials did he use? (clay, wood, oil, acrylic, charcoal, other)
  
  
• Interpretation: What does this painting mean to you?
  
  
• How do the colors make you feel? (mood)
  
  
• How does it feel? (touch) Like_________________________
  
  
• How does it sound? Like_____________________________
  
  
• How does it taste? Like______________________________
  
  
• How does it smell? Like______________________________ 
  
  
• Give this work a title ________________________________ (Include the subject, what they are doing, and adjectives/adverbs that you wrote down for feel, sound, taste, etc.)
  
  
• What symbols do you see?
  
  
• What do the colors symbolize (for example, blue can mean
  loyalty.)

Judgment

It is not important that we like or dislike an artwork, but that we try to understand why it is famous. Art critics find this artwork important or significant for art history for one, two of all of the following reasons. Circle the best reasons.

• Imitative. The artist tried to accurately describe the subject matter--the event, people, objects.
  
  
• Formalistic: The artist experimented with the art elements (shapes, colors, space) in an unusual way.
  
  
• Emotionalism. The artist emphasized the mood or symbols.
  
  
• Functionalism: The artist intended the work to be useful, religious, educational, or propaganda.

Audience

Who would appreciate this work? (Grandmother, the minister, a policeman, Native Americans)

(From Hamblen, K., [1985]. "Developing aesthetic literacy through contested concepts." Studies in Art Education, 19-24. See also, "An Art Criticism Questioning Strategy Within the Framework of Bloom's Taxonomy." Studies in Art Education, 26 (1), 41-50.)

When evaluating or criticizing your own work, include the following:

• Commendations: What is successful about the piece?
  
  
• Recommendations: How would you improve it?