ARTS 1 Critical Perspective in the Arts

FEB 23, 2023 - First session

➢ Consultation hours
○ Online (via zoom) - Mondays and Tuesdays, 9:00 - 5:00 pm
○ In-person - Thursdays and Fridays, by appointment

➢ Course requirements
○ 1 (one) individual paper —-- 15%
○ 1 (one) Group report —--- 25%
○ 1 (one) Group Project (zine) —--- 25%
○ Class participation —--- 10%

➢ We will be using MLA format

➢ Group 4: Orientalism
○ Said, Edward. “Orientalism.”, 1978, pp. 87-91
○ Stick to orientalism since its very theoretical

❖ Self-directed activity #1 - Definition of Terms

➢ Define:
■ 1. Subject matter
■ 2. Medium
■ 3. Form
■ 4. Formal analysis
■ 5. Context
■ 6. Context
March 7, 2023 - Second session

❖Readings
➢ Barrett
■ Describing Art
● Art criticism is not actually judgmental and negative in tone. It is actually
descriptive and interpretive rather than judgmental, and positive in tone
● Describing - it is a kind of verbal pointing a critic does so that features
of a work of art will be noticed and appreciated
■ Subject Matter
● Refers to the persons, objects, places, and events in a work of art.
■ Content
● Combination of all that is in a work of art —- subject matter, the
handling of media, form, and intent
■ Medium
● This term is used to designate a general grouping of artworks, such as the
medium of painting or the medium of sculpture or video or the term is
also used to identify specific materials used by an artist, such as acrylic
paint or poly coated resin.
● Medium is singular, media is plural
■ Form
● All works of art have form, whether realistic or abstract, representational
or non-representational, meticulously planned or achieved spontaneously.
When critics discuss the form of a work of art, they provide information
about how the artist presents subject matter (or excludes it) by means of a
chosen medium
● They tell of the artwork’s composition, arrangement, and visual
construction. “Formal elements” of a work of art may include dot, line,
shape, light and value.
❖ ONLINE DISCUSSION
➢ How to look at art
■ A formal analysis is quite simply an analysis of the forms utilized in the work of
art. It is a close inspection of the artist's use of aspects such as color, shape, line,
mass, and space.
■ We are more on descriptive rather than interpretation

■ First step in formal analysis of an artwork is Describing

● Better to look at it personally
● Presenting it in a logical manner

➢ Describing Works of Art

■ Intrinsic
● Form
● Medium
● Subject Matter

■ Extrinsic
● Related contextual information

■ It’s fine to be subjective, but not too subjective to the point that you lose the
meaning of the art already

➢ Subject Matter
■ It is what the painting is all about

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March 9, 2023 - Third session

❖Readings
➢ Semiotics
■ Semiotics is the theory of signs. Simply put, a sign is something that
represents something else
● Signs can take the form of words, images, sounds, gestures,
objects, even ideas —- the thought “tree” generated in your head
by looking out of the window is also a sign.
● However, signs have to be recognized as signs in order for them to
function as signs.
■ Semiotics provides a different — and some would say more precise —
language and framework for understanding the multifaceted connections
 between image and society and image and viewer, and for understanding
not only what works of art mean but how the artist, viewer, and culture at
large go about creating those meanings.

■ According to Saussure, the sign is composed of two parts

● Signifier - the form that the sign takes
● Signified - the concept it represents

■ According to Charles Sanders Peirce, the sign is made up of three parts

● Representamen - the form that the sign takes ( not necessarily
material )
● Interpretant - the sense made of the sign
● Object - the thing to which the sign refers

■ Three basic kinds of signs:

● Symbol - the signifier is purely arbitrary or conventional; it does
not resemble the signified. Examples: alphabetical letters,
numbers, traffic signs.
● Icon - the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the
signified, or being similar to it in some of its qualities. Examples: a
portrait, a model airplane
● Index - the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in
some way to the signified in a way that can be observed or
inferred.

❖ ONLINE DISCUSSION
➢ Perspective
■ Linear perspective
● Vanishing point
● Orthogonals / converting
● Horizontal line
➢ Color
■ Color temperature
● Colors with longer wavelengths
➢ Light/Value
■ Value as an element of art refers to the gradation of tone from light to dark
● Shading, blending
➢ Texture
■ Smooth, rough or etc
➢ Pattern
■
 ➢ Overlapping
■
➢ Foreshortening
■

March 16, 2023 - Third session

➢ It is very important to describe the artwork. You cannot accurately describe the artwork
when you can't articulate each element
➢ Line
○ Essential building block of art; can be the content itself of a work of art
○ Actual lines;
○ Broad, thin, straight, jagged, etc.
○ A line can also be implied
○ Lines have direction to signify spatial relationships
○ Horizontal, diagonal, vertical
■ Horizontal evokes calmness,
■ Vertical lines evokes balance, firmness, strength, dignity
■ Diagonal line - very evokes will, power, energy, and dynamic

➢ Shape
○ Geometric shapes
■ Rectangles, circles, square, rhombus
○ Biomorphic shapes
■ Organic forms. They are shapes found in nature
○ Free shapes
■ Created by the artist

➢ Color
○ Hue - is the actual color itself
○ Saturated - purity
○ Value - darkness or lightness form

➢ Color
○ Color temperature
■ Colors with longer wavelengths such as red, orange and yellow are warm
colors
■ Colors with shorter wavelengths such as blue or violet are cool colors
➢ Movement
○ In three-dimensional art such as sculptures, movements can be implied or actual,
in the form of kinetic art
○ In flat images, movement can be implied with alternating designs and repetitive
motifs in a series

➢ Texture
○ A surface characteristic that may be tactile or implied
○ A texture is actual when you can feel the actual material of the object
○ An implied texture is illusionary
■ Implied on a flat, two-dimensional surface

➢ Light/Value
○ Gives the artwork a more detailed appearance
○ Values as an element of art refers to the gradation of tone from light to dark.
■ Shaind, blending, chiaroscuro ( is a technique of using light and shadow
to define the three-dimensional objects )

➢ Composition in space
○ Refers to the arrangement of the artwork
○ Formal balance
■ Symmetrical
○ Informal balance
■ Unequal

➢ Scale
○ Size of the work

➢ Linear perspective
○ Operates on the theory that parallel lines appear to converge as they recede.
■ One-point perspective
■ Two-point perspective
■ Three-point perspective
○ Orthogonals
○ Vanishing point - center of the artwork
○ Linear perspective
○ Horizontal line
 NEW TOPIC

➢ 4 planes of Analysis

➔ Basic Semiotic Plane - Description of the formal and material properties of the work
➔ Iconic Plane - “image itself”, Interpretation of the subject matter and its intertextuality;
political and social implications, relationship to the viewer
➔ Contextual plane - Situate the image in its context; references, allusions, symbolic
systems etc.
➔ Axiological /Evaluative plane - analyze the values of the work

★ Semiotics: Study of Signs

○ Denotation - precise, literal, explicit meaning
○ Connotation - represents cultural associations, contextual meanings
○ Bias will surface — we have to be subjective but not too subjective

★ Ferdinand de Saussure
○ Saussure sought to explain how words in a language (linguistic signs) mean what
they mean
○ He identified two components of a linguistic sign:
■ Signifier - the physical element, the actual spoken or written word
■ Signified - the mental concept, the idea of the sign
○ In separating the two components, Saussure acknowledged their arbitrary
relationships

★ Saussure’s Dyadic Model of the sign

○ Concept - Sound-image

★ Charles Sanders Peirce

○ Proposed three elements to the sign ( triadic model );
■ Interpretant/ signified: the sense made of the sign
■ Representamen / Signifier: the symbol - the form of the sign
■ Referent / object: What the sign ‘stands for’ or represents
○ Representamen - the sign itself ( for example, a word )
○ Interpretant - “the sense of the thing” which links the other two
○ Object - the object to which the representamen refers
○ Semiosis - the interaction between the three components. The process of
“decoding the sign”

★ Pierce’s Taxonomy of the sign

○ Symbol - no intrinsic relationship between the elements on the sign, entirely
based on convention
 ○ Icon - signs which owe their connection to the object through some resemblance
between representamen/signifier/ and interpretant/ signified
○ Index - signs in which there is a direct connection or genuine relationship
between the representamen/ signifier and interpretant/signified

★ The persistence of memory - salvador dali

March 23, 2023 - Fourth session

➢ Iconic Plane - “image itself”, Interpretation of the subject matter and its
intertextuality; political and social implications, relationship to the viewer
■ What does this plane about?
● Content as signifier
● Style of figuration
■ You can go beyond the descriptive meaning
■ More than just a “style”, this implies an interpretation of the world, a
worldview or an ideology
● Classical figuration
● Realist figuration
● Impressionist figuration
● Expressionist figuration

➢ Iconographic Interpretation
■ Iconography - “study of images”
■ A process of determining;
● Motifs
● Allegorical and symbolic meanings

➢ Contextual plane - Situate the image in its context; references, allusions,

symbolic systems etc.

➢ Axiological /Evaluative plane - analyze the values of the work

■ What does this plane talk about?
● Evaluation of the material basis of the work (technical side of the
work)
● Facilitation of the “dialogue”, interaction, and the debate in the
field of art and culture as these intersect with other human
concerns, among them the political, social, and economic
■ You can agree, disagree, or have reservations in relation to your own
values and worldview
 ➢ MODULE 2
■ Taste and Beauty
● David Hume - Taste is a refined ability to perceive quality in an
artwork
● Emphasized education and experience of individuals
● Beauty is intersubjective: Hume believed that people of taste will
eventually lead to a consensus to form a universal ‘standard of
taste’

■ Immanuel Kant
● Good judgments are grounded in the features of artworks
● Explained the ability of humans to perceive and categorized the
world around us: interplay of perception, imagination, intellect, and
judgment.
● Purposiveness without a purpose
● Features of the object prompts a person’s mental faculties to feel
that the object is ‘right’
● An object is beautiful if it promotes an internal harmony or a free
play of our mental faculties

■ Traces of Kantian Thought

● Clive Bell emphasized Significant form in art rather than content
● Clement Greenberg advocated formal aesthetic
● Edward Bullough stressed the importance of Physical distance in
experiencing art

March 30, 2023 - Fifth session

❖ But is it Art? Case of Andres Serrano
➢ Parthenon
➢ Water Lilies - Claude Monet
➢ David - Michelangelo

❖ Matter of “Taste”
➢ Art and Taste
■ David hume - Taste is a refined ability to perceive quality in an artwork
■ Emphasized education and experience of individuals
■ Beauty is intersubjective: Hume believed that people of taste will
eventually lead to a consensus to form a universal ‘standard of taste’
 ❖ Making “Good judgements”
➢ Immanuel Kant
■ Good judgements are grounded in the feature of artworks
■ Explained the ability of humans to perceive and categorize the world
around us: interplay of perception, imagination, intellect, and judgment.
■ Purposiveness without a purpose

❖ “Disinterestedness”

❖ Traces of “Kantian” Thought

➢ Clive Bell emphasized Significant form in art rather than content.
➢ Clement Greenberg advocated formal aesthetic

❖ “Defending” Serrano
➢ Lippard’s Critique
■ Form - formal and material properties (Group 4)

April 20, 2023 - Sixth session

April 27, 2023 - Seventh session

➔ What do we mean when we say “seeing”
◆ Establishes our place in surrounding world
◆ Seeing is informed by what we know and what we believe
◆ Seeing as active; it is not as objective as we think it is

➔ Image
◆ Representation/picture of a person, manila, or a thing
◆ All images are man-made
● Images embody a “way of seeing”

➔ Technological Mediations: Technology and images

◆ What impact does photography/technology have on images?
● Printing press, cameras. Computers, various devices for digital recordings

➔ Images and Meaning

◆ What happens to images’ meaning in the age of Mechanical reproduction?
● Meanings are transmittable, it becomes “information”
● Details can be “isolated, reproduced with words in them, etc.”