The History and Appreciation of Art for the Uninitiated "Mass Market"
To gain an appreciation of art, you need not have a formal education in the subject or even a college degree. All you need is your eyes and an open mind. If you've never been to an art gallery, that doesn't mean that you are not educated in art. Art is all around us. It's found in nature, in shopping malls, even in a kindergarten classroom. The first step to forming a true appreciation of art is to immerse yourself in it. Visit an art gallery. Walk inside and take a tour provided and hear it from someone else who is a trained professional, or go on your own educational voyage. Once you step foot inside all you need to look for are a few key elements. You can examine the period the piece of art was created in and compare it to pieces in its own era or compare it to artwork from a completely different era. Get a feel for what you like. Do you like things from the days cavemen wrote on walls or are you into the works of Picasso and Monet? Do you prefer your artwork flat on the wall, or would you rather look at a sculpture? If you look close enough, I bet you can find something special about each and every piece of artwork you come in contact with. But don't touch it. Alarms go off. Seriously.
Let's say you're in the door and you approach a framed painting hanging on the wall. What should you look for? What could you possibly appreciate about this canvas with paint splashed about? I guarantee there is something.
The first thing every art student learns from their professor is the key elements that make up every piece of art. They include shape, form, line, space, texture, value and color. These keys to understanding art can give you the steps you need to pick apart a piece and examine each individual part of it that makes it worth appreciating.
Look at the shape of the artwork. Is it flat on canvas, or is it a sculpture full of movement? If it is indeed a sculpture, there is much more to examine here. Let's take the sculpture of Michelangelo's "David." It's one of the most renowned works of the renaissance period. Look at his muscles. Do they take up space? Of course they do. How much space, are they large, small, proportionate to the rest of his body? Proportions and space can take a sculpture from looking normal to abstract and unusual. In the case of David, yes he is proportionatein every way.
Now that we have shape down, let's take a look at form. Examine the statue's characteristics. How was the sculpture formed? Did the artist use his or her hands only or did they use tools to make the designs and form the sculpture into the shape that it is in? Does it look like the subject matter in the way everyday people would interpret it to look or is it the artists take on what that subject should be formed and shaped into being. How did the artist manipulate the material to make it look the way it does?
Moving on to space. Don't just look at how much space the actual artwork takes up, but how are the items on the sculpture or on the canvas spatially related to each other. Say you are looking at a field of flowers painted on canvas. Are the flowers bunched up or spread across the field? How do each of the subjects portrayed in the painting play off of each other. Does the spatial relation give the piece a particular tone? Is it frenzied and busy or is it calm and tranquil? Space can play a large part on the viewer's first impression of a piece. Look at how large or small it is. Does that impact your impression of it?
Next let's move onto line. The line of a piece directs your eyes to flow across the artwork. When you first lay eyes on it, where do you first focus? Pick that point and allow your eyes to follow that point up and down and all around the piece. This is a good time to look for angles or curves. What did the artist focus on? Does the piece flow like a long river, or do you constantly start and stop at jagged edges? Examine the borders of the painting. Do you imagine that the scene could continue on past the frame, or is that it?
Study the color of the artwork. Do you like it? What is your first impression? Did the artist use pastels or bold colors? The color wheel is so simple. Red, Yellow and Blue, but there is so much and so many combinations of what you can create with those few simple colors. They are the base for everything. Which tone do you see coming out of the piece? Color ultimately persuades many people's opinion on whether or not they like a piece of art. Would you want it in your home if you could afford the multimillion dollar price tag, maybe, or maybe not. Whether or not you actually like the colors, look at them and try to figure why the artist chose them. Do the colors give you a specific feeling? Was the artist trying to evoke happiness, anger, sadness, or love through the work?
Right along with color, goes value. The value of the work is not its monetary value or how much it's worth, but the use of dark and light in the piece. Does the artist use dark color tones to evoke night time, or a dreary feel? Or do they use light shades so that you can imagine the sun peeking through the trees? Does the darkness of an artwork give it a heavy or a light feeling? Does it evoke any of your own emotions?
Lastly, texture can be used to examine the depth and use of the actual medium in both sculpture and painting. Take for example the Impressionists. They used paint as though they were building a sculpture right on the canvas. They layered it on thick so you could actually see each individual brush stroke. Think of what the artist envisioned with each brush stroke, what were they trying to accomplish? If the painting looks rough or was done with a dry brush, is that to make it look wispy or eccentric? There are so many things to consider, and texture can really add and give insight to what an artist was thinking and feeling as they created their masterpiece.
Each one of these tools and keys to examining art can be used on fine art to contemporary art. Infact, it's fun to look at a piece in which the artist is still alive. Try to guess what they were thinking and feeling by using these keys and ask them if that was what they were trying to accomplish, but of course, hopefully you won't offend them. It's interesting to see if what they put on paper or molded with their hands is a true reflection of thought and emotion.
For instance, when examining Egyptian art, so much of it was to honor their idols, gods or the dead. Their tombs were each works of art. Look for the story behind the piece of art. Learning the work and the story behind each piece can make you a more informed and astute observer of artwork. Sometimes it's the fear of the unknown that keeps us from loving things we do not understand. By using the keys of shape, form, line, space, value, color and texture you can gain insight into any artistic movement that interests you. It may seem like a lot of small questions to answer, but each one of those answers gives you a clue that can help you put together the puzzle and a story behind each piece of art.
Understanding the artistic movements, can be a key to understanding art in its own right. It allows you to group works of art in a specific time period. Many times you'll see similarities between artists and their choice of tools and materials used to create their works. Starting at the beginning of time all the way up to modern day, some popular artistic movements include Ancient, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Early Renaissance, High Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassism, Romanticism, Realism, Pre-Raphaelites, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Abstraction, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Op Art. Now that might seem like a mouthful and more period of art then you would ever want to know about, but each one of them has a masterpiece in it, special to it's unique movement in time.
Most museums are broken up into specific floors or rooms by movement. It's so interesting to go from one room to the next, preferably in accordance to the timeline, and see how artwork evolved and changed over time. Starting at the beginning it's easy to see how it looks like art starts off simple with ancient art and then evolves into more intricate art throughout time, but that is simply not true as time goes on. It's important to consider what these artists were able to accomplish with the materials and tools they had available to create the art in the first place. If all they had were rocks and made their paints out of things found in nature, it's amazing they were able to create what they did. They had to work for their art. As time goes on, things were more readily available and art easier to create. Look at what the artist used, tie it together with what was going on in history during that time, and it tends to all make sense, and that sense results in a timeless beauty left behind for future generations to interpret and enjoy.
Examining the history behind each one of the artistic movements can give you a greater understanding of why the art looks the way that it does. For example during the Baroque period, it was a time of great change. The British had just discovered a new world and were beginning to colonize the Americas. This style first came about in the late 1500's in Europe and then was brought over with the Pilgrims to America. Political and Religious tensions between Protestants and Catholics were at an all time high. Political figures aimed to be painted in high style, robed in their best garments, while others aimed to glorify their religions which they were so proud to be a part of.
So while understanding art can be a complex in-depth undertaking, it doesn't have to be overwhelming. Allow yourself to enjoy the experience that you take while getting a front row seat and inside look into someone else's take on the world. There are many museums all over the world with famous works by famous artists, but don't forget the beauty in discovering the unknown. There are small studios with artwork displayed in cities and towns across the world, so don't be afraid to take a peek inside. While traveling, pick up brochures at the visitors bureaus. They can point you in the right direction on where to go to get the best art experience in the area. Also, try to talk to the locals. People who live there may know of some place with art that you can not only admire, but purchase to take home to remember your trip. Remember that beauty in art is all around us and in nature, so with your own eyes and an open mind you can find and understand art anywhere.