READING THE IMAGE

Two interrelated aspects in the study of art:

1.) The first is that art has its specificity: that is, its particular language or vocabulary has something to

do with the mediums, techniques, and visual elements of art that constitute it as a distinct area of human

knowledge and signifying practice.

2.) The other aspect is that art, while it has its specificity, is at the same time historically situated and

shaped by social, economic, and political forces.

Both these aspects need to be taken into account so as to be able to fully understand and appreciate art.

For a study of the formal elements alone will not lead to a full understanding of the work, in the same way

that the exclusive study of the social determinants risks collapsing the artistic into the sociological.

Meaning in art is a complex of intellectual, emotional, and sensory significations which the work conveys

and to which the viewer responds, bringing in the breadth of his or her cultural background, artistic

exposure and training, and human experience in a dialogic relationship with the art work.

The analytic study of how the various elements and material features of the work produce meaning

should lead to a more stable and consensual field of meaning, away from erratic, whimsical,

purely subjective and impressionistic readings.