The passage explains that value “may be used purely to describe objects, or they can be used to evoke emotional responses in the viewer.” (page 49) Isn’t one of the main points of art to “evoke emotional responses in the viewer”?
Also, I don’t understand what Robert Ryman’s Winsor 6 is supposed to be. It makes me think of a piece of paper. The passage doesn’t tell us what it actually is. Why is it a piece of art?
“The LeWitt encourages us to think; the Pollock encourages us to dream” (p. 26). Which effect is more important in connection to visual art? I think art, from the aspect of the artist, is more creative than cerebral, but is the same true for the viewer?
How exactly do different hues and saturations affect a person’s psyche? How do different structures and designs within art contribute to the psychology that is behind it? The reading did not go in-depth in that particular area.
How is it possible to critique different styles of art using formalist criticism? Which is more important: the content (the subject matter/themes) or the form of a work (elements, design, principle, composition)? pg 106-107
Which is more important when trying to decipher a message in art: the artist’s background, the historical time period, or the form he or she uses?
Samantha Chiu
– Why is Mrs. Clandon so strong in her beliefs of the rights to privacy? In Act I, she says that while some families get involved in each other’s business, the Clandons are lucky that they were not brought up like that. She often brings up the fact that she does’t have a right to questioning her family members. Why does she feel that she needs to mention it all the time?
Also, why does Mrs. Clandon seem to have a better relationship with Gloria than with Phillip and Dolly? Is Gloria’s maturity (as opposed to the immaturity of her younger siblings) a cause or a result of her relationship with her mother?
– I found the part on criticism (pages 81-91) very interesting. While we conclude that criticism is “insanely personal,” what makes someone a good or bad critic? In current day theatre, what is more popular, formal or contextual criticism? (87-89)
You Can Never Tell:
Mr. Crampton tells Valentine about his want to stay far away from his children. When he finally meets his children, he does not seem very fond of them. He then seems to take a sudden interest in them. Why, by the end of the play, does he want custody of Dolly and Phillip?
The Art of Theatre:
Is one mode of interpretation better than the other? For example, are the play writers intentions more important than how the audience interprets the play?
A theatre comprises many people’s efforts, but people may have various interpretations to one theatre, no matter directors, designers, or even actors. So are audiences still able to comprehend the original meaning that playwrights want to express?
Shaw- What struck me as interesting was the discovery part of the play. If I may connect both readings, Sporre describes discovery as “the revelation of information about the characters” and this is precisely what happens when the Clandons discover that Mr.Crampton is their father at the lunch. I thought the play was going in a direction, prior to that lunch scene, more focused on the story of Valentine and his love interests and/or monetary situation with the landlord, and that the whole discussion about prying for information about their father from Mrs.Clandon was a supplement back-story to Valentine and his situation. I found this interesting because it was a very quick change for me to see a discovery alter the trajectory of the plot completely. So my question is did anyone else feel the plot go in a direction opposite where they thought it would go initially?
Sporre- Sporre’s views on formal and contextual criticism intrigued me because I immediately thought of how different the view of a play must be to a critic and to the average person. Sporre mentions several times that critics have a lot to consider when forming a critique, so in my mind formal and contextual criticism are different levels of critiquing in themselves. Is that possible? One would assume that solely looking at the artwork purely for its merit, which formal criticism asks us to do, will surely distance us from the motivations for said artwork. However, this angle would be much simpler for an average play connoisseur to practice. The contextual form of criticism is more complex because it uses the artwork itself as a basis for the interpretation of the writers’ intentions, the period in which the play was written and so on and so forth. So is it possible that the two forms of criticism are at different degrees of difficulty or are they just two different ways any critic of any caliber can choose to approach writing their own critique?
You Never Can Tell Questions:
Why does Phillip always refer to his “knowledge of human nature” as an explanation for everything that is going on around him? Does he believe that he knows everything about the way others think? Also, why is having a father so important during that time in England? Could having a father mean that you were educated better rather than being brought up by a single mother? And could Dolly’s rude behavior be Shaw’s way to show that children from a single-mother home don’t have the same education and manners as children that were raised with a father?
The Art of Theater:
I was intrigued by the theater for which Shakespeare wrote for that had no lighting except the sun. Would a play without the visual stimuli usually found in theater not be as good as any other play? Would a play without something so basic to us such as lighting, affect the quality of the play and how much emotion it could draw from us?
