After reading just several chapters of Ways of Seeing by John Berger and A Short Guide to Writing About Art by Sylva Barnet, I have become more aware of PERSPECTIVE. First off, it is interesting to learn that art is not just about the painting or sculpture; it is also about viewers regarding it as art (the Institutional Theory of Art). Simply put, we give different meanings to art because we are all unique individuals. For example, the audience can interpret a piece of artwork in a way that the artist didn’t even think of him/herself. Demographics, such as age, gender, race and ethnicity, can subconsciously affect the way we see art. There is the culture and society of the time period that shapes us verses the artist’s contemporaries. Finding more information about the artwork, such as reading the plaque in a museum, can change our initial thoughts. Even the artwork nearby the one we’re looking at can affect us. When a physical object is placed in a museum, it may lose its context and we may not be able to fully understand its significance. Sometimes we’ve seen parts of the painting but not in its entirety or we’ve seen reproductions/pictures in varying contexts. At other times, we’re not sure if the creator even intended for the object to be appreciated for its aesthetics.
Although I have become more open and welcoming of many different interpretations for the above reasons, I have also learned to be careful about jumping to conclusions too quickly. This refers to the example involving Governors and the Governesses paintings by Frans Hals. If we assume things about the subjects of an artwork based on what we know, we may become “mystified” and “seduced”. However, we can avoid this “direct judgment” by writing about the emotions through the composition of the artwork. We can also better understand the painting by learning about its time period. In this way, we can balance out subjectivity and objectivity. These are some things I will keep in mind when I visit the Modern Art exhibition at MOMA next week.
