For you to go to a museum of art, as I went to the Museum of Modern Art, to study the works found there, you must be aware of how to really look at the aforementioned works. If you do not know how to look at art without any knowledge of how to do so, all meaning and understanding of it will be lost upon you. The Barnet reading is a good source of reference to be able to look at art and question it in a way which would lead to understanding the meaning of works before you, as well as understand their significance.

To be able to appreciate a piece of art, you must be able to understand the work of art and the meaning behind it. Analyzing a piece of art is a fine way of finding some sort of comprehension, and the reading provides a clear cut way to do so. All that must be done is find “a constructed object with a stable meaning that can be ascertained by studying the relationships between the elements of the work.” You don’t need to be an expert in art to identify relationships in a given subject; all you need is a basic ability to draw connections. Can you see that a painting’s background is bleak and the subject is painted with faltering lines and faded tones? Then you can make an accurate analysis that the work is sad because it is made to appear so.

Finding meaning, though, can be a little trickier. Though it is simple enough to find a relationship between certain elements of what you can see, you aren’t any closer to understanding it. A look at the reading, however, can tell you that there are multiple ways to interpret art and find meaning in it. The beauty of art is that there is no set meaning; art is subjective. As the Barnet mentions, a work holds several meanings: the meaning had by the artist, by early and later audiences, and by modern society. Refer to the reception theory as well, where art is what an individual looking at it makes it to be. In other words, there is no reason to worry about finding the correct meaning in a work of art you come across. So long as you can find some sort of meaning in art at all, you are all that much closer to understanding its significance.

So, go ahead and stand in front of any painting or sculpture in a gallery and activate your critical thinking abilities- think deeply about the relationships you can see and interpret them how you want. You now are able to look at art and find significance in it.