Appreciating ART

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Appreciating ART Appreciating ART

Topic started by Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180) on Mon Sep 17 14:02:48 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

I’m not a student of art. I’m not a painter. I’m just a novice art lover who appreciates paintings for how they affect me. I have often found myself unable to explain why something affects me about a certain painting. I go to art museums at least couple of times a year and frequently wade through the internet art galleries. I have my favorites and I have come across those that puzzle or intrigue me.

Recently I visited the San Jose Museum of Art and noticed a marvelous addition to the gallery: comments by visitors on what they felt about each piece. The museum had reproduced some comments and left the rest right by the paintings for perusal. I can honestly say I learned more from reading visitors’ comments on the paintings than if the artist or a curator had tried to explain it to me.

I have condensed the questionnaire that the museum had to initiate a beginner or a rusty art fan. But you certainly don’t have to limit yourself to these questions or adhere to each one. This is just a place to start.
-What’s the first thing you noticed? Why?
-What colors, shapes, and lines are used?
-How do they lead you through the work?
-What are your head and heart telling you?
-Does it move you? How?
-What do you see that makes you think and feel this way?
-Does it absorb, generate or reflect light?
-Where is it still? Where do you see movement?
-What else was happening in the world when it was made?
-What do you see that reflects or rejects its time?
-How does it differ from your experience? Are you reflected in this work?
-What do you see?

My humble hope is that you all would open yourselves up to the paintings and open my understanding of the painting as well. Let’s all discover the mystery and majesty of art. Let’s begin using the following gallery and we can add other ones as people point them out.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/

The above is the best webmuseum that I have found. This thread is not limited to Western art alone. Art from anywhere in the world can be discussed, the only criteria is that the art piece should be available on the web and preferably scales to at least half the screen in a monitor

Responses:

Old responses
From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180) on: Thu Sep 20 15:49:30

Vishvesh,
Thanks for sharing your views. This thread only encourages learning of art, and doesn't discourage anyone from getting any direction they feel necessary to appreciate art. By all means people can go take courses on how to appreiciate art, the proper way, if there's one. At the same time, I'm trying to get away from the elitist view of saying that art is only for the well initiated. It doesn't have to be. If you feel it should, well, this obviously isn't a place for it. This place is for people to shed their inhibitions about art and approach it in their own words.

So I don't agree that people here are "appreciating them for no valid response". The fact that they're sharing their views is a very valid response. If museum curators think this is the best way to bring art to the people, then I can certainly see value in it. People's views are important to me. That's why I started this thread. Please don't divert the aim of this thread. Respect my views as I respect yours.
From: Vishvesh Obla (@ alb-66-24-214-34.nycap.rr.com) on: Thu Sep 20 16:22:54

Hi Udhaya,
Please don't misunderstand again. What I said applies to me and how I tend to look at it. You again got unnecessarily into your elitist issues, which you seem to be obsessed with. Where did I divert or said anything as you have inferred ? You have a way of looking at it and I have mine. I don't want to make an issue of it. Let us leave at that.
From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180) on: Thu Sep 20 17:45:14

Vishvesh,
I can say you seem to be obsessed with going the academic route on appreciating art. By stating your views as opposed to the way we're approaching art, I felt that you were more than suggesting how we do things. If you were merely voicing how you would do things, then forgive my assumption of your intent. I'm not out for confrontations either, but I want to sustain the focus of this thread, especially in the early going of it when enthusiasm is high and people are slowly warming up to the idea of this thread. If you want to leave it to our differences and not make an issue of it, I would love to do that too. Thanks.
From: nakkeerar (@ 12.148.251.114) on: Fri Sep 21 15:06:31

Udhaya & co: Thanks for waiting for my turn.

Here are three(related) interesting pic.
http://www.oir.ucf.edu/wm/rh/img/january.jpg
http://www.oir.ucf.edu/wm/rh/img/february.jpg
http://www.oir.ucf.edu/wm/rh/img/march.jpg

http://www.oir.ucf.edu/wm/rh/1.html

My foremost comment on the paintings:

Content is given more importance than Distance/size.
Rajasthani paintings have a similar point of view.
From: hihi:-) (@ foley4.psych.ucsb.edu) on: Sat Sep 22 19:17:07

any bosch fans out there?
From: nalini (@ 169.144.224.250) on: Mon Sep 24 13:36:30

A sharp contrast to "A Rainy Day" in style, content and colors. The first one reminds me of stained glass and cathedrals. The colors are so brilliant - must have used "natural" paints to get the not-so-natural colors! Some of the details in these paintings lead me to believe more knowledge of that period and it's history would probably help me appreciate the paintings a lot more.
nakkeerar, I agree with you - something about them does remind me of Rajasthani paintings.
From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.144) on: Tue Sep 25 08:19:04

As a novice, I was intrigued by this unfamiliar style of painting. Other than that, for some reason, it didn't touch me. I guess you dont need a reason for something not to touch you.

The paintings didnt remind me of Rajasthani paintings. May be because I am not familiar with Rajasthani paintings either.:)
From: nakkeerar (@ 12.148.251.114) on: Tue Sep 25 12:26:09

I am sorry. I didn't mean to use Jargon.
Here is a very good sample site for Rajasthani paintings.
http://www.goloka.com/docs/mewari/
From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180) on: Tue Sep 25 12:30:00

nakkeerar,
Thanks for introducing me to the Très Riches Heures paintings. I wasn't familiar with these works. That they were manuscript illuminations was news to me even after viewing them. The historical significance of these paintings is fascinating.

On a personal level, these paintings impact me no different than the way they impacted Ramji. I feel a certain barrier come up whenever religious motifs are present. I'm sure this is just as valid and pure an expression of the artist's emotion as any other painting, but somehow I find it hard to warm up to these even while appreciating their complexity and grandeur.
From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.137) on: Fri Sep 28 11:36:21

Nakkeerar:

Thanks for introducing Rajasthani paintings. Have seen them many times except did not have the genre awareness. Though I hardly have anything to contribute here by way of perceptive comments on such genre or theme, I will look fwd to others' discerning reviews.
From: nakkeerar (@ prem.ne.mediaone.net) on: Sun Sep 30 19:42:00

Two paintings of Raja Ravivarma.
http://www.cyberkerala.com/rajaravivarma/rrvhtm16.htm
(another link is http://www.kerala.org/culture/art/ravivarma/1.jpg)

http://www.cyberkerala.com/rajaravivarma/rrvhtm15.htm
From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.230) on: Mon Oct 1 19:23:41

nakkeerar,
Before we take on Ravi Varma, let's take on stg's recommendations of Vermeer. Let's all take turns focusing on one artist and preferably one painting at a time. We will definitely come back to your Ravi Varma links, though. I will keep that in mind.

Since stg didn't mention a specific piece, I've picked the following:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vermeer/vermeer.music-lesson.jpg
From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.145) on: Tue Oct 2 09:18:49

The amazing shade and light effect hit me first. Even though this too is close to photography in accuracy ( look at the mirror images!) for some reason this looks much closer to painting than " a rainy day"
From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.213) on: Tue Oct 2 14:30:19

Vermeer’s , “Music Lesson.”

The thing that strikes me immediately in a Vermeer painting is his use of light and shade. No one does a better depiction of diffused light coming through a window than Vermeer. I never felt that this could be a photograph, but I guess it could owing to the intricate details. The subject is quite ordinary except for the way light bathes the whole painting. The woman’s image reflected on the mirror is a not-so-novel-now effort in pictures and paintings but then this is an old painting. The richness of the tablecloth, the minute details of the window bars, the pattern on the piano’s exterior, the tiles are all splendid. The lady, the human centerpiece, has her back to the viewer while the blue chair positioned in the opposite way leads the viewer to the lower left corner of the painting, to focus on the tiles. The spatial arrangement and the angles are very subtle that they take a while to dawn on me. The cello placed on the floor lends a sense of informality to the scene. The music teacher (a presumption, of course) holding a stick lends a sense of authority and the posture of the lady somehow suggests a stiffness, a sort of a mute rebellion.
From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.134) on: Tue Oct 2 16:19:27

On a second look I saw that the mirror reflection extends beyond the table cloth and there is a blurred view of something at the far end inside the mirror. What is it?

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