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Sontagian Interpretation of Graduation
Interpreting and analyzing the artwork created by other people has always been a challenge for me. Who am I to say what the artist or author symbolically represents with their work? Previous English teachers would always try to explain what an author "really" meant in their work. Such claims frustrated me because I believe that no person has the right to critically analyze his work except himself. Susan Sontag's view of interpretation is very similar to mine. In her essay Against Interpretation, she explains the importance of experiencing art, rather than dissecting every detail.
I've always believed that art interpreters are bored people who excessively analyze artwork. Sontag agrees that, "Interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone" (Sontag 656). Today, almost anything can be considered artwork, which leads to the scrutiny of most works of art. Sontag believes that criticism should be "The aim of commentary on art now should be to make works of art- and, by analogy, our own experience- more, rather than less, real to us" (Sontag 660). I agree that people desensitize artwork by overanalyzing and picking it apart. She believes that it is artwork if it makes you actually feel some sort of sentiment. The Sontagian interpretation process is good because it bases the status of artwork on personal emotional experience that comes from art, rather than dissection of the piece of art.
My example of a Sontagian definition of art is a song that makes me smile and cry at the time. It brings out the joy of memories and the sadness of forgetting them as I grow up. The song is called Graduation by Vitamin C and is a work of art that anyone who has graduated from high school can relate to. It's about the struggles of moving on as time changes, and the friends lost along the way. I have shared many emotional moments with my best friends while listening to this song. Graduation holds a very special place in my heart because it helps me relive high school memories, and deal with the changes in my life.
The song begins, "So we talked all night about the rest of our lives." This brings back the anxious feeling that I had throughout my body on the night of high school graduation.
Art has always been considered the effervescent universal tool of communication. Art does not require a concrete directive . One sculpture,drawing or written creative piece, can evoke a myriad of emotions and meaning . Artistic pieces can sometimes be considered the regurgitation of the artist's internal sanctum. In Richard Hooks graphic painting,Adoption of the Human Race, the effect of the imagery,symbols ,color and emotional content projects a profound unification of a spiritual edict.
Some people may have the same or similar interpretation but as a whole group of people, it is different. The artist whom took painted or drew the piece most likely had a different perspective than the audience. Every moment is different from the present or past. When an artist is creating their artwork, their interpretation can be different than their views a few years ago. Capturing the picture at a certain point in time can be powerful because it shows what the feelings, interpretations, emotions that were expressed at that time. These emotions translate to what the artist chooses to put in their piece, which can be very powerful. In this short essay, “Every Portrait Tells a Lie” by Debra Brehmer, she says “The portrait, in the choices the artist makes, alludes to the fact that who we are involved selection, interpretation, and chance.” (386) Brehmer makes an excellent point that the artist has the control to choose what goes into their piece. The artist can choose to include what they want into their piece, like a person, a plant, and etcetera. In the book The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, the artist, Basil Howard claims that another character, Dorian Gray, is his muse. Basil paints a portrait of Dorian and this indicates how much power Basil has over the portrait. Basil has the power to choose what goes into the painting and how Basil wants to paint Dorian. Taking or painting a photo shows how much power the artist has because of their interpretation when taking the photo and their decision of what goes into the photo. The choice is completely up to the artist, which makes taking photos such a powerful
Years ago, Sister Mary Corita Kent, a celebrated artist and educator of the 1960’s and 1970’s stated, “A painting is a symbol for the universe. Inside it, each piece relates to the other. Each piece is only answerable to the rest of that little world. So, probably in the total universe, there is that kind of total harmony, but we get only little tastes of it” (Lewis "Quotes from Women Artists"). Nowadays, a painting is not the main form of art humans appreciate. In fact, literature of all sorts can be considered a different form of art and often found in literature are symbols. A "symbol" is an object, person or action which represents an abstract idea (Warren “English 102”). In literature, a symbol or set of symbols can have a wide range of meanings. For example, color is a universal symbol; some may say it is a general symbol for life. However, each color separately can symbolize something different depending on the context. Analyzing five piece of literature for symbolism, one will be able to gain a deeper understating of symbols.
Art is a language of its own and with out he proper understanding, people are like expression goes “left on the outside looking in”. In other words, people without the proper understanding of art, technique and form as well as other elements can’t appreciate a work of art as much as when you understand why an artist painted in the way they did and what they are trying to get across to his audience. Despite artists attempts to try and make their works as viewer friendly as possible, without the understanding and knowledge gained from an art class as this one people will never fully understand the a work of art as it is meant to be.
Though most works of art have some underlying, deeper meaning attached to them, our first impression of their significance comes through our initial visual interpretation. When we first view a painting or a statue or other piece of art, we notice first the visual details – its size, its medium, its color, and its condition, for example – before we begin to ponder its greater significance. Indeed, these visual clues are just as important as any other interpretation or meaning of a work, for they allow us to understand just what that deeper meaning is. The expression on a statue’s face tells us the emotion and message that the artist is trying to convey. Its color, too, can provide clues: darker or lighter colors can play a role in how we judge a piece of art. The type of lines used in a piece can send different messages. A sculpture, for example, may have been carved with hard, rough lines or it may have been carved with smoother, more flowing lines that portray a kind of gentleness.
The article Artists Mythologies and Media Genius, Madness and Art History (1980) by Griselda Pollock is a forty page essay where Pollock (1980), argues and explains her views on the crucial question, "how art history works" (Pollock, 1980, p.57). She emphasizes that there should be changes to the practice of art history and uses Van Gogh as a major example in her study. Her thesis is to prove that the meaning behind artworks should not be restricted only to the artist who creates it, but also to realize what kind of economical, financial, social situation the artist may have been in to influence the subject that is used. (Pollock, 1980, pg. 57) She explains her views through this thesis and further develops this idea by engaging in scholarly debates with art historians and researcher, and objecting to how they claim there is a general state of how art is read. She structures her paragraphs in ways that allows her to present different kinds of evidences from a variety sources while using a formal yet persuasive tone of voice to get her point across to the reader.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, art is “human expression of objects by painting, etc” (10). The words “human experience” adds meaning to art. Artists reveal their inner thoughts and feelings through their work. When we study a painting by Salvador Dali, the strange objects and the surrealist background portrays the eccentricity of the painter. Some ideas cannot be explained verbally. They can only be shown via a medium. We can get across what is in our minds or our hearts by a stroke of a brush, a drop of paint, a row of words, or something else. But to express ourselves, we do not need to limit what we call art.
Each drawing. Each painting. Each sculpture. It can give you a glimpse of what is going on in the artist’s head. Take the painting “El Autobus” by Frida Kahlo as an example. It has been said that the painting is in reference of the accident Frida Kahlo had where she got impaled by a metal handrail. The painting is of a bench with people sitting on it just before boarding the bus. This kind of artwork, where the artist puts a little bit of him/her self in it is something I strive for. I want to make art that reflects me, or that means something to me. I don’t want to make something just because, I want it to be where the viewer could possibly see the hard work, the passion, the emotion behind it. Things that most times get
Deconstruction is the art of ambiguity. The theory posits infinite interpretations to literary works, with most of them just as creative as the work itself. With so many interpretations, no one ...
One of the disadvantages of art therapy is that the therapist is more vulnerable to misinterpretation in terms of the objective understanding of content. Care must be taken not to make rapid interpretations on the specific piece of art which might prevent or even deny the client the satisfaction of discovering and finding out for herself (Case and Dalley, p. 65). This is because art therapy involves a lot of interpretation, it is understandable that critics about this technique are similar to that of psychotherapy. The client’s images can come across as many things with contrasting ideas, but only the individual themself can explain it. The therapist is urged not to point out obvious red signals, instead they should allow the client to come up with their own interpretations. Their own interpretations alone are something to make note of as it may shed some light on the client's thought process about the
AA theory by Clive Bell suggests the pinpoints the exact characteristic which makes a work true art. According to Bell, an artwork must produce “aesthetic emotion” (365). This aesthetic emotion is drawn from the form and formality of an artwork rather than whether or not it is aesthetically pleasing or how well it imitates what it is trying to depict. The relation of objects to each other, the colors used, and the qualities of the lines are seemingly more important than what emotion or idea the artwork is trying to provoke. Regardless of whether or not the artwork is a true imitation of certain emotions, ideals, or images, it cannot be true art unless it conjures this aesthetic emotion related to formality (367).
Art is an expression of feelings, body language, and culture produced by humans. Art can be expressed in many different ways, and in many different forms from time to time! You’d be amazed with the different types of skilled work artists come up with each day and it’s all just someone, one person expressing how they feel or what they believe. One form of art that I find very interesting is Fauvism.
In times, we often see things, but we don't really capture what is beyond it. In some cases, there are people who are artistic and are prone to see what other's cannot visualize. Every individual has a talent which can be expressed and processed differently. Something you see can mean entirely divergent things to someone else;for example, some may see thing's that may seem simple, but in the eyes of an artist, it can be perceived with a whole new definition, dimension, and a potentially new discovery. As a photographer, my view of the world, can be skewed towards looking at everyday objects as potential art, but it wasn't always like that.
Barrett Terry. Criticizing art: understanding the contemporary. (UTSC library). Imprint New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print.
Art can be defined in many ways by an individual. One can say that any creative output by a person is considered art. Others contend that art must conform to a societal standard and the basis of the creation should be understood by most intellectual people. For example, some contend that computer-generated images, such as fractals, are not art due to the large role played by a computer. E.O. Wilson states “the exclusive role of the arts is to intensify aesthetic and emotional response. Works of art communicate feeling directly from mind to mind, with no intent to explain why the impact occurs” (218). A simple definition may be that art is the physical expression of the ideals formed by the mind.