9.29 - Ways of Seeing

Insights from the Ways of Seeing reading

Insight One

"The faculty of touch is static but out vision is continually active"

We can hold the memory of a visual forever while we can hold the memory of touch only for a specific period of time. I found this statement incredibly interesting because it made me think about the faculty of touch being static if a person did not have their sight. Would their memory be filled more with reminants of touch and feel versus the pictures someone who can see would depict in their memory. 

Insight Two

"Perspective organized the visual field as though that were indeed ideal, Every drawing or painting that used perspective proposed to the spectator that he was the unique centre of the world."

The world with out perspective would be a different place. This provoked the idea similar to the filming perspective we discussed perspective we described in class when talking about Mr. Robot. How in filming the show they used perspective to make the character seem or feel small in regards to the world around him. Perspective allows us to see and take in the world as we see fit.

9.20 Baltimore Museum of Art

Andy WarholShadow      /     Shadow1978      /     1979

I chose these two pieces because of their simplicity. Previous to going to the Baltimore Museum of Art, I only knew Andy Warhol as an artist who used large paintings with bright pops of color to portray bold images. These two Warhol paintings do not fit my predetermined mold of the kind of artist I assumed he was which made them even more interesting to me.

Andre Masson

I chose this piece by Andre Masson because it reminded me of my older brother. He just graduated from art school and a lot of his work involves contemporary surrealism similar to that of Masson.

Robert RymanUntitled 95

I chose this painting because from far away it doesn't look very complicated, but up close you can see each and every brush stroke on the canvas. Even though it is all white, Ryman was able to achieve dimension within his painting with the layering strokes. I also chose this painting because it was created in 1995, the year I was born.

9.13 - Visibility

The concept of an inner versus outer world was one that I found to be very thought-provoking. The statement that not even "the sound of a thousand trumpets" could break us out of this inner world made me pose the question: in connecting with that part of your imagination, do you really lose touch with reality to that great of an extent? Or are we more in touch with the reality of ourselves through the depictions of the images that we dream?
After watching Stranger Things this weekend, the comparison of the inner and outer worlds reminded me of the upside down world, more in the sense that there is much more that exists than the reality we see, there is the 'world' we can imagine as well.

I found the method in which  Italo Calvino writes his stories to be very interesting. He visualises and image, creates a sharpened idea of that image, starts to develop the image into a story, and the finally lets the story take off with the images. Later he goes back and gives an order to his story cleaning up what may have been jumbled in the creative process. After reading about his creative process it really made me sit back and think about how I generate an idea, or even what my decision process is like.

I both disagree and agree with the author. When it comes to the assumption that childhood without the access to larger technologies affects the development of a child's imagery. I think this statement is highly subjective and depends on the way children were raised. Regardless if the cinema or technology was around, not all children of that time period turned to drawing to strengthen their visibility of imagery. However, today with the surplus of I do feel as if technology has made a bigger impact due to the scale.

9.8 - The Whole Ball of Wax

Can Art Change the World? A Holistic Theory

by Jerry Saltz

When reading this article I found the notion that art has the ability to change the world the most thought provoking. The universal nature and adaptability of art allow it to do so. As a math major, analytic thinker and someone who often sees the world quantitatively, art very often is broadening my perspective and challenging me to think in a way that is not necessarily second nature. Another point I found interesting was the notion that it is impossible to view art with unbiased eyes. Every viewer brings their own background, judgements, and even morals to the table when interpreting a work. This statement really challenged me to think introspectively back on times where I thought I may have been an objective party but essentially used my own set of  value judgements that led me to think that way.

When I was reading the section of the article that talks about the bias we hold the main reference I made to this article was personal. My older brother just graduated with an art degree, and his work is constantly challenging the way I think. I was very curious about this notion due to the fact that we both have grown up in the same exact environment only a year apart, hold the same familial values yet see and express ourselves very differently. What he portrays in his art, I frequently interpret very differently.

I agree with Saltz on a majority of the arguments made within the article, and the ones that I was unsure about led me to really dive deeper and think about what led to those conclusions. The fluidity of art throughout the article really tied together all of the topics whether  he was discussing politics, culture, etc. To be honest, I wasn't entirely sold on the cat and dog analogy, but Saltz seems to be making an interesting connection by pulling in Eric Fischl's perspective on the matter.

To view the article for reference, click here.