Chapter 1—What is Art

Chapter 1—What is Art?

Introduction: Chapter 1 will be interesting for you to begin your study of visual art. It contains a wide variety of artworks and a vast spectrum of ideas pertaining to the question "Why is art made?” Begin by reconsidering definitions for very familiar terms, such as "beauty." You may even include ideas and objects beyond painting and sculpture into your definition of what art is. A Closer Look – A Portrait in the Flesh may jolt your current definition of art or artists as you read about Orlan and her aesthetic goals via plastic surgery. Compare and Contrast – The Piano Lesson(s) by Matisse and Bearden provides a detailed tour of two works with the same title and offers an opportunity for you to speculate on similarities and differences in the two works of art. For this chapter, the study guide provides you with a detailed introduction to Taking Notes and Preparing for Tests, keyed especially to Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, which lay the groundwork for understanding works of art. The last exercise, For More Understanding, will introduce you to the resources available for test preparation, study, research, and writing.

Chapter One – Why Read It? In Chapter 1, the many works of art featured and can lead you to do a bit of detective work. If you find you are interested in one artist’s work, you may want to see more works by that artist. You can find out much just by looking at the caption of the image. For example, let’s say you are interested in learning more about Pablo Picasso, not featured in Chapter 1. How many images by Picasso can you find in the text in other chapters? Look in the index at the back of the book: under P, you will find “Picasso, Pablo” and various page or chapter/plate numbers for his works: The Painter and His Model, Family of Saltimbanques, Mandolin and Clarinet, Self-Portrait, Nude with Drapery, The Old Guitarist, The Bottle of Suze, Guernica, Bull’s Head, and Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Locate these images and their captions or where they are mentioned in the text. You could explore more about these works on the internet, or plan a travel itinerary for an art tour based on where you would be able to see these works. This tour would take you at least to New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Paris and the Museo Reina Sofia, and Musée Picasso, Barcelona, both in Spain!.

• When reading the discussion on purposes for art, what comes to mind? What memories or images do these words evoke for you? Write a brief personal statement.

Do the words “intellect” and “emotion” go together? Can you think of a work of art that might both stimulate the intellect and fire the emotions?

How about order, harmony, and chaos? Do these words go together, and can you see them in an art work together?

Have you ever been somewhere or experienced something that you wished you could record with a photograph, a sketch, a sound recording or a story? Find an art work that does this.

All these purposes for art relate to the way people live, think, and feel. Visual art is interconnected with every aspect of our lives within the social and cultural context. It can be a vehicle for activism, in order to protest or raise awareness about issues. For example, political satire, cartoons lampooning well-known figures is considered an art form. Pick up any New Yorker magazine, and you will see images in cartoons by people who make a living from creating visual satire.

What commonplace object or concept, taken for granted by most, can you think of that has been turned into art? Many artists use discarded items found in junk piles or dumpsters to make art. The Dada movement was brought to the public’s attention because an artist, Marcel Duchamp, used an article no one had ever thought of as art and placed it in a sculpture exhibit! (See image 1-35.)

Finally, the purpose of meeting the needs of the artist may seem self-evident. There are so many reasons a person might wish to express themselves through visual art. List two reasons you would like to express yourself visually.

Understanding Concepts: The premise for many fields of knowledge, including the sciences and the arts, has been asking the question of purpose: Why does something exist? What brings this thing into being? What role does it play in the greater scheme of things? How does it relate to our purpose of everyday life and beyond? Chapter 1 addresses one of the human primal points of inquiry into the vast realm of exploring art and why it is made.

Purpose – There are many purposes for the existence of art. Some works of art have more than one purpose. From looking at various examples given in the introduction and throughout Understanding Art, we can see that art does all of the following: brings beauty into being, responds to our environment, presents truths, immortalizes and glorifies, expresses religious beliefs and ideologies, fantasizes, summons the powers of intellect and evokes emotions, visually presents order and harmony and chaos, records and commemorates personal and communal memories and experiences, reflects the social and cultural context, raises social consciousness, elevates the commonplace and popular culture, and meets the needs of the individual artist. It does so much!

1. As you review this impressive list, can you think of an example of art you've seen in person that you feel powerfully fulfills one or more of the above purposes?

Do you recall its title or who the artist was?

Where did you see it, and how long ago? Notes:

2. Besides the above list, can you think of two other purposes for art? (For example, most of us are exposed to advertising on a daily basis for the purpose of selling a product. This involves the use of carefully created images designed to target your attention within the first two seconds you see them.) Other purposes:

A. B.

3. List two purposes for art that connect to your interests, your field of study, and your current understanding of art. (For example, for an art student, needing to see art in person would make travel an important aspect of life!)

Making Connections: Creativity theorists and artists know learning and creativity are stimulated by exposure to new things. People then make new connections between previously unrelated bodies of knowledge by cross-relational activities.

1. Now that you have seen some images in class, read portions of Chapter 1 mentioning those works.

• How many names of the people mentioned in this chapter do you recall or did you already know about? For example, did you know that besides the many artists cited or quoted, there are three psychologists, several writers, poets, and a wide variety of cultures, time periods, and topics mentioned? How do these creators from other fields influence your perception of art? Notes:

• Look up three of the people quoted in this chapter and find out more about them: Pablo Picasso, Gustave Courbet, Robert Browning, Henry Austin Dobson, Jean-Francois Millet, Leo Tolstoy, Alfred Steiglitz, Philipp Otto Runge, and Diego Rivera. You will be able to use internet searches for many Making Connections exercises. (See the For More Information section at the end of this chapter of the study guide.)

2. Investigate theories and philosophies of creativity and art. What do theorists of creativity and ontologists say relating to people in your chosen field of study? (In the business world, for example, efficiency experts have studied ways to encourage creativity in workers, surrounding them with stimulating work environments containing visual art, music or short exercise or meditation breaks during work.)

3. French performance artist Orlan (image 1-3), featured in A Closer Look – A Portrait in the Flesh in Chapter 1 of the text, has her own website including images and ideas about her most recent surgical transformations and plans, as she imitates bits and pieces of idealized women from the paintings of Botticelli, da Vinci, and Boucher. Search for her on the Internet, and see what she is doing now.

• What are your personal ideas about artists using their own bodies (or faces) as a visual art format?

• How does this art form relate to other types of art, such as performance or theatre?

4. Have you ever taken a music lesson? In Compare and Contrast – The Piano Lesson(s) by Matisse and Bearden (images 1-22 and 1-23), examine the two images closely. What are the social and cultural backgrounds portrayed?

• Research the backgrounds and time periods of the two artists, Henri Matisse and Romare Bearden. What were their intentions or philosophies as artists?

• How does a title such as Piano Lesson influence your expectations for the content or narrative of these two works of art?

Taking Notes: Chapter 1 has 37 images in it. Your instructor will probably show a number of these in class when discussing this chapter. This exercise will help you be prepared to take meaningful notes when the subjects and images in this chapter are discussed. Develop and continue with this kind of note taking for the rest of the course. Keep in mind the following considerations:

• Not every image in the text will be shown in class. (Develop a system to highlight which ones were discussed and which ones were skipped).

Not every image, vocabulary word, or concept used in class will be on tests.

Images from other chapters of the text or sources besides the text may also be shown and discussed, and you will then be responsible for knowing about these on tests. You may be responsible for recalling works of art shown weeks before a test, with no chance to see them again in class, so the better your notes are, the better you will be able to recall details.

Taking note of titles and formal elements, such as the plastic elements (discussed in Chapter 2), the design elements (discussed in Chapter 3), style and iconographic or symbolic content (discussed in Chapter 4), will be valuable clues to possible test questions.

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Note-Taking Method

1. Take several pages of your own notebook paper and write down the caption information for each image, leaving space between each entry. Examples:

1-1 Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–1505

1-27 Tar Beach, Faith Ringgold, 1988

2. Leave space on the margins of your note-taking sheets or SlideGuide for quick, diagrammatic sketches, about postage-stamp size, of works you are unfamiliar with, or details of that image that may be pointed out in class. These do not need to be professional drawings—they are visual recognition tools for you to refer to later when recalling what was being discussed in class about each work of art.

Instructors have different styles of delivery in class, but after a couple of classes, you will be able to judge how much space you will need for each image’s notes entry and a few diagrammatic sketches.

Note: see the Enhancing Your Observational Powers exercise (Study Guide, Chapter 3) for ways to develop these quick and useful sketching skills.

In later chapters, brief discussion about note-taking and sketching will help you customize your skills, so you can learn efficiently and study from your own notes for each chapter's unique content when it comes to test time. For example, sketches of differing architectural modules will be especially useful in creating familiarity with features you have to recall detail for in a test question for either Chapter 10 (“Architecture”) or Chapter 14 (“Christian Art: From Catacombs to Cathedrals”).

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Include an extra page for taking notes on works that might be shown, but aren’t in the text, or that are in other chapters of the text. While you are taking notes, indicate if each is by an artist featured in the text, how it ties in to class materials, and what chapter it is from so you can refer to it later.

Use another piece of your notepaper to define terms and highlight any you want to ask about in class. Taking time to define the terms in boldface type in each chapter will help you more as classes continue. You will be gaining a deeper sense of meaning for discussions in later chapters and in class. Use your notes, your text, and its glossary. Other dictionaries, such as www.ArtOnline.org, should be useful as well. Define these five terms to get started:

A. Renaissance

B. Wordworks

C. Allegorical

D. Assemblages

E. Pop art

Preparing for Tests: Art tests can be a challenge to students because they differ from most tests, which ask for word-oriented interpretations or responses based on written or oral information. Art tests incorporate the visual senses, demanding that the student transpose visual information from an image into a written format, either an essay or a multiple-choice test. The realization that some things do not translate directly from one language (visual) to another (written) takes some adjustment.

Though many consider art a subjective study, there are objective aspects of art from which questions can be posed about every work of art. Minor variations and possibilities for forming a single question include at least these nine options:

The title, or name of the art object.

The creator's or co-creators' name(s) (if known).

Location, workshop, country, culture, or tribal group from which the artwork originated.

A general time period or specific date of creation.

The materials or media from which the object is composed.

Methods or techniques employed in the artwork’s creation.

Symbolic and/or narrative content.

Plastic or compositional (so-called formal) components observable.

Provenance, history of an object, including where it is and how it got there.

Of course, surrounding an object of art, there is the vast subjective field—how one feels about and interprets the meaning of a work of art on a personal level—that is difficult to create a test for! But the above list usually serves well to for professors and instructors to test their students on their proficiency in having learned about specific works of art, artists, and time periods.

You may feel overwhelmed, and this is only chapter 1, but that is what this study guide is designed to help you conquer by assisting you in preparing for tests in art subjects. Don't panic! Rather, organize yourself so you can study efficiently each week. Many students complain that art classes involve mere memorization of images and information. This view is misguided. There is, assuredly, memory work involved (otherwise how would you remember anything from your educational experience?), but achieving familiarity is a better description of what you will be doing with your time—becoming ever more familiar with vocabularies, concepts, and works by specific artists; recognizing a style or general time period pieces; and understanding the processes by which art was created.

How might your instructor ask a question pertaining to the images? Imagine some possible test questions, and take advantage of reviewing test questions provided at the Understanding Art website (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e), in the Student Test Packet, or on ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art.

Here are a few sample questions, including a possible essay question, to get you started. Answers to multiple-choice questions can be found at the end of this chapter.

• Image 1-9 (Four Marilyns, Andy Warhol)

This work of art was made during the ___ art movement.

A. Pop B. Neo-Expressionist C. Minimalist D. Impressionist

• Image 1-5 (Galla Placidia in Philadelphia, Joyce Kozloff)

According to our text, the purpose for this work is to ___ , using ___ as a medium.

A. protest social injustice/painting B. immortalize/bas-relief

C. decorate the environment/mosaic D. create order and harmony/stained glass

• Image 1-22 by Henri Matisse

The title of this work is:

A. Harmony in Red B. Piano Lesson

C. The Dream D. Serenade for the Doll, after Debussy

• Sample essay question (Go ahead-try it!): Select a work of art from Chapter 1 and discuss in some detail the purpose this work of art serves and served when it was created. Limit your discussion to two purposes if there are multiple purposes. Describe specific detail within the work itself that supports your ideas regarding the purposes you are describing. [Extended Essay Assignment: Research the historical background of the work of art and its creator or time period.1.5 pages minimum, double-spaced, 12-point font. Cite two authored research sources in a bibliographic form at the end of your essay.] Note: Even if your art class doesn’t test you with essay questions, this will be good practice for other courses you will be taking!

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Hints: In essay test situations, most students neglect to:

1. Answer the question posed.

2. Specifically describe and discuss a visual example.

3. Make a point or stick to the original topic.

4. Have sufficient research, organization, or preparation.

5. Properly cite references.

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Enhancing your Observational Powers: Observations of museum-goers show that most people spend less than 10 seconds in front of works of art as they make their way through various galleries. This holds true even when viewing famous works, such as Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night (image 18-27) or Picasso’s Guernica (image 19-10).

1. This exercise is designed to increase the length of time you spend observing a given work by providing you some specific things to look for and ways to use your observations and thought processes about what you are seeing.

Select one of the images from the text shown in class.

Using information from Chapter 1, take note of purposes for its creation.

Why do you think it has been preserved as an important work in our time period?

Select three details about this work that really catch your attention: A.

• Take a minute to decide why you chose to use this particular piece for this exercise. Write a few notes on it here:

2. Here’s another exercise to give you a look at purposes for art in a physical location: (You can do these exercises on your own or collaborate with a classmate, or perhaps your instructor will choose to use the exercise for the entire class.)

Visit local buildings that have art displayed: your college campus, a local bank foyer, museum, gallery, elementary school, or business.

Place yourself in several different buildings for a few moments each, so that you are able to discreetly observe the art and people coming in and out of the area.

• How many people look at the art displayed? If they do look, how much time do they spend looking? Do they actually stop, stand still and look, or do they continue to walk, but slow down?

• Observe the art more closely yourself: Is there any information accompanying the art—a plaque or caption identifying its title, artist, date, or donor? Does anyone read this?

• Now that you are intentionally focusing on the art, do more people do the same?

• Based on your observations of both the art and people’s responses to it, what purpose do you feel it serves in its current location? Notes:

• Share your observations about publicly displayed art and its purposes for being there with classmates who have chosen to do the same exercise. What did they notice?

For More Understanding: Art is related to nearly everything else that humans do. Can you find several ways in which art is connected to your field of study? Look up subjects on the Internet or by subject links in your library’s cross-reference system. Your text contains many examples of art that relate to each other in various ways throughout other chapters. Examining and studying these readily available examples will enhance your understanding of how art has been created to fulfill various purposes by many artists in the changing time periods and styles. In addition, visit the website for Understanding Art, www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e, featuring a glossary and audio pronunciation guide, sample test questions, and more.

If you are interested in further investigation, other sources, available in most libraries, focus specifically on art: The New York Graphic Society publishes a Dictionary of Art Terms. A Short Guide to Writing About Art by Sylvan Barnet gives working definitions of many art terms and how they might be used in the critical discussion of art. www.ArtOnline.org, mentioned earlier, is quite comprehensive.

InfoTrac College Edition: Online searches by a keyword, can help you investigate movements, themes and artists. Name an individual artist such as Orlan, Diego Rivera, Jacob Lawrence, a person mentioned in Chapter 1 such as Betye Saar you want to investigate, or specific topics such as the recent film on Frida Kahlo. Many full-text articles can be obtained, and some contain images of artists' works, so you can also see more examples of how artists have turned their ideas into works of art!

ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art: This resource may is provided with your text, and offers you access to viewing studio art classes such as glassblowing, lithography, painting, drawing, architecture, and ceramics through video demonstrations. You can explore the foundations of art through interactive modules covering topics such as light and value, scale and proportion, rhythm, and style.

(answers to sample multiple-choice questions: a, c, b)