Human

Critical Thinking in the Arts – A Pocket Guide[footnoteRef:1] [1: By Sam O’Connell, Visual and Performing Arts Department, Worcester State University, 2021]

In my experience, these are the main terms, ideas, concepts, definitions, etc. that will come up in conversation again and again in work as artists and critical thinkers. To that end, here’s a (hopefully) handy pocket guide to keep as a quick reference.

Key Concepts

Don’t forget The Three ‘H’s: Head (Idea), Heart (Emotion), and Hand (Form)

Critical Thinking: A multi-step process made up of observation (description and summary), analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and explanation.

Analysis: The breaking down of a larger thing into its smaller component parts

What are the component parts?

Are there systems/structures by which we can organize them?

Interpretation: The reassembly of those smaller component parts in the pursuit of meaning

Evaluation: A reflection on the success/accuracy/relevance/intuitiveness/etc of the interpretation based on the analysis and observation

Explanation: The communication of the results to others

Creative Thinking: Creative thinking is both the capacity to combine or synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways and the experience of thinking, reacting, and working in an imaginative way characterized by a high degree of innovation, divergent thinking, and risk taking.

The Task of Criticism is to identify meaning and explain its mode of embodiment.

Formal and Material Properties

Content

Context

Theory: a framework that provides an orderly explanation of observed phenomenon.

What question is the artist asking? How does the work answer that question?

Discipline Specific Definitions, Terms, and Ideas

Music – Sound that has been organized to stimulate someone

Sound: Notes (loudness, duration, pitch, and timbre) vs. Noise (no pitch)

Pitch: The frequency (repeatable pattern) of a sound wave

Loudness: The strength of the soundwave

Timbre: The unique characteristic of the sound determined, in part, by how the sound is created and what material(s) is producing the sound

Duration: The length of a sound

Some of the tools of organization

Melody

Harmony (a succession of chords [three or more notes played at one time])

Rhythm (tempo [pulse], meter [stress], and rhythm [pattern of notes])

Scales

Keys (Major = Happy, Self-confident / Minor = Sad, emotional)

Modulation: changes between different keys within a song

Visual Art – Visual media that have been organized to stimulate someone

Theatre – A combination of the elements of Actor, Audience, Space, and Story

Other Useful Terms

Line

Color

Gesture

Texture

Space

Composition

Tension

Balance

Embodiment