Art appreciation. Reading analysis

4. Meaning = a complex of intellectual,
emotional, and sensory significations
which the work conveys and to which the
viewer responds, bringing in the breadth
of his or her cultural background, artistic
exposure and training, and human
experience in a dialogic relationship with
the art work

5. Rene Magritte

8. material/physical
aspect
non-material
aspect as concept
and value

9. object as it exists
in the real world

10. Rene Magritte

11. “Semantic potential is
realized in the analysis or
reading of the integral
work.”

12. Elements and General Technical and
Physical Aspects
1. Visual elements and how they
are used

13. Rene Magritte

16. Elements and General Technical and
Physical Aspects
2. Choice of medium and technique

17. Rene Magritte

20. Elements and General Technical and
Physical Aspects
2. Choice of medium and technique
= there are techniques which
valorize the values of spontaneity
and play of chance and accident,
while there are those which
emphasize order and control

21. Elements and General Technical and
Physical Aspects
3. Format of the work

22. Elements and General Technical and
Physical Aspects
4. Other physical properties and
marks of the work =
notations, traces, textural features,
marks, whether random or
intentional, are part of the
significations of the work

23. this has to do with the particular
features, aspects, and qualities of
the image which are the signifiers

24.  Choice of subject
 Presentation of the image
 Positioning of the figure
 Cropping

25. The Desperate Man
(Gustave Courbet)

26.  Choice of subject
 Presentation of the image
 Positioning of the figure
 Cropping

27. * Does it address the viewer directly?
* Is it self-contained or self-absorbed?
* What kind of subject-viewer relationship is
implied by the subject through his facial
expression, body language, costume and
accessories, natural or social background?
* Is it a relationship of peers or one of
dominance and subordination?
* Is it a friendly, ironic, aggressive, or hostile
relationship, and all possible nuances
thereof?

28.  Choice of subject
 Presentation of the image
 Positioning of the figure
 Cropping

29. one proceeds from the basic
semiotic and iconic planes and the
knowledge and insights one has
gained from these into the social and
historical context of the work of art

33. AXIOLOGICAL OR EVALUATIVE PLANE
analyzing the values of a work
For all visual forms, whether paintings, prints,
posters, illustrations, cartoons, and comics
have their standards of technical excellence to
which a work may be on par or below par.

34. The meaning of a work is a complex of concepts,
values, and feelings which derive from reality
and have a bearing on it. Because of this, the
evaluation of a work necessarily includes the
analysis and examination of its axiological
content constituted by values which become
fully articulated on the contextual plane
although these had already been shaping on the
basic semiotic and iconic planes.

35. after the critic/viewer has gone through the
three planes, the semiotic, the iconic, and the
contextual, it is possible to determine the
semantic focus and parameters of the work
and, from these, project its horizon of
meanings, its boundaries and limitations, its
semantic implications and ideological
orientations, its progressive or conservative
tendencies with respect to human
developmen

36. Art projects a horizon of meanings relative to both the artist
and the critic/viewer in terms of intellectual background,
emotional maturity, and cultural range in the humanly
enriching dialogic experience of art