Name Date What? Visual Analysis For Art History. Dr Alex Collins. Sual analys. Image: Mark Fowler, People Looking at Art

Transcription

1 Name Date What? Visual Analysis For Art History Dr Alex Collins Sual analys Image: Mark Fowler, People Looking at Art

2 Your degree and visual analysis Almost all History of Art essays should involve an argument grounded on visual analysis of one or more objects or images. Almost all exams in History of Art at Edinburgh require you to perform visual analysis. More so, it s a tool we do throughout our careers, if we carry on being art historians. Exams are a way to test your ability to do this and it is a tool that sets you apart from other graduates. What you need to do depends on your type of exam, perhaps

3 What is Visual Analysis Write down some ideas of what you think visual analysis is. - What questions do you you think you should ask when you look at a work of art? - Why is it important?

4 Doing visual analysis Start with the knowns - identification, date, brief context (patron, place of origin, display, etc.), material, size. Core base is the Description what is in/on the object, what makes it up, etc. Then perform the Analysis, where you use information from primary and secondary sources, material from class, comparisons to other images, as well as other knowledge to identify what is going on in the image.

5 In describing, you might also want to talk about Genre What is the object or image? Date and location When is it from? Where is it from? Content What is happening in it? What makes up the object or image? Does it have multiple parts? Has anything been lost? Technique What can we see in the image in terms of technique or style? What processes have been used to make this work? How many people were needed to make it?

6 Description Exercise I am going to show you some images I want you to describe them. Tell me what is going on in them. Start with overall composition What can/do you see? What is it? Is it the only one? How would you describe the picture/artwork to me if I couldn t see it? What can we see in the image in terms of content? What colours have been used? How big is it? What about the formal features of the work?

7 Take a few minutes to identify and describe this image.

8 Now take a few minutes to describe this image/object

9 This is the first part of good visual analysis being able to describe what is in front of you. What do you find easy? What do you find hard?

10 Moving on from description Your introduction and your descriptions are building blocks Your description highlights to your audience your main reading of the image and needs to convey a full sense of what the object/image is and where it came from. Nevertheless visual analysis requires more. After description you will then need to analyse it.

11 Then analysis what questions should I be asking of the image or object? Right now, try to think of what questions you should be asking of the object or image? These ask deeper questions than simply what is it rather how does what it is affect it as an image or object in its historic period. Try to think of three questions you would ask of an image to analyse it.

12 Analysis: Context How does it fit into an historical context? How does its genre or medium affect how it was understood or seen? What about the reception of this work when it was created? In what context is this artwork now seen? Can we recreate the story of this artwork (i.e. provenance)? Where has it been exhibited and why? Is there anything else?

13 Now begin to think about analysis. What questions might you ask of the Mona lisa in particular or other premodern art in general

14 Now take a few minutes to analyse this Instagram post by Beyonce.

15 Analysis: Theory and Answering a Question? What theory can you apply to this? From your course? If the image or question concerns a certain topic, drawing on ideas from key texts (such as Linda Nochlin s Why have there been no great women artists? ) are useful

16 Templates for us Marcia Pointon, Interrogating the Artwork

17 Viccy Coltman, Questioning a material artefact, from Material Culture and the History of Art(efacts), Writing Material Culture History, London: Bloomsbury, 2015, p.25.

18 Visual analysis in any exam First question, what is the question? Is it open? History of Art 1, History of Art 2, HA3, Romanticism to Expressionism 2015/2016 & 2014/15 HA4, Orientalism and Visual Culture 2015/16

19 Visual analysis in any exam. Or is it directing you to a specific issue the lecturer wants? HA3, Modern Art in Shanghai 2015/16 HA4, The Aesthetics and Politics of Contemporary Art, HA3, Romanticism to Expressionism 2015/2016 & 2014/15 HA3, Picturing Authority: Art and Politics at the Tudor and Stuart Courts, 2015/16

20 Visual analysis in any exam Questions range between the most free (Identity A, B, C, D), comparison questions (compare A and B), and questions with very specific subject matter (examine A, B and C in light of attitudes to X). Despite this variety, there are key things you should do, in both take homes and exam halls.

21 What to do, the easy and the not so easy You ll be presented with A4-sized images If titles are not given, identify unseen images (name, date, artist, patron, installation, etc) possible answer in relation to a question. When you cannot identify, orientate to the knowledge you do have, or to images with similar content or similar style.

22 Some further examples

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26 Names and Dates Arm Reliquary, German (Lower Saxony), c Silver gilt over wood, enamel The Cleveland Museum of Art

27 John Everett Millais Christ in the House of his Parents 1850 Tate, London

28 Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait. Oil (1500)

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