Hello, and welcome to the final article in this series. I have very much enjoyed writing these, and I hope you have gained something from what has been an intentionally brief overview of possible methods of considering art.

Today, I want to

• quickly summarise everything to date
• give some pointers to how you can start to apply these methods to other types of art
• give some short examples of aspects of what we have learned in action

To date, we have looked at how we can purposefully gather our first impressions of any painting by considering our own thoughts and emotions, building on this by looking at the techniques of the artist, from there bringing in aspects of the context of the painting, and finally developing this towards meaning.

I have focused on painting thus far, as I am a painter myself, but let us now consider how we can transfer this learning to other areas of art. Say we are looking at sculpture: aspects of the study of techniques of painting can apply more or less directly to this art form, for example:

• how does the sculpture employ the use of colour? Is it applied? Is it the natural colour of the chosen medium? What aspects of choices of hues in painting are relevant here?
• what choice of medium has the sculptor employed? Perhaps wood, bronze, or stone? Why did they make this choice? Is the context in relation to the period the sculpture was created relevant to this? Is it ‘found’ material? If so, why does the artist choose this? Does the material have a reflective surface? If so, again ask why.
• how is texture employed? Is it smoothed stone, or a rough surface? What effect does this create? Is the medium altered, or does it have its original texture?

A further consideration, when looking at 3D work in general, is the viewpoint of the spectator. Although this can be of relevance in studying some areas of painting (e.g. a cathedral ceiling), it is of paramount importance in sculpture. In fact, you may be able to gain many viewpoints of the work, or you may be limited to some extent for varying reasons (e.g. a sculpture placed in an alcove high on a building wall).

Again, we can begin to see that we can study the effect the work has on us, the techniques of the sculptor, the context of the work, and develop towards meaning. In turn, this would transfer well to the study of a more recently developed area of art: installations. Or how about digital art? In fact, whatever the area of art you are looking at, the grounding these methods give can be extended to take it in.

I will leave this with you to consider for any particular type of artwork you are interested in. Give it a try! You will see that what can seem obscure at first, or perhaps may even be a questionable piece to be created under the banner of ‘art’, could well start to unravel to varying degrees depending on how much you want to put into it. And if it interests you, perhaps even that age-old question of whether something is art or not can begin to be tackled constructively also … whatever the conclusion reached.

Finally, let us look at a couple of quotations that demonstrate these methods in action. Firstly, consider the following passage - what aspects of our methods are displayed here?

“…One can look ugly in the sense that the paint has a shiny curdled look, where the oil has contracted, like any dried oily drip. If your sense of beauty was mainly of smoothness then this could be offensive to the eye. But it would be odd nowadays and maybe even neurotic to have such a restricted sense of the beautiful. And also the shiny wrinkled surface of the dripped paint is off-set by the woven matt surface of the cream-coloured canvas. There’s a lot going on.

Backing off and looking at the whole thing, you get an impression of absolute visual rightness that can’t be pinned down. There seems to be a high element of chance. But chance itself isn’t the content because that would be banal, just as drips aren’t the subject. The content is the expression, the intensity of the sensation, the authenticity of the feeling.” *

This passage was considering predominantly the painting titled ‘One (Number 31)’, 1950, by Jackson Pollock. The writer is an art critic called Matthew Collings.

Firstly, let me say what appears here is another application of our methods: by looking within critiques for the clues related to what we have learned in this series, we can also start to deconstruct the sometimes obscure or difficult language of the art critic!

I will not dwell too much on this example. Briefly, some pointers: you may have noticed various examples of technique related to medium choice and paint application here; or perhaps the relevance of the word ‘expression’ in this passage jumps out at you, and this in turn could point to a need to study other art of the relevant movement this work is generally placed in; another thing you may note is the initial feelings in the first paragraph are then later expanded by reviewing the painting from a viewpoint further back.

Similarly consider this second quotation:

“The eyes had their natural luster and moistness, and around them were the lashes and all those rosy and pearly tints that demand the greatest delicacy of execution. The eyebrows were completely natural, growing thickly in one place and lightly in another and following the pores of the skin. The nose was finely painted, with rosy and delicate nostrils as in life. The mouth, joined to the flesh-tints of the face by the red of the lips, appeared to be living flesh rather than paint. On looking closely at the pit of her throat one could swear that the pulses were beating. Altogether this picture was painted in a manner to make the most confident artist – no matter who – despair and lose heart.” **

This is Giorgio Vasari, who was born eight years before da Vinci’s death, describing the painting commonly known as the ‘Mona Lisa’. What can you detect in this passage in relation to our methods? The main thing that struck me initially was the emotion of the viewer, but you may spot other things also. Also, it is important to note here that when considering the context of this particular painting, the writings of Vasari themselves are actually an important part of that context.

Well, I reach the end … my thanks to all those who have stayed the course of this series of articles, I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have, and perhaps learned something useful along the way, which in turn can be built on with further reading or courses if you wish. Or why not just get out there and practice their application in galleries and museums … and on the EBSQ website of course!

I bid you farewell … for now.

Martin

* THIS IS MODERN ART by Matthew Collings 1999

** LIVES OF THE ARTISTS (VOLUME I) by Giorgio Vasari, 1987 translation, Penguin Classics