Sarah Thornton has described, in detail, various people during her experience in the art world. Her description of each individual is supposed to be of an unbiased opinion. While reading, it is shown that such writing is not always presented; leading the readers to have a biased opinion formed for them. This is shown as she stumbled on Hans Ulrich Obrist; an art curator, historian, and critic. Thornton quickly jumped to a conclusion of Obrist’s attitude towards the art world; making her “nonjudgmental participant observer” (Thornton 256) hard to come by.
Right from the beginning statement of Hans Ulrich Obrist, it is obvious that Thornton thinks positively of him. “The swiftest conversation I had in Venice was with Hans Ulrich Obrist” (249). Thornton uses the word ‘swiftest,’ which can be denoted as quickly. Looking deeper, it seems that when she uses the word ‘swiftest,’ she really means that it went smoothly, and Obrist was indeed a clever man. Such a word seems very nonchalant in context, but the way Sarah Thornton uses it has much more meaning. Obrist was very personable, and it shows that he left a strong impression on Thornton. Things become a little more skeptical as one continues reading; Thornton explains that, at first, she was negatively affected by Obrist. “The first time I met Obrist, I thought he was a manic visitor from another planet, but now I relish his creative common sense” (249). Thornton describes Obrist in an abstract and awkward way, later realizing his creative judgment. Examining the words ‘manic visitor,’ in detail, it can be perceived that Thornton felt out of place; uncomfortable with Obrist’s different personality. While growing to know him, Thornton realizes that he is just more outgoing than any...
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...ay positively. Typically, such a phrase would be considered rude, as stated. However, Thornton seems to be blinded by her already biased opinion on Obrist, and therefore writes it as a positive trait. This example shows the difficulty writer’s face while trying to describe individuals in an unbiased manner.
The narration that Sarah Thornton uses to describe Hans Ulrich Obrist is portrayed in an optimistic way. Such writing directly effects readers, making them unable to form their own idea of a person. The struggle that nonfiction author’s face while trying to sketch out the characteristics of a person, without trying to seem biased, is a very difficult challenge. Meeting someone, and seeing how they interact with other people, leads to a self-conclusive opinion of that person. This makes it hard not to bring certain tones while writing about such an individual.
As every well-read person knows, the background in which you grow up plays a huge role in how you write and your opinions. Fuller grew up with a very strict education, learning multiple classic languages before she was eight years old. Fern grew up with writers all throughout her family and had a traditional education and saw first hand the iniquities of what hard-working had to contend with. Through close analysis of their work, a reader can quickly find the connections between their tone, style, content, and purpose and their history of their lives and their educational upbringing.
"The Disappointed Art Lover." writ. Francis Sparshott. The Forger's Art. gen. ed. Denis Dutton. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
“In my estimation a good book first must contain little or no trace of the author unless the author himself is a character. That is, when I read the book I should not feel that someone is telling me the story but t...
In existential thought it is often questioned who decides what is right and what is wrong. Our everyday beliefs based on the assumption that not everything we are told may be true. This questioning has given light to the subjective perspective. This means that there is a lack of a singular view that is entirely devoid of predetermined values. These predetermined values are instilled upon society by various sources such as family to the media. On a societal level this has given rise to the philosophy of social hype. The idea of hype lies in society as the valuation of something purely off someone or some group of people valuing it. Hype has become one of the main driving forces behind what society considers to be good art and how successful artists can become while being the main component that leads to a wide spread belief, followed by its integration into subjective views. Its presence in the art world propagates trends, fads, and limits what we find to be good art. Our subjective outlook on art is powered by society’s feedback upon itself. The art world, high and low, is exploited by this social construction. Even when objective critique is the goal subjective remnants can still seep through and influence an opinion. Subjective thought in the art world has been self perpetuated through regulated museums, idolization of the author, and general social construction because of hype.
Pollock (1980) begins her article by drawing in her audience in; asking how is it possible that art history does not incorporate any other field beyond the artist in order to explain the meaning behind their work. She then explains that her article is mainly about how she rejects how art historians are depicting artworks and restricting themselves in explaining the work solely based on the biography of the artist who created it. (Pollock, 1980, pg.58)
A narrative is constructed to elicit a particular response from its audience. In the form of a written story, authors use specific narrative strategies to position the ‘ideal reader’ to attain the intended understanding of the meanings in the text. Oliver Sacks’ short story The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an unusual short story because it does not display conventional plot development; the story does not contain conflict or resolution of conflict. The genre of the story is also difficult to define because it reads as an autobiographical account of an experience Sacks had with a patient while working as a neurologist. Although it is arguable that the narrative is a work of non-fiction, it is nevertheless a representation, distinct from a reflection of the real events. It is a construction, Sacks chose the elements that were included and omitted in the narrative and used narrative strategies to position readers to process the signs in the text and produce reach the dominant understanding. This blurring of truth and fiction is similar to that in the genre of ‘new journalism’. Although, rather than being a journalist writing a fictional piece of journalism, Sacks is a doctor writing a fictional medical analysis. To influence readers’ comprehension of the narrative, Sacks utilised the point of view strategy of subjective narration, atypical in this short story in that a characterisation or representation of Oliver Sacks is the narrator and Oliver Sacks the person is the real author. The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven and regardless of how accurate a depiction of the real people the characters are, they are constructions. Sacks gave the characters of Doctor P. and his namesake admirable and sympathetic trait...
In the early 1700s, the monarchies failures at finance, national debt, involvement in multiple wars with
The past history have a huge impact on the future. From the ancient art history until current years it is safe to say that the art changed drastically, it shows that people nowadays have different values, styles and priorities in life. The past teaches people about the future and helps to avoid mistakes. In the Paleolithic period, where folks were focusing on hunting and gathering, where everyday life was dynamic, meaning they were moving from one place to another in search of better resources (Upper Paleolithic, 28) to Mesopotamian period where things were more certain and people liked to stay in one place. Paleolithic period did not consist of writing which is the main reason people can only guess and interpret the culture based on their own guesses what was the society like back then.
Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. 3rd Ed. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 2007.
The aesthetic value of Rene Magritte’s paintings is driven by a relationship manufactured by the artist. By specifically targeting an audience who can recognize that a set of established artistic interpretations are being challenged in his paintings, Magritte generates a dialectic argument that attempts to deconstruct Plato’s mimetic interpretation of art. As a result, the painting of a negated representation contained within a painted representation of that same object necessarily appeals to a subjective and not objective desire to comprehend Magritte’s intent. In other words, because we (the audience) know that you (the artist) know that your breaking the “rules,” a specific interest rather than a disinterested idea of beauty influences the aesthetic judgment of Magritte’s work.
In Confronting Images, Didi-Huberman considers disadvantages he sees in the academic approach of art history, and offers an alternative method for engaging art. His approach concentrates on that which is ‘visual’ long before coming to conclusive knowledge. Drawing support from the field of psycho analytics (Lacan, Freud, and Kant and Panofsky), Didi-Huberman argues that viewers connect with art through what he might describe as an instance of receptivity, as opposed to a linear, step-by-step analytical process. He underscores the perceptive mode of engaging the imagery of a painting or other work of art, which he argues comes before any rational ‘knowing’, thinking, or discerning. In other words, Didi-Huberman believes one’s mind ‘sees’ well before realizing and processing the object being looked at, let alone before understanding it. Well before the observer can gain any useful insights by scrutinizing and decoding what she sees, she is absorbed by the work of art in an irrational and unpredictable way. What Didi-Huberman is s...
...der to find ingeniousness and golden talking points for progress in the sea of opinions. She also argues that art should exist without context and theory, but that the two were interchangeable now in contemporary language and process. Left to their own devices, some artists will continue to protest the consensus. More intellectuals must dig, remain steadfast in showcasing honest artists and write. Write. Write even it is wrong, making mistakes all away to strike conversation. Without artists like Evan who do not only rely on process and dogma to spring their work to life, there will be more misguided blog posts. More think pieces, ego stroking, complacency. Artists need to stick to their logic and eagerness when taking the next step, doing it because it is what they need. Maybe we are all doing it wrong, but some artists are out there just trying to create substance.
All five of the archetypal shapes are in my self-portrait. First of all, the outside appearance is that of a square of rectangle. I feel that people who do not know me do not perceive any of the characteristics that the other shapes represent. Stability is the only characteristic represented by the shapes that people perceive of me. Inside my stable world is a circle in the middle of the bottom of the box. Within the circle is a triangle. This represents how spirituality is the center of my inner self and I find balance within my spirituality. Coming up from the center of the box is a spiral. As the spiral reaches its apex, there is an equidistant cross. This represents how I am constantly growing in order to reach a critical decision-making time of my life (what I want to do for the rest of my life).
In studying the advent of autobiography as a genre in its own right, it would seem to be a particularly modern form of literature, a hybrid form of biography. Also, the distinctions between the forms of the biography, personal history or diary and novel are becoming questioned in that the autobiography is not an account of wisdom accumulated in a lifetime but a defining of identity. 2
Conversely, upon investigating the artwork’s factual information such as the painting’s context, the artist’s background, the genre and the school or movement associated with the painting, it is possible to obtain knowledge that combines objective information and subjective opinion, confirming that some degree of objectivity, albeit with our ‘cultural imprint’, is possible as an art observer.