953 5P

Appearance of the art

Art works are usually not only appreciated by artists, for most viewers, what surprises them or evaluates is often the first look of a piece. For example, many people who don't understand art feel weird about abstraction then give up thinking to ignore its inner meaning, so people often measure the importance of a work by whether it is "beautiful." In my Final paper, I want to compare the early narratives of Duane Michals's photography career, one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, with recent contemporary works of art to see if the appearance of a work of art is important.

First of all, I would like to introduce Duane Michals to his current photography career. In his early works, through several sets of logical pictures, the stories he wants to tell are clear to the audience, so they are different from the way other artists and photographers express themselves. “Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be.” His messages and Poems Inscribed on the photographs, and his visual stories created through multiple images, defined the principles of the reigning practitioners of the form. Because a set of narrative photographs can see what he wants to express and are more easily understood and accepted by the public than other photographers, I think this is one of the main reasons for his popularity in his early career and also shows the importance of appearance for artists.

After that, I will discuss his gradual loss of influence on the photography industry because he lost his creative appearance narrative. I will do research to compare more artists.

Here are some other points that I want to expand, so the content may be very vague: most things do not understand when they call it art, whether oil painting or photography, it has a basis for creation. For example, the imagination of painters and photographers, but aesthetics is also an important factor. Surface is not unimportant, the meaning of a work is the meaning of art, and its beauty may be the embodiment of skills. Some people's criterion for artistic evaluation is "plainness", which is not ostentatious display, but intuitive touching of works.

Resource:

https://aperture.org/shop/duane-michals-storyteller/

https://www.lightwork.org/news/a-closer-look-duane-michals/

Feedback

I think this is still way too broad. It seems to me it would be better to deal with Michals and his apparent extension of the surrealist project with his photos. His work seems to raise issues about what can be imaged and imagined with photography, far more than he deals with questioning appearance or any interrogation of the nature of vision. The way images can provide a fantastic-yet-seemingly-real vision seems like what is at stake.