Thanks for coming back to the channel. If
you've seen
the first video, on prehistoric art, then
you'll have come across what I call
Gombrich's paradox. If you haven't seen
that video
you might want to consider watching the
first five minutes and then coming back
to this one.
The only way out of that impasse, really,
is to engage with as many
different works of art, as many different
styles of art,
as many different types of art, and as
many different art periods
as you can, in order to get an idea of
what constitutes art,
and to have a mental map of the history
of art,
it's a good idea to try and commit as
much of it as you can to memory.
Whatever learner style you are;
kinesthetic, auditory,
visual, I would recommend writing down
notes in chronological order,
if for no other reason than to listen
actively: the process of deciding what to
write
engages your mind more, and also while
you're
watching the videos, and while you're
studying the history of art in general,
it's a good idea to keep in mind
three questions that Panofsky said we
should ask of any work of art,
namely, what is it?
why is it here? and
why does it look like that? The first
question,
although sometimes aided by forensics, is
usually descriptive,
referring to the materials used, the
dating, and
the image's content, i.e what it depicts
on a surface level. The question
'why is it here?' usually involves looking
at the relationships between
individuals, institutions and the
intended public
to explain why the artwork was required,
how it came to be made,
what patronage or commissioning process
there was,
or what the artist's intention for the
work was when finished,
for example sale to a collector or
gallery.
Answering the final question 'why does it
look like that?'
involves findings from the first two
questions along with a consideration of
the nature of the relationship between
form and content and function, between
its appearance
and what it depicts, and what the
intended purpose of the artwork is.
What were the available traditional
models of art, and what was the artist's
relationship to that tradition?
Was it the intention of the artist to
create the summit of achievement within
that tradition,
or to radically transform or reject
traditional forms?
What ideas can be found in academia,
society at large,
or artistic milieu, which can account for
the forms eventually used?
To what extent do the forms relate to
the expression of the content?
Let's see how this works in application...
