ART & IT’S PROTAGONISTS (Faverolles)

WHAT IS ART ?

not in the object itself but in the perception

NOTION OF THE ARTIST

• Middle ages: main criteria ⇒ technical skill 

> artist = manual worker 

• Renaissance: main criteria ⇒ technical skill + KNOWLEDGE 

> artist = intellectual who can express his creative genius by the means of technical skills

NOTION OF THE ARTIST (middle age)

• Middle ages: main criteria ⇒ technical skill 

> artist = manual worker 

NOTION OF THE ARTIST (Renaissance)

• Renaissance: main criteria ⇒ technical skill + KNOWLEDGE 

> artist = intellectual who can express his creative genius by the means of technical skills

Following the birth of the academies, Painting & sculpture become…

“liberal” arts, distinct from crafts & commerce

in Europe– differentiation btwn craft & art 

EX: The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris in 1648​ 

>> The academies:

• established the differentiation between craft & art

• introduced the philosophical theory of art as an end in itself

REEVALUATION OF ART 

17th century ⇒ art might have been bad because of what was considered by art at the time ⇒ we are reevaluating the standards 

End of the 19s beginning of the 20th century ⇒ Originality became a major criteria ⇒ birth of the AVANT GARDE CONCEPT ⇒ doing the opposite of set standards by breaking away from the old. Originality has become a major element

TODAY we praise the great artist as a genius. The artist is someone who is recognised as such by others 

WHAT IS TASTE ?

1. Taste is an inherent individual faculty​

≠

2. Taste is historically situated

3. Taste is socially situated​

1. Taste is an inherent individual faculty​

>  Hume : ​beauty is not a quality of objects but it is in the mind of the perceiver. ​there is a standard of taste within a particular culture & some individuals have better judgments.​

>  Kant, Critique of Judgment (1790) : beauty as a universally shared notion relying on ‘common sense’. 

Idea = taste is subjective but tendency to universality observed in aesthetic judgments. 

This leads Kant to state that “The beautiful is that which pleases universally, without a concept”. ​

Universal communicability– we can communicate the sense of taste with everybody/between subjects 

2. Taste is historically situated​

Louis 14– Something imposed by the king himself, used art as a instrument of power– today called soft power, the taste then was situated by the king 

3.  Taste is socially situated​

Sociology of art (1970s onwards): taste is socially determined + is a tool in asserting “distinction” (Bourdieu)

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of taste (1979) : notion of cultural capital not equals Kant’s aesthetical universalism

• Bourdieu = opposed to kant ⇒ talks about cultural capital aka non economic assets that a person has– knowledge + education. 

• Says in his essay those who have a better education are in a better situation to define

LOW CULTURE

• aka popular culture ex comics seen as low culture– popular music. 

• Often linked to white supremacy in terms of hierarchy 

HIGH CULTURE 

• legitimate recognised by the power structures of the society– by the institutions etc. 

• classical music for example 

SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE

For Bourdieu it’s important to show the acceptance of taste & culture–it’s a from of violence to consider some things more important than others culturally

Marcel Duchamp (1917), Fountain

Strategy of Duchamp to build the 

Most popular outburst in the history of art

Object that already existed that he took & labeled as art 

Legitimate process of art ⇒ for Duchamp it  was important that his art was rejected ⇒ social experiment.

Steps to have art 

1. Need object

2. Need someone to say this is a work of art

3. Need a critic 

4. Need a institution who will validate the art and makes sure in enters an exhibit

“art world”

= “the network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things, produces the kind of art works that art world is noted for.”

WHAT IS AN ART MOVEMENT

• group of artists grouped together at 1 point in history

• situated in time w/ clear beginning & ending

• Tight or loose group (eg DADA vs Impressionists)

• Share mindset/ style of painting/ principles

Style

Common formal characteristics specific to either 1 or more artist 

(formal features meaning what we can see in terms of how it’s painted or sculpted)

Tools of art History 

how & why is an image made the way it is ? → main tools : description & analysis 

To answer those questions: we study both formal & conceptual dimensions 

Formal– (form) 

How it is painted– EVERYTHING that we see on the canva which is not the subject– AKA the way the artists has applied the paint on his support/canva 

Conceptual dimensional

Everything that is not material– vision intention of the artists/ all his ideas that are behind what we see on the image⇒ what explains why the image looks the way it does 

INTERPRETATION

Interpretation add things the artist did not mean to convey 

DESCRIBING AN ARTWORK

1/ the subject matter (what is represented)

2/ the artwork as a physical object 

3/ formal characteristics

1/ The subject matter (what is represented) 

Grouped in genres 

Eg: 

History (stuff that really happened)

Religious

Mythological (inventions)

Allegorical (human figure who represents an idea or a value. Symbolic representation of an abstract concept in the form of a figure)

Portrait painting

Genre painting (scenes of everyday life) 

Landscape painting 

Marine painting 

Animal painting (genre in itself)

Still life (inanimate objects– includes food and plants + dead animals & human-made stuff) such as drinking glasses, books, vases)

2/ The artwork as a physical object 

Techniques(s) ⇒ the WHAT– what type of paint like oil, acrylic, watercolor etc, if it is a sculpture. 

& support(s) ⇒ what is it painted on 

Dimensions (height, width etc) and format (the shape of the art)

3/ Formal characteristics (How did the artist construct his/her image?)

Composition = ARRANGEMENT. how the elements of art & design—line, shape, color, value, texture, form, and space—are organized or composed according to the principles of art & design—balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, unity/variety—& other elements of composition, to give the painting structure & convey the intent of the artist. (eg: focal points)

Space = DEPTH (three dimensionality)/flatness (two-dimensionality)

Perspective = a method of representing volume & spatial depth on a flat surface. 

Perspective types

LINEAR perspective (theorized by Italian architect and writer Leon Alberti in 1435) based on mathematical perspective

Focal point ⇒ based on lines that convert on one point 

AERIAL(or atmospheric) perspective

Refers to the techniques which represents the way the transmission of light through the atmosphere (artist tries to reflect atmosphere)

COLOR CHARACTERISTIC 

A color is characterized by a specific wavelength of light

>> the name of the color (ex: blue, violet, blue-violet)

• Colours of the visible spectrum (rainbow, brown, black, grey, white no beige → ochre) 

Hue 

corresponds to a specific wavelength of light/colour 

Brushworks 

How material is applied on picture / how boundaries are painted between figures

Visible, smooth, regular, hasty etc

Colour characterized by 3 parameters 

1. Hue

2. Value

3. Saturation

Colour wheel / chromatic circle 

→ Situates colours (Johann Wolfgang Goethe, chromatic circle, 1809, watercolour, Goethe Museum, Frankfort)

In history of art of use the colors of the rainbow & the visible light spectrum 

Ex: blue green

• Black and white 

• Browns 

• Greys 

• No nude

• Beige doesn’t exist it is called = Ochre (which is an art pigment btw)

Value of a color 

= degree of lightness or darkness of a color  (obtained by adding white or black paint to a specific hue)

Saturation 

= the intensity of a hue (from pure to neutral grey)