Week Eight
Monday, October 17, 2016
We shared our worksheet assignments on evaluation. Everyone chose an artwork and evaluated it using 2 out of 3 of the theories.For chapter 5, we discussed evaluation of artwork. To evaluate, you select one thing over another. The idea of quality can change depending on people and culture. We learned Titian challenged the photo-realistic art style of the renaissance. the first theory we discussed is Formal. Formal looks at the form of an artwork, not the content.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
For chapter 5, we continued discussing the 3 theories of evaluation. Contextual is when you research the history of an artist to evaluate it. The idea is to look at what was happening at that time, what the culture was like, and how the artwork compares to that. Expressive is when evaluators look at the artist's personality and life, and how that could affect the artwork. For example, Titian started using loose brush strokes as he got older, suggesting he stopped worrying so much about what others thought and did what he enjoyed because he knew he only had so much time left. We discussed what art markets are and how they work. WE watched "What Makes Art Beautiful", a TV show by BBC. Art markets only show what a certain group of collectors want to pay for certain works at certain times. Therefore, the money value only loosely correlates with historical importance or innovation of a work. "The Scream" by Edvard Munch is the most expensive artwork in the world, worth $119.9 million. There are many parodies of this painting. I found a list of the best from pophangover.com and used the spongebob squarepants one because its something many people will recognize, and the painting is very good.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Continuing chapter 5, we discussed how to write an evaluation on art and censorship. To write an evaluation, you follow 3 steps.
Get the facts:artist, title, date, subject, medium, size, etc.
Analyze: parts of an artwork and how they work together
Evaluate:assess the quality or importance of the work using one of the 2 theories.
Censorship is removing artwork from the public. In the medieval times, the church dictated everything including art. They banned iconography, claiming it was "idolatrous" and people were worshipping the idols instead of God. This movement was called "iconoclasm". In Nazi Germany, they confiscated 16,000 artworks because they all challenged the Nazi ideas. In 1973 the court case Miller VS California decided artwork may only be censored if to obscene for the "average people".
A funny and ironic picture about censorship. The sentence is incomplete because the rest is blacked out. From http://ncac.org/resource/first-amendment-in-schools