humanity 6

THE HUMANITIES THROUGH THE ARTS

T e n t h E d i t i o n

Lee A. Jacobus Professor of English Emeritus

University of Connecticut

F. David Martin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus

Bucknell University

©Universal History Archive/Getty Images

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THE HUMANITIES THROUGH THE ARTS, TENTH EDITION

Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2019 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2015, 2011, and 2008. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.

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All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright page.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martin, F. David, 1920- author. | Jacobus, Lee A., author.  The humanities through the arts/F. David Martin, Professor of  Philosophy Emeritus, Bucknell University; Lee A. Jacobus, Professor of  English Emeritus, University of Connecticut.  Tenth edition. | New York : McGraw-Hill Education, 2018. | Includes index.  LCCN 2017051530 | ISBN 9781259916878 (alk. paper)  LCSH: Arts–Psychological aspects. | Art appreciation.  LCC NX165 .M37 2018 | DDC 701/.18–dc23 LC record available  at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051530

The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-Hill Education does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.

mheducation.com/highered

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lee A. Jacobus (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) taught at Western Con- necticut State University and then at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) until he retired in 2001. He held a Danforth Teachers Grant while earning his doctor- ate. His publications include Shakespeare and the Dialectic of Certainty (St. Martin’s Press, 1992); Sudden Apprehension: Aspects of Knowledge in Paradise Lost (Mouton, 1976); John Cleveland: A Critical Study (G. K. Hall, 1975); Aesthetics and the Arts (McGraw-Hill, 1968); The Bedford Introduction to Drama (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018); and A World of Ideas (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017).

F. David Martin (PhD, University of Chicago) taught at the University of Chicago and then at Bucknell University until his retirement in 1983. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Florence and Rome from 1957 through 1959 and received seven other major research grants during his career, as well as the Christian Lind- back Award for Distinguished Teaching. Dr. Martin’s publications include Art and the Religious Experience (Associated University Presses, 1972); Sculpture and the En- livened Space (The University Press of Kentucky, 1981); and Facing Death: Theme and Variations (Associated University Presses, 2006). Professor Martin died in 2014.

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We dedicate this study to teachers and students of the humanities.

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BRIEF CONTENTS

PREFACE xi

Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS

1 The Humanities: An Introduction 1 2 What Is a Work of Art? 17

3 Being a Critic of the Arts 42

Part 2 THE ARTS

4 Painting 58 5 Sculpture 91

6 Architecture 121 7 Literature 163 8 Theater 196 9 Music 224

10 Dance 254 11 Photography 276

12 Cinema 299 13 Television and Video Art 330

Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS

14 Is It Art or Something Like It? 352 15 The Interrelationships of the Arts 378

16 The Interrelationships of the Humanities 397

GLOSSARY G-1

INDEX I-1

Source: The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Subject Matter and Content 34

EXPERIENCING: Interpretations of the Female Nude 40

Further Thoughts on Artistic Form 41 Summary 41

3 Being a Critic of the Arts 42 You Are Already an Art Critic 42 Participation and Criticism 43 Three Kinds of Criticism 43 Descriptive Criticism 44 Interpretive Criticism 48 Evaluative Criticism 52

EXPERIENCING: The Polish Rider 55 Summary 56

Part 2 THE ARTS

4 Painting 58 Our Visual Powers 58 The Media of Painting 59 Tempera 59 Fresco 61 Oil 62 Watercolor 64 Acrylic 64 Other Media and Mixed Media 65

Elements of Painting 68

PREFACE xi

Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS

1  The Humanities: An Introduction 1

The Humanities: A Study of Values 1 Art, Commerce, and Taste 4 Responses to Art 5

EXPERIENCING: The Mona Lisa 9

Structure and Artistic Form 10 Perception 11

Abstract Ideas and Concrete Images 12 Summary 16

2 What Is a Work of Art? 17 Identifying Art Conceptually 18 Identifying Art Perceptually 18 Artistic Form 19 Participation 23 Participation and Artistic Form 25 Content 26 Subject Matter 28 Subject Matter and Artistic Form 28 Participation, Artistic Form, and Content 29 Artistic Form: Examples 30

Photo: Kira Perov. Courtesy Bill Viola Studio

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CONTENTS  vii

6 Architecture 121 Centered Space 121 Space and Architecture 122 Chartres 123 Living Space 125 Four Necessities of Architecture 126 Technical Requirements of Architecture 126 Functional Requirements of Architecture 127 Spatial Requirements of Architecture 131 Revelatory Requirements of Architecture 131

Earth-Rooted Architecture 132 Site 132 Gravity 133 Raw Materials 134 Centrality 136

Sky-Oriented Architecture 138 Axis Mundi 141 Defiance of Gravity 142 Integration of Light 143

Earth-Resting Architecture 144 Earth-Dominating Architecture 145 Combinations of Types 146 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and The Taj Mahal 147

EXPERIENCING: The Taj Mahal 149

High-Rises and Skyscrapers 150

FOCUS ON: The Alhambra 155

Urban Planning 157 Summary 161

7 Literature 163 Spoken Language and Literature 163 Literary Structures 167 The Narrative and the Narrator 167 The Episodic Narrative 169 The Organic Narrative 171 The Quest Narrative 176 The Lyric 177

EXPERIENCING: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” 182

Line 68 Color 72 Texture 73 Composition 73

The Clarity of Painting 75 The “All-at-Onceness” of Painting 77 Abstract Painting 78 Intensity and Restfulness in Abstract Painting 80 Representational Painting 81 Comparison of Five Impressionist Paintings 81

FOCUS ON: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 86

Frames 88 EXPERIENCING: Frames 89

Summary 90

5 Sculpture 91 Sensory Interconnections 92 Sculpture and Painting Compared 92 Sculpture and Space 94 Sunken-Relief Sculpture 94 Low-Relief Sculpture 95 High-Relief Sculpture 96 Sculpture in the Round 97 Sculpture and Architecture Compared 98 Sensory Space 99 Sculpture and the Human Body 99 Sculpture in the Round and the

Human Body 101 EXPERIENCING: Sculpture and Physical Size 103

Contemporary Sculpture 104 Truth to Materials 104 Protest against Technology 108 Accommodation with Technology 110 Machine Sculpture 112 Earth Sculpture 113

FOCUS ON: African Sculpture 114

Sculpture in Public Places 117 Summary 120

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Literary Details 183 Image 184 Metaphor 185 Symbol 187 Irony 189 Diction 190

FOCUS ON: Po Chü’i, Poet of the T’ang Dynasty 191 Summary 194

8 Theater 196 Aristotle and the Elements of Drama 197 Dialogue and Soliloquy 198

Archetypal Patterns 200 Genres of Drama: Tragedy 201 The Tragic Stage 202 Stage Scenery and Costumes 202 Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 206

Comedy: Old and New 209 Tragicomedy: The Mixed Genre 211 A Play for Study: Riders to the Sea 211

EXPERIENCING: Riders to the Sea 218

FOCUS ON: Musical Theater: Hamilton 218

Experimental Drama 221 Summary 222

9 Music 224 Hearing and Listening 224 The Elements of Music 225 Tone 225 Consonance 226 Dissonance 226 Rhythm 227 Tempo 227 Melodic Material: Melody, Theme, and Motive 227 Counterpoint 228 Harmony 228 Dynamics 229 Contrast 229

The Subject Matter of Music 229 Feelings 230

EXPERIENCING: Chopin’s Prelude 7 in A Major 231

Two Theories: Formalism and Expressionism 233 Sound 233 Tonal Center 234 Musical Structures 236 Theme and Variations 236 Rondo 236 Fugue 237 Sonata Form 237 Symphony 238

FOCUS ON:  Beethoven’s Symphony in E♭ Major, No. 3, Eroica 243

Blues and Jazz: Popular American Music 248 Rock and Roll and Rap 251 Summary 253

10 Dance 254 Subject Matter of Dance 254

EXPERIENCING: Feeling and Dance 256

Form 257 Dance and Ritual 258 Ritual Dance 258 Social Dance 259 The Court Dance 259

Ballet 260 Swan Lake 262

Modern Dance 265 Alvin Ailey’s Revelations 267 Martha Graham 269 Batsheva Dance Company 270 Pilobolus and Momix Dance Companies 271 Mark Morris Dance Group 272

FOCUS ON: Theater Dance 272

Popular Dance 274 Summary 275

11 Photography 276 Photography and Painting 276

EXPERIENCING: Photography and Art 280

Photography and Painting: The Pictorialists 281

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CONTENTS  ix

Straight Photography 283 The f/64 Group 284

The Documentarists 286 The Modern Eye 292

FOCUS ON: Digital Photography 296 Summary 298

12 Cinema 299 The Subject Matter of Film 299 Directing and Editing 300 The Participative Experience and Film 303 The Film Image 305

EXPERIENCING: Still Frames and Photography 305

Camera Point of View 308 Violence and Film 310 Sound 312 Image and Action 313 Cinematic Structure 315 Cinematic Details 317 The Context of Film History 318 Two Great Films: The Godfather and

Casablanca 319 The Narrative Structure of The Godfather Films 320 Coppola’s Images 321 Coppola’s Use of Sound 321 The Power of The Godfather 322

FOCUS ON: Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca 323

Experimentation 326 Animated Film 327 Summary 329

13 Television and Video Art 330 The Evolution of Television 330 The Subject Matter of Television and

Video Art 331 Commercial Television 332 The Television Series 333 The Structure of the Self-Contained Episode 334

The Television Serial 335 Three Emmy Winners 339

FOCUS ON: The Americans 342

Video Art 344 EXPERIENCING: Jacopo Pontormo and Bill Viola: The

Visitation 348 Summary 351

Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS

14  Is It Art or Something Like It? 352

Art and Artlike 352 Illustration 354 Realism 354 Folk Art 355 Popular Art 357 Propaganda 362

EXPERIENCING: Propaganda Art 362

FOCUS ON: Kitsch 363

Decoration 365 Idea Art 370 Dada 370 Duchamp and His Legacy 371 Conceptual Art 372

Performance Art 374 Virtual Art 376 Summary 377

15  The Interrelationships of the Arts 378

Appropriation 378 Interpretation 379 Film Interprets Literature: Howards End 380 Music Interprets Drama: The Marriage of Figaro 382 Painting Interprets Poetry: The Starry Night 385 Sculpture Interprets Poetry: Apollo and Daphne 387

EXPERIENCING: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Ovid’s The Metamorphoses 389

Drama Interprets Painting 390

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EXPERIENCING: The Humanities and Students of Medicine 399

Values 400 FOCUS ON:  The Arts and History, the Arts and Philosophy,

the Arts and Theology 402 Summary 406

GLOSSARY G-1

INDEX I-1

FOCUS ON: Photography Interprets Fiction 391

Architecture Interprets Dance: National Nederlanden Building 392 Painting Interprets Dance and Music: The Dance and Music 392

EXPERIENCING: Death in Venice: Three Versions 395 Summary 396

16  The Interrelationships of the Humanities 397

The Humanities and the Sciences 397 The Arts and the Other Humanities 398

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PREFACE

Overview

The Humanities through the Arts, tenth edition, explores the humanities with an em- phasis on the arts. Examining the relationship of the humanities to values, objects, and events important to people is central to this book. We make a distinction between artists and other humanists: Artists reveal values, while other humanists examine or reflect on values. We study how values are revealed in the arts while keeping in mind a basic question: “What is art?” Judging by the existence of ancient artifacts, we see that artistic expression is one of the most fundamental human activities. It binds us together as a people by revealing the most important values of our culture.

Our genre-based approach offers students the opportunity to understand the relationship of the arts to human values by examining, in-depth, each of the major artistic media. Subject matter, form, and content in each of the arts supply the framework for careful analysis. Painting and photography focus our eyes on the visual appearance of things. Sculpture reveals the textures, densities, and shapes of things. Architecture sharpens our perception of spatial relationships, both in- side and out. Literature, theater, cinema, and video explore values and make us more aware of the human condition. Our understanding of feelings is deepened by music. Our sensitivity to movement, especially of the human body, is enhanced by dance. The wide range of opportunities for criticism and analysis helps the reader synthesize the complexities of the arts and their interaction with values of many kinds. All of this is achieved with an exceptionally vivid and complete illustration program alongside detailed discussion and interactive responses to the problems inherent in a close study of the arts and values of our time.

OrganizatiOn

This edition, as with previous editions, is organized into three parts, offering con- siderable flexibility in the classroom:

Part 1, “Fundamentals,” includes the first three introductory chapters. In Chapter 1, The Humanities: An Introduction, we distinguish the humanities from the sciences, and the arts from other humanities. In Chapter 2, What Is a Work of Art?, we raise the question of definition in art and the ways in which we distinguish art from other objects and experiences. Chapter 3, Being a Critic of the Arts, introduces the vital role of criticism in art appreciation and evaluation.

©ArenaPal/Topham/The Image Works

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Part 2, “The Arts,” includes individual chapters on each of the basic arts. The structure of this section permits complete flexibility: The chapters may be used in their present order or in any order one wishes. We begin with the individual chapters Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture; follow with Literature, Theater, Music, and Dance; and continue with Photography, Cinema, and Television and Video Art. Instructors may reorder or omit chapters as needed. The chapter Pho- tography logically precedes the chapters Cinema and Television and Video Art for the convenience of instructors who prefer to teach the chapters in the order presented.

Part 3, “Interrelationships,” begins with Chapter 14, Is It Art or Something Like It? We study illustration, folk art, propaganda, and kitsch while raising the question “What is art?” We also examine the avant-garde as it pushes us to the edge of defi- nition. Chapter 15, The Interrelationships of the Arts, explores the ways in which the arts work together, as in how a film interprets E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End, how literature and a musical interpretation of a Beaumarchais play result in Mo- zart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, how Walt Whitman’s poetry inspires van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night, how a passage from Ovid’s epic poem “The Metamorpho- ses” inspires the Bernini sculpture Apollo and Daphne, and more. Chapter 16, The Interrelationships of the Humanities, addresses the ways in which the arts reveal val- ues shared by the other humanities—particularly history, philosophy, and theology.

Key Changes in the tenth editiOn

NEW Expanded Connect course with SmartBook. Connect is a highly reliable, easy-to-use homework and learning management solution that embeds learning science and award-winning adaptive tools to improve student results.

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PREFACE

LearnSmart is an adaptive learning program designed to help students learn faster, study smarter, and retain more knowledge for greater success. Distinguishing what students know from what they don’t, and focusing on concepts they are most likely to forget, LearnSmart continuously adapts to each student’s needs by building a personalized learning path. An intelligent adaptive study tool, LearnSmart is proven to strengthen memory recall, keep students in class, and boost grades.

The Humanities Through the Arts now offers two reading experiences for students and instructors: SmartBook and eBook. Fueled by LearnSmart, SmartBook is the first and only adaptive reading experience currently available. SmartBook™ creates a personalized reading experience by highlighting the most impactful concepts a student needs to learn at that moment in time. The reading experience continu- ously adapts by highlighting content based on what the student knows and doesn’t know. Real-time reports quickly identify the concepts that require more attention from individual students—or the entire class. eBook provides a simple, elegant read- ing experience, available for offline reading.

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PREFACE

Updated illustration program and contextual discussions. More than 30 percent of the images in this edition are new or have been updated to include fresh classic and contemporary works. New discussions of these works appear near the illustrations. The 200-plus images throughout the book have been carefully chosen and reproduced in full color when possible, resulting in a beautifully illustrated text. Newly added visual artists represented include painters Arte- misia Gentileschi, Diego Velasquez, Frederic Lord Leighton, Amedeo Modigliani, Winslow Homer, Morris Louis, Hokusai, Willem de Kooning, Jean-Honore Frag- onard, Arshile Gorky, Henry Wallis, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Arthur Hughes, William Holman Hunt, and John Waterhouse; sculptors Edgar Degas, Kara Walker, Magdalena Abakanowicz, and Naum Gabo; photographers Berenice Abbott, Nan Goldin, Paul Strand, Bruce Davidson, Carrie Mae Weems, Tina Barney, Wang Quinsong, and Bill Gekas; and video artists Pipilotti Riist and Bill Viola. Newly added film and television stills represent Michael Curtiz’s classic film Casablanca, the popular television shows Game of Thrones and The Americans, Orson Wells’s The Lady from Shanghai, Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Alejandro Inarritu’s The Revenant, and more.

Along with the many new illustrations and contextual discussions of the visual arts, film, and television, new works and images in the literary, dance, theatrical, and musical arts have been added and contextualized. These include works by Robert Herrick, John Masefield, Amy Lowell, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Donne, Wang Chang-Ling, Po Chu’i, John Millington Synge, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Frederic Chopin, Tupac Shakur, and the Batsheva Dance Company.

Increased focus on non-Western art and art by minority and female artists. This edition contains numerous new examples, including paintings (Artemesia Gentileschi’s Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting and Hokusai’s The Wave), sculpture (Kara Walker’s A Subtlety, or The Marvelous Sugar Baby and Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Bronze Crowd), architecture (the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Egypt), literature (Amy Lowell’s “Venus Transiens” and Po Chu’i’s T’ang dynasty poetry), theater (Lin-Manual Miranda’s Hamilton), dance (the Batsheva Dance Company), photography (Berenice Abbott, Nan Goldin, Carrie Mae Weems, Tina Barney, and Wang Quinsong), film (The Revenant), and television and video art (Pipilotti Riist).

PedagOgiCal Features

Four major pedagogical boxed features enhance student understanding of the genres and of individual works within the genres: Perception Key, Conception Key, Experiencing, and Focus On.

• The Perception Key boxes are designed to sharpen readers’ responses to the arts. These boxes raise important questions about specific works of art in a way that respects the complexities of the works and of our responses to them. The questions raised are usually open-ended and thereby avoid any doctrinaire views or dogmatic opinions. The emphasis is on perception and

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awareness, and how a heightened awareness will produce a fuller and more meaningful understanding of the work at hand. In a few cases our own in- terpretations and analyses follow the keys and are offered not as the way to perceive a given work of art but, rather, as one possible way. Our primary interest is in exciting our readers to perceive the splendid singularity of the work of art in question.

PERCEPTION KEY Chartres Cathedral 1. Form and function usually work together in classic architecture. What visible ex-

terior architectural details indicate that Chartres Cathedral functions as a church? Are there any visible details that conflict with its function as a church?

2. The two spires of the church were built at different times. Should they have been made symmetrical? What might be some reasons for their not being symmetrical?

3. What seem to be the primary values revealed by the rose window of Chartres? 4. How did the builders satisfy the fourth requirement of architecture: that the build-

ing be revelatory? What values does the exterior of the building reveal? 5. What is implied by the fact that the cathedral dwarfs all the buildings near it?

• We use Conception Key boxes, rather than Perception Key boxes, in certain instances throughout the book where we focus on thought and conception rather than observation and perception. Again, these are open-ended questions that involve reflection and understanding. There is no single way of responding to these keys, just as there is no simple way to answer the questions.

CONCEPTION KEY Theories Our theory of art as revelatory, as giving insight into values, may appear to be mired in a tradition that cannot account for the amazing developments of the avant-garde. Is the theory inadequate? As you proceed with this chapter, ask your- self whether the distinction between art and artlike is valid. How about useful? If not, what theory would you propose? Or would you be inclined to dismiss theories altogether?

• Each chapter provides an Experiencing box that gives the reader the opportunity to approach a specific work of art in more detail than the Perception Key boxes. Analysis of the work begins by answering a few preliminary questions to make it accessible to students. Follow-up questions ask students to think critically about the work and guide them to their own interpretations. In every case we raise major issues concerning the genre of the work, the background of the work, and the artistic issues that make the work demanding and important.

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• In each chapter of “The Arts” and “Interrelationships” sections of the book, we include a Focus On box, which provides an opportunity to deal in-depth with a group of artworks in context, the work of a single artist, or a single work of art. Many of the Focus On boxes are new to this edition, including those discuss- ing the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the Alhambra, Chinese poet Po Chu’i, the popular musical play Hamilton, the classic film Casablanca, and the critically ac- claimed television series The Americans. Each of these opportunities encourages in-depth and comparative study.

FOCUS ON The Alhambra The Alhambra (Figure 6-33) is one of the world’s most dazzling works of architecture. Its beginnings in the Middle Ages were modest, a fortress on a hilly flatland above Granada built by Arab invaders— Moors—who controlled much of Spain. In time, the fortress was added to, and by the fourteenth century the Nasrid dynasty demanded a sumptuous palace and King Yusuf I (1333–1352) began con- struction. After his death it was continued by his son Muhammad V (1353–1391).

While the needs of a fortress were still evident, in- cluding the plain massive exterior walls, the Nasrids wanted the interior to be luxurious, magnificent, and beautiful. The Alhambra is one of the world’s most astounding examples of beautifully decorated architecture. The builders created a structure that was different from any that had been built in Islam. But at the same time, they depended on many historical traditions for interior decoration, such as the Seljuk, Mughal, and Fatimid styles. Because Islam for- bade the reproduction in art of the human form, we see representations of flowers, plants, vines, and other natural objects in the midst of elaborate designs, including Arabic script.

The   aerial view (Figure 6-34) reveals the siting of the Alhambra rising above trees surrounding it. The large square structure was added much later by Charles V, after the Nasrid dynasty collapsed and the Moors were driven from Spain. 

FIGURE 6-33 The Alhambra, Granada, Spain. Circa 1370–1380. “Alhambra” may be translated as red, possibly a reference to the color of the bricks of its outer walls. It sits on high ground above the town.

©Daniel Viñé Garcia/Getty Images RF

EXPERIENCING  Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Ovid’s The Metamorphoses

1. If you had not read Ovid’s The Metamorphoses, what would you believe to be the subject matter of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne? Do you believe it is a less interesting work if you do not know Ovid?

One obvious issue in looking at this sculpture and considering Ovid’s treatment of Apollo and Daphne is that today very few people will have read Ovid before seeing the sculpture. In the era in which Bernini created the work, he expected it to be seen pri- marily by well-educated people, and in the seventeenth century, most educated people would have been steeped in Ovid from a young age. Consequently, Bernini worked in a classical tradition that he could easily rely on to inform his audience.

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suPPOrting resOurCes

Image Bank

Instructors can access a database of images from select McGraw-Hill Education art and humanities titles, including The Humanities through the Arts. Connect Image Bank includes all images for which McGraw-Hill Education has secured electronic permissions. Instructors can access a text’s images by browsing its chapters, style/ period, medium, and culture or by searching on key terms.

Instructors can also search for images from other McGraw-Hill Education titles included in the database. Images can easily be downloaded for use in presentations and in PowerPoints. The download includes a text file with image captions and information.

You can access Connect Image Bank under the library tab in Connect.

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 Easily rearrange chapters, combine material from other content sources, and quickly upload content you have written, such as your course syllabus or teach- ing notes, using McGraw-Hill Education’s Create. Find the content you need by searching through thousands of leading McGraw-Hill textbooks. Arrange your book to fit your teaching style. Create even allows you to personalize your book’s appearance by selecting the cover and adding your name, school, and course infor- mation. Order a Create book and you’ll receive a complimentary print review copy in three to five business days or a complimentary electronic review copy (eComp) via e-mail in about an hour. Experience how McGraw-Hill Education empowers you to teach your students your way. http://www.mcgrawhillcreate.com/

Question Bank

The Humanities through the Arts, tenth edition, includes a number of resources to assist instructors with planning and teaching their courses: an instructor’s manual, which offers learning objectives, chapter outlines, possible discussion and lecture topics, and more; a test bank with multiple-choice and essay questions; and a chapter-by-chapter PowerPoint presentation.

aCKnOwledgments

This book is indebted to more people than we can truly credit. We are deeply grate- ful to the following survey respondents for their help on this edition:

Micheal Jay Adamek, Ozarks Technical Community College; Larry Atkins, Ozarks Technical Community College; Michael Bajuk, Western Washington University; Michael Berberich, Galveston College; Bill Burrows, Lane Community College; Aaron

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Butler, Warner Pacific College Adult Degree Program; Linda Carpenter, Coastline Community College; Jordan Chilton, Ozarks Technical Community College; Patricia Dodd, Houston Community College; Laura Early, Highland Community College; Kristin Edford, Amarillo College; Jeremy R. Franklin, Colorado Mesa University; Diane Gaston, Cuyahoga Community College; Donna Graham, Ozarks Technical Community College; Daniel Hieber, Ozarks Technical Community College; Jennifer Keefe, Valencia College; Donny Leveston, Houston Community College; Susanna Lundgren, Warner Pacific College; Jimidene Murphey, Wharton County Junior College; Sven Pearsall, Alpena Community College; Debbi Richard, Dallas Baptist University; Matthew Scott, Ozarks Technical Community College; Timothy Soulis, Transylvania University; Peter C. Surace, Cuyahoga Community College; Normand Theriault, Houston Community College; Peter Utgaard, Cuyamaca College; Dawn Hamm Walsh, Dallas Baptist University; and Adrian S. Windsor, Coastline Community College

We also thank the following reviewers for their help shaping previous editions:

Addell Austin Anderson, Wayne County Community College District; David Avalos, California State University San Marcos; Bruce Bellingham, University of Connecticut; Eugene Bender, Richard J. Daley College; Michael Berberich, Galveston College; Barbara Brickman, Howard Community College; Peggy Brown, Collin County Community College; Lance Brunner, University of Kentucky; Alexandra Burns, Bay Path College; Bill Burrows, Lane Community College; Glen Bush, Heartland Community College; Sara Cardona, Richland College; Brandon Cesmat, California State University San Marcos; Selma Jean Cohen, editor of Dance Perspectives; Karen Conn, Valencia Community College; Harrison Davis, Brigham Young University; Jim Doan, Nova University; Jill Domoney, Johnson County Community College; Gerald Eager, Bucknell University; Kristin Edford, Amarillo College; D. Layne Ehlers, Bacone College; Jane Ferencz, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Roberta Ferrell, SUNY Empire State; Michael Flanagan, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Kathy Ford, Lake Land College; Andy Friedlander, Skagit Valley College; Harry Garvin, Bucknell University; Susan K. de Ghizee, University of Denver; Amber Gillis, El Camino College–Compton Center; Michael Gos, Lee College; M. Scott Grabau, Irvine Valley College; Lee Hartman, Howard Community College; Jeffrey T. Hopper, Harding University; James Housefield, Texas State University–San Marcos; Stephen Husarik, University of Arkansas–Fort Smith; Ramona Ilea, Pacific University Oregon; Joanna Jacobus, choreographer; Lee Jones, Georgia Perimeter College–Lawrenceville; Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice; Nadene A. Keene, Indiana University–Kokomo; Marsha Keller, Oklahoma City University; Paul Kessel, Mohave Community College; Edward Kies,College of DuPage; John Kinkade, Centre College; Gordon Lee, Lee College; Tracy L. McAfee, North Central State College; L. Timothy Myers, Butler Community College; Marceau Myers, North Texas State University; Martha Myers, Connecticut College; William E. Parker, University of Connecticut; Seamus Pender, Franklin Pierce College; Ellen Rosewall, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay; Susan Shmeling, Vincennes University; Ed Simone, St. Bonaventure University; C. Edward Spann, Dallas Baptist University; Mark Stewart, San Joaquin Delta College; Robert Streeter, University of Chicago; Peter C. Surace, Cuyahoga Community College; Robert Tynes, University of North Carolina at Asheville; Walter Wehner, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; and Keith West, Butler Community College.

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PREFACE

We want to thank the editorial team at McGraw-Hill for their smart and gener- ous support for this edition. Lead Product Developer Beth Tripmacher, along with Brand Manager Sarah Remington, oversaw the revision from inception through production. Product Developer Bruce Cantley guided us carefully through the pro- cess of establishing a revision plan and incorporating new material into the text. In all things he was a major sounding board as we thought about how to improve the book. We also owe thanks to Lead Content Project Manager Mary Powers, who oversaw the book smoothly through the production process; Tara McDermott, who oversaw the interior design in both the print and online versions of the text as well as the cover; Deb DeBord, who was an exceptionally good copyeditor; Content Licensing Specialist Carrie Burger, who oversaw the permissions process, along with Julie De Adder and Danny Meldung, who did a wonderful job researching and obtaining reprint rights for images; and Isabel Saraiva, who likewise did excellent work researching and clearing the rights for text reprints. All the wonderful people who worked on this book made our job easier and helped make this book distinc- tive and artistic.

a nOte FrOm the authOrs

Our own commitment to the arts and the humanities has been lifelong. One pur- pose of this book is to help instill a love of all the arts in its readers. We have faced many of the issues and problems that are considered in this book and, to an extent, we are still undecided about certain important questions concerning the arts and their relationship to the humanities. Clearly, we grow and change our thinking as we grow. Our engagement with the arts at any age will reflect our own abilities and commitments. But as we grow, we deepen our understanding of the arts we love as well as deepen our understanding of our own nature, our inner selves. We be- lieve that the arts and the humanities function together to make life more intense, more significant, and more wonderful. A lifetime of work unrelieved by a deep commitment to the arts would be stultifying and perhaps destructive to one’s soul. The arts and humanities make us one with our fellow human beings. They help us understand each other, just as they help us admire the beauty that is the product of the human imagination. As the philosopher Susanne K. Langer once said, the arts are the primary avenues to the education of our emotional lives. By our efforts in understanding the arts, we are indelibly enriched.

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THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

The humaniTies: a sTudy of Values Today we think of the humanities as those broad areas of human creativity and study, such as philosophy, history, social sciences, the arts, and literature, that are distinct from mathematics and the “hard” sciences, mainly because in the human- ities, strictly objective or scientific standards are not usually dominant.

The current separation between the humanities and the sciences reveals itself in a number of contemporary controversies. For example, the cloning of animals has been greeted by many people as a possible benefit for domestic livestock farmers. Genetically altered wheat, soybeans, and other cereals have been her- alded by many scientists as a breakthrough that will produce disease-resistant crops and therefore permit us to continue to increase the world food supply. On the other hand, some people resist such modifications and purchase food identified as not being genetically altered. Scientific research into the human

©RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY

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genome has identified certain genes for inherited diseases, such as breast cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, that could be modified to protect individuals or their off- spring. Genetic research also suggests that in a few years individuals may be able to “design” their children’s intelligence, body shape, height, general appearance, and physical ability.

Scientists provide the tools for these choices. Their values are centered in science in that they value the nature of their research and their capacity to make it work in a positive way. However, the impact on humanity of such a series of dramatic changes to life brings to the fore values that clash with one another. For example, is it a positive social value for couples to decide the sex of their offspring rather than following nature’s own direction? In this case who should decide if “designing” one’s offspring is a positive value, the scientist or the humanist?

Even more profound is the question of cloning a human being. Once a sheep had been cloned successfully, it was clear that this science would lead directly to the possibility of a cloned human being. Some proponents of cloning support the process because we could clone a child who has died in infancy or clone a ge- nius who has given great gifts to the world. For these people, cloning is a positive value. For others, the very thought of cloning a person is repugnant on the basis of religious belief. For still others, the idea of human cloning is objectionable be- cause it echoes the creation of an unnatural monster, and for them it is a negative value. Because this is a worldwide problem, local laws will have limited effect on establishing a clear position on the value of cloning of all sorts. The question of how we decide on such a controversial issue is at the heart of the humanities, and some observers have pointed to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s famous novel Fran- kenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus, which in some ways enacts the conflict among these values.

These examples demonstrate that the discoveries of scientists often have tre- mendous impact on the values of society. Yet some scientists have declared that they merely make the discoveries and that others—presumably politicians—must decide how the discoveries are to be used. It is this last statement that brings us closest to the importance of the humanities. If many scientists believe they cannot judge how their discoveries are to be used, then we must try to under- stand why they give that responsibility to others. This is not to say that scientists uniformly turn such decisions over to others, for many of them are humanists as well as scientists. But the fact remains that many governments have made use of great scientific achievements without pausing to ask the “achievers” if they approved of the way their discoveries were being used. The questions are, Who decides how to use such discoveries? On what grounds should their judgments be based?

Studying the behavior of neutrinos or string theory will not help us get closer to the answer. Such study is not related to the nature of humankind but to the nature of nature. What we need is a study that will get us closer to ourselves. It should be a study that explores the reaches of human feeling in relation to values—not only our own individual feelings and values but also the feelings and values of others. We need a study that will increase our sensitivity to ourselves, others, and the values in our world. To be sensitive is to perceive with insight. To be sensitive is also to feel and believe that things make a difference. Furthermore,

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it involves an awareness of those aspects of values that cannot be measured by objective standards. To be sensitive is to respect the humanities, because, among other reasons, they help develop our sensitivity to values, to what is important to us as individuals.

There are numerous ways to approach the humanities. The way we have chosen here is the way of the arts. One of the contentions of this book is that values are clar- ified in enduring ways in the arts. Human beings have had the impulse to express their values since the earliest times. Ancient tools recovered from the most recent Ice Age, for example, have features designed to express an affection for beauty as well as to provide utility.

The concept of progress in the arts is problematic. Who is to say whether the cave paintings (Figure 1-1) of 30,000 years ago that were discovered in present-day France are less excellent than the work of Picasso (Figure 1-4)? Cave paintings were probably not made as works of art to be contemplated. Getting to them in the caves is almost always difficult, and they are very hard to see. They seem to have been made for a practical purpose, such as improving the prospects for the hunt. Yet the work reveals something about the power, grace, and beauty of all the animals it portrayed. These cave paintings function now as works of art. From the beginning, our species instinctively had an interest in making revealing forms.

Among the numerous ways to approach the humanities, we have chosen the way of the arts because, as we shall try to elucidate, the arts clarify or reveal values. As we deepen our understanding of the arts, we necessarily deepen our understanding of values. We will study our experience with works of art as well as the values others

FIGURE 1-1 Cave painting from Chauvet Caves, France. Discovered in 1994, the Chauvet Caves have yielded some of the most astonishing examples of prehistoric art the world has seen. These aurochs may have lived as many as 35,000 years ago, while the painting itself seems as modern as a contemporary work.

©Javier Trueba/MSF/Science Source

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associate with them, and in this process we will also educate ourselves about our own values.

Because a value is something that matters, engagement with art—the illumina- tion of values—enriches the quality of our lives significantly. Moreover, the subject matter of art—what it is about—is not limited to the beautiful and the pleasant, the bright sides of life. Art may also include and help us understand the dark sides—the ugly, the painful, and the tragic. And when it does and when we get it, we are better able to come to grips with those dark sides of life.

Art brings us into direct communication with others. As Carlos Fuentes wrote in The Buried Mirror, “People and their cultures perish in isolation, but they are born or reborn in contact with other men and women of another culture, another creed, another race. If we do not recognize our humanity in others, we shall not recognize it in ourselves.” Art reveals the essence of our existence.

arT, CommerCe, and TasTe When the great paintings of the Italian Renaissance were being made, their ulti- mate value hinged on how good they were, how fully they expressed the values— usually religious but sometimes political—that the culture expected. Michelangelo’s great, heroic-sized statue of David in Florence was admired for its representation of the values of self-government by the small city-state as well as for its simple beauty of proportion. No dollar figure was attached to the great works of this pe- riod—except for the price paid to the artists. Once these works were in place, no one expressed admiration for them because they would cost a great deal in the marketplace.

Today the art world has changed profoundly and is sometimes thought to be art of an essentially commercial enterprise. Great paintings today change hands for tens of millions of dollars. Moreover, the taste of the public shifts constantly. Mov- ies, for example, survive or fail on the basis of the number of people they appeal to. Therefore, a film is often thought good only if it makes money. As a result, film producers make every effort to cash in on current popular tastes, often by making sequels until the public’s taste changes—for example, the Batman series (1989 to 2017). The Star Wars series (1977 to 2019 [projected]) cashed in on the needs of science-fiction fans whose taste in films is excited by the futuristic details and the narrative of danger and excitement of space travel. These are good films despite the emphasis on commercial success. But in some ways they are also limited by the demands of the marketplace.

Our study of the humanities emphasizes that commercial success is not the most important guide to excellence in the arts. The long-term success of works of art depends on their ability to interpret human experience at a level of complex- ity that warrants examination and reexamination. Many commercially successful works give us what we think we want rather than what we really need with refer- ence to insight and understanding. By satisfying us in an immediate and superfi- cial way, commercial art can dull us to the possibilities of complex, more deeply satisfying art.

Everyone has limitations as a perceiver of art. Sometimes we assume that we have developed our taste and that any effort to change it is bad form. The saying “Matters

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of taste are not disputable” can be credited with making many of us feel righteous about our own taste. What the saying means is that there is no accounting for what people like in the arts, for beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thus, there is no use in trying to educate anyone about the arts. Obviously we disagree. We believe that all of us can and should be educated about the arts and should learn to respond to as wide a variety of the arts as possible: from jazz to string quartets, from Charlie Chaplin to Steven Spielberg, from Lewis Carroll to T. S. Eliot, from folk art to Picasso. Most of us defend our taste because anyone who challenges it challenges our deep feelings. Anyone who tries to change our responses to art is really trying to get inside our minds. If we fail to understand its purpose, this kind of persuasion naturally arouses resistance.

For us, the study of the arts penetrates beyond facts to the values that evoke our feelings—the way a succession of Eric Clapton’s guitar chords playing the blues can be electrifying, or the way song lyrics can give us a chill. In other words, we want to go beyond the facts about a work of art and get to the values revealed in the work. How many times have we found ourselves liking something that, months or years before, we could not stand? And how often do we find ourselves now disliking what we previously judged a masterpiece? Generally we can say the work of art remains the same. It is we who change. We learn to recognize the values illuminated in such works as well as to understand the ways they are expressed. Such development is the meaning of “education” in the sense in which we have been using the term.

responses To arT Our responses to art usually involve processes so complex that they can never be fully tracked down or analyzed. At first they can only be hinted at when we talk about them. However, further education in the arts permits us to observe more closely and thereby respond more intensely to the content of the work. This is true, we believe, even with “easy” art, such as exceptionally beautiful works—for exam- ple, those by Giorgione (Figure 2-9), Cézanne (Figure 2-4), and O’Keeffe (Figure 4-12). Such gorgeous works generally are responded to with immediate satisfac- tion. What more needs to be done? If art were only of the beautiful, textbooks such as this would never find many users. But we think more needs to be done, even with the beautiful. We will begin, however, with three works that obviously are not beautiful.

The Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream (Figure 1-2) is a highly emotional painting, in the sense that the work seems to demand a strong emotional response. What we see is the huge head of a baby crying and, then, as if issuing from its own mouth, the baby himself. What kinds of emotions do you find stirring in yourself as you look at this painting? What kinds of emotions do you feel are expressed in the painting? Your own emotional responses—such as shock; pity for the child; irritation at a destructive, mechanical society; or any other nameable emotion—do not sum up the painting. However, they are an important starting point, since Siqueiros paints in such a way as to evoke emotion, and our understanding of the painting increases as we examine the means by which this evocation is achieved.

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FIGURE 1-2 David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican, 1896–1974, Echo of a Scream. 1937. Enamel on wood, 48 × 36 inches (121.9 × 91.4 cm). Gift of Edward M. M. Warburg. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Siqueiros, a famous Mexican muralist, fought during the Mexican Revolution and possessed a powerful political sensibility, much of which found its way into his art. He painted some of his works in prison, held there for his political convictions. In the 1930s he centered his attention on the Spanish Civil War, represented here.

©2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SOMAAP, Mexico City. Photo: ©The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

PERCEPTION KEY Echo of a Scream 1. What are the important distortions in the painting? 2. What effect does the distortion of the baby’s head have on you? 3. Why is the scream described as an echo? 4. What are the objects on the ground around the baby? How do they relate to the baby? 5. How does the red cloth on the baby intensify your emotional response to the painting?

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Study another work, very close in temperament to Siqueiros’s painting: The Eternal City by the American painter Peter Blume (Figure 1-3). After attending carefully to the kinds of responses awakened by The Eternal City, take note of some background infor- mation about the painting that you may not know. The year of this painting is the same as that of Echo of a Scream: 1937. The Eternal City is a name reserved for only one city in the world—Rome. In 1937 the world was on the verge of world war: Fascists were in power in Italy and the Nazis in Germany. In the center of the painting is the Roman Forum, close to where Julius Caesar, the alleged tyrant, was murdered by Brutus. But here we see fascist Blackshirts, the modern tyrants, beating people. In a niche at the left is a figure of Christ, and beneath him (hard to see) is a crippled beggar woman. Near her are ruins of Roman statuary. The enlarged and distorted head, wriggling out like a jack-in-the-box, is that of Mussolini, the man who invented fascism and the Black- shirts. Study the painting closely again. Has your response to the painting changed?

FIGURE 1-3 Peter Blume, 1906–1992, The Eternal City. 1934–1937. Dated on painting 1937. Oil on composition board, 34 × 47⅞ inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. Born in Russia, Blume came to America when he was six. His paintings are marked by a strong interest in what is now known as magic realism, interleaving time and place and the dead and the living in an emotional space that confronts the viewer as a challenge. He condemned the tyrant dictators of the first half of the twentieth century.

Art ©The Education Alliance, Inc./Estate of Peter Blume/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photo: ©The Museum of Modern Art/ Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

PERCEPTION KEY Siqueiros and Blume 1. What common ingredients do you find in the Blume and Siqueiros paintings? 2. Is your reaction to the Blume similar to or distinct from your reaction to the

Siqueiros? 3. Is the effect of the distortions similar or different? 4. How are colors used in each painting? Are the colors those of the natural world, or

do they suggest an artificial environment? Are they distorted for effect? 5. With reference to the objects and events represented in each painting, do you

think the paintings are comparable? If so, in what ways? 6. With the Blume, are there any natural objects in the painting that suggest the

vitality of the Eternal City? 7. What political values are revealed in these two paintings?

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Before going on to the next painting, which is quite different in character, we will make some observations about what we have said, however briefly, about the Blume. With added knowledge about its cultural and political implications—what we shall call the background of the painting—your responses to The Eternal City may have changed. Ideally they should have become more focused, intense, and certain. Why? The painting is surely the same physical object you looked at originally. Noth- ing has changed in that object. Therefore, something has changed because some- thing has been added to you, information that the general viewer of the painting in 1937 would have known and would have responded to more emotionally than viewers do now. Consider how a Fascist, on the one hand, or an Italian humanist and lover of Roman culture, on the other hand, would have reacted to this painting in 1937.

A full experience of this painting is not unidimensional but multidimensional. Moreover, “knowledge about” a work of art can lead to “knowledge of ” the work of art, which implies a richer experience. This is important as a basic principle, since it means that we can be educated about what is in a work of art, such as its shapes, objects, and structure, as well as what is external to a work, such as its political references. It means we can learn to respond more completely. It also means that artists such as Blume sometimes produce works that demand background informa- tion if we are to appreciate them fully. This is particularly true of art that refers to historical circumstances and personages. Sometimes we may find ourselves unable to respond successfully to a work of art because we lack the background knowledge the artist presupposes.

Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4), one of the most famous paintings of the twentieth century, is also dated 1937. Its title comes from the name of an old Spanish town that was bombed during the Spanish Civil War—the first aerial bombing of noncom- batant civilians in modern warfare. Examine this painting carefully.

FIGURE 1-4 Pablo Picasso, Guernica. 1937. Oil on canvas, 11 feet 6 inches × 25 feet 8 inches. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. Ordinarily Picasso was not a political painter. During World War II he was a citizen of Spain, a neutral country. But the Spanish Civil War excited him to create one of the world’s greatest modern paintings, a record of the German bombing of a small Spanish town, Guernica. When a Nazi officer saw the painting he said to Picasso, “Did you do this?” Picasso answered scornfully, “No, you did.”

©2017 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: ©Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

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PERCEPTION KEY Guernica 1. Distortion is powerfully evident in this painting. How does its function differ from

that of the distortion in Blume’s The Eternal City or Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream? 2. What are the most prominent objects in the painting? What seems to be the rela-

tionship of the animals to the humans? 3. The figures in the painting are organized by underlying geometric forms. What are

they and how do they focus your attention? Is the formal organization strong or weak?

4. How does your eye move across the painting? Do you begin at the left, the right, or the middle? This is a gigantic painting, over twenty-five feet long. How must one view it to take it all in? Why is it so large?

5. Some viewers have considered the organization of the images to be chaotic. Do you agree? If so, what would be the function of chaos in this painting?

6. We know from history that Guernica memorializes the Nazi bombing of the town of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. What is the subject matter of Guernica—what the work is about: War? Death? Horror? Suffering? Fascism? Or something else?

7. Which of these paintings by Blume, Siqueiros, and Picasso makes the most power- ful statement about the human condition?

The next painting (Figure 1-5), featured in “Experiencing: The Mona Lisa,” is by Leonardo da Vinci, arguably one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renais- sance. Da Vinci is a household name in part because of this painting. Despite the lack of a political or historically relevant subject matter, the Mona Lisa, with its tense pose and enigmatic expression, has become possibly the most famous work of art in the West.

EXPERIENCING The Mona Lisa

1. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the history of art. What, in your opinion, makes this painting noteworthy?

2. Because this painting is so familiar, it has sometimes been treated as if it were a cliché, an overworked image. In several cases it has been treated with satirical scorn. Why would any artist want to make fun of this painting? Is it a cliché, or are you able to look at it as if for the first time?

3. Unlike the works of Siqueiros, Blume, and Picasso, this painting has no obvious con- nections to historical circumstances that might intrude on your responses to its for- mal qualities. How does a lack of context affect your understanding of the painting?

4. It has been pointed out that the landscape on the left and the landscape on the right are totally different. If that judgment is correct, why do you think Leonardo made such a decision? What moods do the landscapes suggest?

5. The woman portrayed may be Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of a local busi- nessman, and the painting has long been known in Italy as La Gioconda. Is it necessary to our sense of participation that we know who the sitter is, or that we know that Leonardo kept this painting with him throughout his life and took it wherever he went?

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Structure and Artistic Form

Your responses to the Mona Lisa are probably different from those you have when viewing the other paintings in this chapter, but why? You might reply that the Mona Lisa is hypnotizing, a carefully structured painting depending on a subtle but basic geometric form, the triangle. Such structures, while operating subconsciously, are

Experiencing a painting as frequently reproduced as Mona Lisa, which is visited by millions of people every year at the Louvre in Paris, takes most of us some special effort. Unless we study the painting as if it were new to us, we will simply see it as an icon of high culture rather than as a painting with a formal power and a lasting value. Because it is used in advertisements and on mouse pads, playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, and a host of other banal locations, we might see this as a cliché.

However, we are also fortunate in that we see the paint- ing as itself, apart from any social or historical events, and in a location that is almost magical or mythical. The landscape may be unreal, fantastic, and suggestive of a world of mystical opportunity. Certainly it emphasizes mystery. Whoever this woman is, she is concentrating in an unusual fashion on the viewer, whether we imagine it is us or it is Leonardo whom she contemplates. A study of her expression reminds us that for generations the “Gioconda smile” has teased authors and crit- ics with its mystery. Is she making an erotic suggestion in that smile, or is it a smile of self-satisfaction? Or is it a smile of tol- erance, suggesting that she is just waiting for this sitting to be done? Her expression has been the most intriguing of virtually any portrait subject in any museum in the world. It is no sur- prise, then, that Leonardo kept this for himself, although we must wonder whether he was commissioned for the painting and for some reason did not want to deliver it.

The arresting quality of the painting is in part because of the enigmatic expression on Mona Lisa’s face, but the form of the painting is also arresting. Leonardo has posed her so that her head is the top of an isosceles triangle in which her face glows in contrast with her dark clothing. Her hands, expressive and radi- ant, create a strong diagonal, leading to the base of the triangle. Her shoulders are turned at a significant angle so that her pose is not really comfortable, not easy to maintain for a long time. However, her position is visually arresting because it imparts a tension to the entire painting that contributes to our response to it as a powerful object.

The most savage satirical treatment of this painting is the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. (see  Figure 14-15). By

parodying this work, Duchamp thumbed his nose at high culture in 1919, after World War I, and after the Mona Lisa had assumed its role as an epitome of high art. His work was an expression of disgust at the middle and upper classes, which had gone so enthu- siastically into a war of attrition that brought Europe to the verge of self-destruction.

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FIGURE 1-5 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa. Circa 1503–1506. Oil on panel, 30¼ × 21 inches. Musée du Louvre, Paris.  Leonardo’s most personal picture has sometimes been hailed as a psychologically powerful painting because of the power of Mona Lisa’s gaze, which virtually rivets the viewer to the spot. The painting is now protected under glass and, while always surrounded by a crowd of viewers, its small size proportional to its reputation has sometimes disappointed viewers because it is so hard to see. And in a crowd it is impossible to contemplate.

©RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY

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PERCEPTION KEY The Eternal City 1. Sketch the basic geometric shapes of the painting. 2. Do these shapes relate to one another in such a way as to help reveal the obscenity

of fascism? If so, how?

obvious on analysis. Like all structural elements of the artistic form of a painting, they affect us deeply even when we are not aware of them. We have the capacity to respond to pure form even in paintings in which objects and events are por- trayed. Thus, responding to The Eternal City will involve responding not just to an interpretation of fascism taking hold in Italy but also to the sensuous surface of the painting. This is certainly true of Echo of a Scream; if you look again at that painting, you will see not only that its sensuous surface is interesting intrinsically but also that it deepens your response to what is represented. Because we often respond to artistic form without being conscious that it is affecting us, the painter must make the structure interesting. Consider the contrast between the simplicity of the struc- ture of the Mona Lisa and the urgent complexity of the structures of the Siqueiros and the Blume.

The composition of any painting can be analyzed because any painting has to be organized: Parts have to be interrelated. Moreover, it is important to think carefully about the composition of individual paintings. This is particularly true of paintings one does not respond to immediately—of “difficult” or apparently uninteresting paintings. Often the analysis of structure can help us gain access to such paintings so that they become genuinely exciting.

Artistic form is a composition or structure that makes something—a subject matter—more meaningful. The Siqueiros, Blume, and Picasso reveal something about the horrors of war and fascism. But what does the Mona Lisa reveal? Perhaps just the form and structure? For us, structures or forms that do not give us insight are not artistic forms. Some critics will argue the point. This major question will be pursued throughout the text.

Perception

We are not likely to respond sensitively to a work of art that we do not perceive properly. What is less obvious is what we referred to previously—the fact that we can often give our attention to a work of art and still not perceive very much. The reason for this should be clear from our previous discussion. Frequently we need to know something about the background of a work of art that would aid our per- ception. Anyone who did not know something about the history of Rome, or who Christ was, or what fascism was, or what Mussolini meant to the world would have a difficult time making sense of The Eternal City. But it is also true that anyone who could not perceive Blume’s composition might have a completely superficial re- sponse to the painting. Such a person could indeed know all about the background and understand the symbolic statements made by the painting, but that is only part

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THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

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of the painting. From seeing what da Vinci can do with form, structure, pose, and expression, you can understand that the formal qualities of a painting are neither accidental nor unimportant. In Blume’s painting, the form focuses attention and organizes our perceptions by establishing the relationships between the parts.

absTraCT ideas and ConCreTe images Composition is basic in all the arts. Artistic form is essential to the success of any art object. To perceive any work of art adequately, we must perceive its structure. Ex- amine the following poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and consider the purpose of its shape. This is one of many shaped poems designed to have a visual formal structure that somehow illuminates its subject matter.

THE PILLAR OF FAME

Fame’s pillar here at last we set, Out-during marble, brass or jet;  Charmed and enchanted so  As to withstand the blow   Of    overthrow;   Nor shall the seas,   O r     O u t r a g e s   Of storms, o’erbear   W h a t w e u p r e a r ;   Tho’ Kingdoms fall,  T h i s   p i l l a r   n e v e r   s h a l l  Decline or waste at all; But stand forever by his own Firm and well-fixed foundation.

PERCEPTION KEY “The Pillar of Fame” 1. What is a pillar and in what art form are pillars used? 2. In what sense is fame the subject matter of the poem?  3. Herrick is using a number of metaphors in this poem. How many can you identify?

What seems to be their purpose? 4. In what sense is the shape of the poem a metaphor?  5. To whom does the word “his” in the last line refer?  6. The poem includes abstract ideas and concrete things. What is abstract here? And

what is the function of the concrete references?

Robert Herrick, a seventeenth-century poet, valued both honor and fame. During the English Civil War he lost his job as a clergyman because he honored his faith and refused to abandon his king. He hoped to achieve fame as a poet, in imitation of the great Roman poets. His “outrages” and “storms” refer to the war and the decade following, in which he stayed in self-exile after the “overthrow” of King Charles I. He portrayed fame as a pillar because pillars hold up buildings, and when the buildings become ruins pillars often survive as testimony to greatness. Herrick hoped his poem

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would endure longer than physical objects, such as marble, brass, and jet (a black pre- cious jewel made of coal), because fame is an abstraction and cannot wear or erode. Shaping the poem to resemble a pillar with a capital and a stylobate (foundation) is an example of wit. When he wrote poetry, one of Herrick’s greatest achievements was the expression of wit, a poetic expression of intelligence and understanding. This poem achieves the blending of ideas and objects, of the abstract and the concrete, through its structure. The poem is a concrete expression of an abstract idea.

In Paradise Lost, John Milton describes hell as a place with “Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death.” Now, neither you nor the poet has ever seen “shades of death,” although the idea is in Psalm 23, “the valley of the shadow of death.” Milton gets away with describing hell this way because he has linked the abstract idea of shades of death to so many concrete images in this single line. He is giving us images that suggest the mood of hell just as much as they describe the landscape, and we realize that he gives us so many topographic details in order to get us ready for the last detail—the abstract idea of shades of death.

There is much more to be said about poetry, of course, but on a preliminary level poetry worked in much the same way in the seventeenth-century England of Milton as it does in contemporary America. The same principles are at work: Described objects or events are used as a means of bringing abstract ideas to life. The descriptions take on a wider and deeper significance—wider in the sense that the descriptions are connected with the larger scope of abstract ideas, deeper in the sense that because of these descriptions the abstract ideas become vividly focused and more meaningful.

The following poem is highly complex: the memory of an older culture (simplic- ity, in this poem) and the consideration of a newer culture (complexity). It is an African poem by the contemporary Nigerian poet Gabriel Okara; and knowing that it is African, we can begin to appreciate the extreme complexity of Okara’s feelings about the clash of the old and new cultures. He symbolizes the clash in terms of music, and he opposes two musical instruments: the drum and the piano. They stand, respectively, for the African and the European cultures. But even beyond the musical images that abound in this poem, look closely at the images of nature, the pictures of the panther and leopard, and see how Okara imagines them.

PIANO AND DRUMS

When at break of day at a riverside I hear jungle drums telegraphing the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw like bleeding flesh, speaking of primal youth and the beginning, I see the panther ready to pounce, the leopard snarling about to leap and the hunters crouch with spears poised; And my blood ripples, turns torrent, topples the years and at once I’m in my mother’s lap a suckling; at once I’m walking simple paths with no innovations, rugged, fashioned with the naked warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts

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in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing. Then I hear a wailing piano solo speaking of complex ways in tear-furrowed concerto; of far-away lands and new horizons with coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint, crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth of its complexities, it ends in the middle of a phrase at a daggerpoint. And I lost in the morning mist of an age at a riverside keep wandering in the mystic rhythm of jungle drums and the concerto.

Reproduced from Gabriel Okara: Collected Poems, edited by Brenda Marie Osbey, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copy- right 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

PERCEPTION KEY “Piano and Drums” 1. What are the most important physical objects in the poem? What cultural signifi-

cance do they have? 2. Why do you think Okara chose the drum and the piano to help reveal the clash

between the two cultures? Where are his allegiances?

Such a poem speaks directly to legions of the current generation of Africans. But consider some points in light of what we have said earlier. In order to perceive the kind of emotional struggle that Okara talks about—the subject matter of the poem—we need to know something about Africa and the struggle African nations have in modernizing themselves along the lines of more technologically advanced nations. We also need to know something of the history of Africa and the fact that European nations, such as Britain in the case of Nigeria, once controlled much of Africa. Knowing these things, we know, then, that there is no thought of the “I” of the poem accepting the “complex ways” of the new culture without qualification. The “I” does not think of the culture of the piano as manifestly superior to the cul- ture of the drum. That is why the labyrinth of complexities ends at a “daggerpoint.” The new culture is a mixed blessing.

We have argued that the perception of a work of art is aided by background infor- mation and that sensitive perception must be aware of form, at least implicitly. But we believe there is much more to sensitive perception. Somehow the form of a work of art is an artistic form that clarifies or reveals values, and our response is intensified by our awareness of those revealed values. But how does artistic form do this? And how does this awareness come to us? In the next chapter we shall consider these ques- tions, and in doing so we will also raise that most important question, What is a work of art? Once we have examined each of the arts, it will be clear, we hope, that the principles developed in these opening chapters are equally applicable to all the arts.

Participate, analyze, and participate again with Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning (Figure 1-6).

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FIGURE 1-6 Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning. 1930. Oil on canvas, 35 × 60 inches. When the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased Early Sunday Morning in 1930, it was their most expensive acquisition. Hopper’s work, centered in New York’s Greenwich Village, revealed the character of city life. His colors— vibrant, intense—and the early morning light—strong and unyielding—created indelible images of the city during the Great Depression.

©Whitney Museum of American Art/akg-images

PERCEPTION KEY Early Sunday Morning 1. If you did not know the title of the painting, what emotions might it excite in you? 2. How does Hopper’s title, Early Sunday Morning, direct or enrich your emotional

response? 3. What are the concrete objects represented in the painting? Which are most obvi-

ous and visually demanding? Which provide you with the most information about the scene?

4. What abstract ideas are suggested by the painting? 5. Is this an urban or rural scene? Why is no one present in the painting? 6. Would the painting be any different if it were titled Early Wednesday Morning? 7. What is the subject matter of the painting?

On one level the subject matter is a city street scene. Packed human habitation is portrayed, but no human being is in sight (incidentally but noteworthy, a human figure originally placed behind one of the windows was painted out). We seem to be at the scene alone on New York’s Seventh Avenue. We seem to be strangely located across the street at about the level of the second-story windows. We see storefronts,

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concrete examples of business activity. But above the storefronts are windows, some with curtains, some open, some closed, implying the presence of people in their homes. The barber pole suggests a particular neighborhood. What is missing is people to make the street active. Are they at church? Or is the painting portraying loneliness of the kind that is sometimes associated with living in a city? Loneliness is usually accompanied by anxiety. And anxiety is expressed by the silent windows, especially the ominous dark storefronts, the mysterious translucent lighting, and the strange dark rectangle (what is it?) on the upper right. The street and buildings, despite their rectilinear format, seem to lean slightly downhill to the left, pushed by the shadows, especially the unexplainable, weird, flaglike one wrapping over the second window on the left of the second story. Even the bright barber pole is tilted to the left, the tilt accentuated by the uprightness of the door and window frames in the background and the wonderfully painted, toadlike fire hydrant. These subtle oddities of the scene accent our separateness.

summary Unlike scientists, humanists generally do not use strictly objective standards. The arts reveal values; other humanities study values. “Artistic form” refers to the struc- ture or organization of a work of art. Values are clarified or revealed by a work of art. Judging from the most ancient efforts to make things, we can assert that the arts represent one of the most basic human activities. They satisfy a need to explore and express the values that link us together. By observing our responses to a work of art and examining the means by which the artist evokes those responses, we can deepen our understanding of art. Our approach to the humanities is through the arts, and our taste in art connects with our deep feelings. Yet our taste is continually improved by experience and education. Background information about a work of art and increased sensitivity to its artistic form intensify our responses.

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©Fine Art Images/Superstock

C h a p t e r 2

WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?

No definition for a work of art seems completely adequate, and none is universally accepted. We shall not propose a definition here, therefore, but rather attempt to clarify some criteria or distinctions that can help us identify works of art. Since the term “work of art” implies the concept of “making” in two of its words—“work” and “art” (short for “artifice”)—a work of art is usually said to be something made by a person. Hence, sunsets, beautiful trees, “found” natural ob- jects such as grained driftwood, “paintings” by insects or songs by birds, and a host of other natural phenomena are not considered works of art, despite their beauty. You may not wish to accept the proposal that a work of art must be of human origin, but if you do accept it, consider the construction shown in Figure 2-1, Jim Dine’s Shovel.

Shovel is part of a valuable collection and was first shown at an art gallery in New York City. Furthermore, Dine is considered an important American art- ist. However, he did not make the shovel himself. Like most shovels, the one in his construction, although designed by a person, was mass-produced. Dine mounted the shovel in front of a painted panel and presented this construc- tion for serious consideration. The construction is described as “mixed media,” meaning it consists of several materials: paint, wood, a cord, and metal. Is Shovel a work of art?

We can hardly discredit the construction as a work of art simply because Dine did not make the shovel; after all, we often accept objects manufactured to spec- ification by factories as genuine works of sculpture (see the Calder construction,

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Figure 5-10). Collages by picasso and Braque, which include objects such as paper and nails mounted on a panel, are generally accepted as works of art. Museums have even accepted objects such as a signed urinal by Marcel Duchamp, one of the Dadaist artists of the early twentieth century, which in many ways antici- pated the works of Dine, Warhol, and others in the Pop Art movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

IdentIfyIng Art ConCeptuAlly Three criteria for determining whether something is a work of art are that (1) the object or event is made by an artist, (2) the object or event is intended to be a work of art by its maker, and (3) recognized experts agree that it is a work of art. Unfortunately, one cannot always determine whether a work meets these criteria only by perceiving it. In many cases, for instance, we may confront an object such as Shovel (Figure 2-1) and not know whether Dine constructed the shovel, thus not satisfying the first criterion that the object be made by an artist; or whether Dine intended it to be a work of art; or whether experts agree that it is a work of art. In fact, Dine did not make this particular shovel, but because this fact cannot be estab- lished by perception, one has to be told.

Identifying art conceptually seems to us as not very useful. Because someone intends to make a work of art tells us little. It is the made rather than the making that counts. The third criterion—the judgment of experts—is important but debatable.

IdentIfyIng Art perCeptuAlly Perception, what we can observe, and conception, what we know or think we know, are closely related. We often recognize an object because it conforms to our concep- tion of it. For example, in architecture we recognize churches and office buildings as distinct because of our conception of what churches and office buildings are sup- posed to look like. The ways of identifying a work of art mentioned in the previous

FIGURE 2-1 Jim Dine, Shovel. 1962. Mixed media. Using off- the-shelf products, Dine makes a statement about the possibilities of art.

©2017 Jim Dine/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. photo: Courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery

PERCEPTION KEY  Identifying a Work of Art 1. Why not simply identify a work of art as what an artist makes? 2. If Dine actually made the shovel, would Shovel then unquestionably be a work of

art? 3. Suppose Dine made the shovel, and it was absolutely perfect in the sense that it

could not be readily distinguished from a mass-produced shovel. Would that kind of perfection make the piece more a work of art or less a work of art? Suppose Dine did not make the shovel but did make the panel and the box. Then would it seem easier to identify Shovel as a work of art?

4. Find people who hold opposing views about whether Shovel is a work of art. Ask them to point out what it is about the object itself that qualifies it for or disqualifies it from being identified as a work of art.

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section depend on the conceptions of the artist and experts on art and not enough on our perceptions of the work itself.

We suggest an approach here that is simple and flexible and that depends largely on perception. The distinctions of this approach will not lead us necessarily to a definition of art, but they will offer us a way to examine objects and events with reference to whether they possess artistically perceivable qualities. And in some cases at least, it should bring us to reasonable grounds for distinguishing certain objects or events as art. We will consider four basic terms related primarily to the perceptual nature of a work of art:

“Artistic form”: the organization of a medium that results in clarifying some sub- ject matter “participation”: sustained attention and loss of self-awareness “Subject matter”: some value expressed in the work of art “Content”: the interpretation of subject matter

Understanding any one of these terms requires an understanding of the others. Thus, we will follow what may appear to be an illogical order: artistic form; partic- ipation; participation and artistic form; content; subject matter; subject matter and artistic form; and, finally, participation, artistic form, and content.

ArtIstIC form All objects and events have form. They are bounded by limits of time and space, and they have parts with distinguishable relationships to one another. Form is the inter- relationships of part to part and part to whole. To say that some object or event has form means it has some degree of perceptible unity. To say that something has artis- tic form, however, usually implies a strong degree of perceptible unity. It is artistic form that distinguishes a work of art from objects or events that are not works of art.

Artistic form implies that the parts we perceive—for example, line, color, texture, shape, and space in a painting—have been unified for the most profound effect pos- sible. That effect is revelatory. Artistic form reveals, clarifies, enlightens, and gives fresh meaning to something valuable in life, some subject matter. A form that lacks a significant degree of unity is unlikely to accomplish this. Our daily experiences usually are characterized more by disunity than by unity. Consider, for instance, the order of your experiences during a typical day or even a segment of that day. Compare that order with the order most novelists give to the experiences of their characters. One impulse for reading novels is to experience the tight unity that artistic form usually imposes, a unity almost none of us comes close to achieving in our daily lives. Much the same is true of music. Noises and random tones in every- day experience lack the order that most composers impose.

Since strong, perceptible unity appears so infrequently in nature, we tend to value the perceptible unity of artistic form. Works of art differ in the power of their unity. If that power is weak, then the question arises: Is this a work of art? Consider Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie (Figure 4-10) with reference to its artistic form. If its parts were not carefully proportioned in the overall structure of the paint- ing, the tight balance that produces a strong unity would be lost. Mondrian was so

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concerned with this balance that he often measured the areas of lines and rectan- gles in his works to be sure they had a clear, almost mathematical, relationship to the totality. Of course, disunity or playing against expectations of unity can also be artistically useful at times. Some artists realize how strong the impulse toward unity is in those who have perceived many works of art. For some people, the contempo- rary attitude toward the loose organization of formal elements is a norm, and the highly unified work of art is thought of as old-fashioned. However, it seems that the effects achieved by a lesser degree of unity succeed only because we recognize them as departures from our well-known, highly organized forms.

Artistic form, we have suggested, is likely to involve a high degree of perceptible unity. But how do we determine what is a high degree? And if we cannot be clear about this, how can this distinction be helpful in distinguishing works of art from things that are not works of art? A very strong unity does not necessarily identify a work of art. That formal unity must give us insight into something important.

Consider the news photograph—taken on one of the main streets of Saigon in Feb- ruary 1968 by eddie Adams, an Associated press photographer—showing Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, then South Vietnam’s national police chief, killing a Vietcong captive (Figure 2-2). Adams stated that his picture was an accident, that his hand moved the camera reflexively as he saw the general raise the revolver. The lens of the camera was set in such a way that the background was thrown out of focus. The blurring of the background helped bring out the drama of the foreground scene. Does this photograph have a high degree of perceptible unity? Certainly the experi- ence of the photographer is evident. Not many amateur photographers would have had enough skill to catch such a fleeting event with such stark clarity. If an amateur

FIGURE 2-2 Eddie Adams, Execution in Saigon. 1968. Silver halide. Adams captured General Loan’s execution of a Vietcong captive. He said later, “The general killed the Vietcong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world.”

©eddie Adams/Ap photo

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had accomplished this, we would be inclined to believe that it was more luck than skill. Adams’s skill in catching the scene is even more evident, and he risked his life to get it. But do we admire this work the way we admire Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream (Figure 1-2)? Do we experience these two works in the same basic way?

Compare a painting of a somewhat similar subject matter—Goya’s May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3). Goya chose the most terrible moment, that split second before the crash of the guns. There is no doubt that the executions will go on. The desolate mountain pushing down from the left blocks escape, while from the right the firing squad relentlessly hunches forward. The soldiers’ thick legs—planted wide apart and parallel—support like sturdy pillars the blind, pressing wall formed by their backs. These are men of a military machine. Their rifles, flashing in the bleak light of the ghastly lantern, thrust out as if they belonged to their bodies. It is unimag- inable that any of these men would defy the command of their superiors. In the dead of night, the doomed are backed up against the mountain like animals ready for slaughter. One man flings up his arms in a gesture of utter despair—or is it de- fiance? The uncertainty increases the intensity of our attention. Most of the rest of the men bury their faces, while a few, with eyes staring out of their sockets, glance out at what they cannot help seeing—the sprawling dead smeared in blood.

With the photograph of the execution in Vietnam, despite its immediate and pow- erful attraction, it takes only a glance or two to grasp what is presented. Undivided attention, perhaps, is necessary to become aware of the significance of the event, but not sustained attention. In fact, to take careful notice of all the details—such as the

FIGURE 2-3 Francisco Goya, May 3, 1808. 1814– 1815. Oil on canvas, 8 feet 9 inches × 13 feet 4 inches. The Prado, Madrid. Goya’s painting of Napoleonic soldiers executing Spanish guerrillas the day after the Madrid insurrection portrays the faces of the victims, but not of the killers.

©Copyright of the image Museo Nacional del prado/Art Resource, NY

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patterns on the prisoner’s shirt—does not add to our awareness of the significance of the photograph. If anything, our awareness will be sharper and more productive if we avoid such detailed examination. Is such the case with the Goya? We believe not. Indeed, without sustained attention to the details of this work, we would miss most of what is revealed. For example, block out everything but the dark shadow at the bottom right. Note how different that shadow appears when it is isolated. We must see the details individually and collectively, as they work together. Unless we are aware of their collaboration, we are not going to grasp fully the total form.

Close examination of the Adams photograph reveals several efforts to increase the unity and thus the power of the print. For example, the flak jacket of General Loan has been darkened so as to remove distracting details. The buildings in the background have been “dodged out” (held back in printing so that they are not fully visible). The shadows of trees on the road have been softened so as to lead the eye inexorably to the hand that holds the gun. The space around the head of the victim is also dodged out so that it appears that something like a halo surrounds the head. All this has been done in the act of printing sometime after the picture was taken. Careful printing helps achieve the photograph’s artistic formal unity.

Yet we are suggesting that the Goya has a higher degree of perceptible unity than Adams’s photograph, that perhaps only the Goya has artistic form. We base these conclusions on what is given for us to perceive: the fact that the part-to-part and the part-to-whole relationships are much stronger in the Goya. Now, of course, you may disagree. No judgment about such matters is indisputable. Indeed, that is part of the fun of talking about whether something is or is not a work of art—we can learn how to perceive from one another.

PERCEPTION KEY Adams and Goya 1. How is the painting different from Adams’s photograph in the way the details

work together?  2. Could any detail in the painting be changed or removed without weakening the

unity of the total design? What about the photograph? 3. Does the photograph or the painting more powerfully reveal human barbarity? 4. Do you find yourself participating more with the Adams photograph or the Goya

painting? 5. How does blurring out the buildings in the background of the photograph im-

prove its visual impact? Compare the effect of the looming architecture in the painting.

6. What do the shadows on the street add to the significance of the photograph? Compare the shadows on the ground in the painting.

7. Does it make any significant difference that the Vietcong prisoner’s shirt is checkered? Compare the white shirt on the gesturing man in the painting.

8. Is the expression on the soldier’s face, along the left edge of the photograph, appropriate to the situation? Compare the facial expressions in the painting.

9. Can these works be fairly compared when one is in black and white and the other is in full color? Why or why not?

10. What are some basic differences between viewing a photograph of a real man being killed and viewing a painting of such an event? Does that distinction alone qualify or disqualify either work as a work of art?

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pArtICIpAtIon Both Adams’s photograph (Figure 2-2) and the Goya (Figure 2-3) tend to grasp our attention. Initially for most of us, probably, the photograph has more pulling power than the painting, especially as the two works are illustrated here. In its setting in the prado in Madrid, however, the great size of the Goya and its powerful lighting and color draw the eye like a magnet. But the term “participate” is more accurately descriptive of what we are likely to be doing in our experience of the painting. With the Goya, we must not only give but also sustain our undivided attention so that we lose our self-consciousness—our sense of being separate, of standing apart from the painting. We participate. And only by means of participation can we come close to a full awareness of what the painting is about.

Works of art are created, exhibited, and preserved for us to perceive with not only undivided but also sustained attention. Artists, critics, and philosophers of art (aestheticians) generally are in agreement about this. Thus, if a work requires our participation in order to understand and appreciate it fully, we have an indication that the work is art. Therefore—unless our analyses have been incorrect, and you should satisfy yourself about this—the Goya would seem to be a work of art. Con- versely, the photograph is not as obviously a work of art as the painting, and this is the case despite the fascinating impact of the photograph. Yet these are highly tentative judgments. We are far from being clear about why the Goya requires our participation and the photograph may not. Until we are clear about these “whys,” the grounds for these judgments remain shaky.

Goya’s painting tends to draw us on until, ideally, we become aware of all the de- tails and their interrelationships. For example, the long, dark shadow at the bottom right underlines the line of the firing squad, and the line of the firing squad helps bring out the shadow. Moreover, this shadow is the darkest and most opaque part of the painting. It has a forbidding, blind, fateful quality, which in turn reinforces the ominous appearance of the firing squad. The dark shadow on the street just below the forearm of General Loan seems less powerful. Sustained attention or participation cannot be achieved by acts of will. The splendid singularity of what we are attending to must fascinate and control us to the point that we no longer need to will our attention. We can make up our minds to give our undivided attention to something. But if that something lacks the pulling power that grasps our attention, we cannot participate with it.

The ultimate test for recognizing a work of art, then, is how it works in us, what it does to us. Participative experiences of works of art are communions—experiences so full and fruitful that they enrich our lives. Such experiences are life-enhancing not just because of the great satisfaction they may give us at the moment but also because they make more or less permanent contributions to our future lives. Does da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (Figure 1-5) heighten your perception of a painting’s under- lying structure, the power of simplicity of form, and the importance of a figure’s pose? Does Robert Herrick’s “The pillar of Fame” (Chapter 1) affect your concept of fame? Do you see shovels differently, perhaps, after experiencing Shovel by Dine (Figure 2-1)? If not, presumably they are not works of art. But this assumes that we have really participated with these works, that we have allowed them to work fully in our experience, so that if the meaning or content were present, it had a chance to reveal itself to our awareness. Of the four basic distinctions—subject matter, artistic

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form, content, and participation—the most fundamental is participation. We must not only understand what it means to participate but also be able to participate. Otherwise, the other basic distinctions, even if they make good theoretical sense, will not be of much practical help in making art more important in our lives. The central importance of participation requires further elaboration.

As participators, we do not think of the work of art with reference to catego- ries applicable to objects—such as what kind of thing it is. We grasp the work of art directly. When, for example, we participate with Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4), we are not making geographical or geological observations. We are not thinking of the mountain as an object. If we were, Mont Sainte-Victoire would pale into a mere instance of the appropriate scientific categories. We might judge that the mountain is a certain type. But in that process, the vivid impact of Cézanne’s moun- tain would be lessened as the focus of our attention shifted beyond in the direction of generality. This is the natural thing to do with mountains if you are a geologist.

When we are participators, our thoughts are dominated so much by something that we are unaware of our separation from that something. Thus, the artistic form initiates and controls thought and feeling. We see the Cézanne—name it, identify its maker, classify its style, recall its background information—but this approach will not lead us into the Cézanne as a work of art. Of course, such knowledge can be very helpful, but only when it is under the control of our experience of participating with the painting. Otherwise, the painting will fade away. Its splendid specificity will be sacrificed for some generality. Its content or meaning will be missed.

FIGURE 2-4 Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire. 1886–1887. Oil on canvas, 23½ × 28½ inches. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Cézanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire in Aix, France, throughout his life. Local legend is that the mountain was home to a god and therefore a holy place.

©painting/Alamy

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These are strong claims, and they may not be convincing. In any case, before concluding our search for what a work of art is, let us seek further clarification of our other basic distinctions—artistic form, content, and subject matter. even if you disagree with the conclusions, clarification helps understanding. And understand- ing helps appreciation.

pArtICIpAtIon And ArtIstIC form The participative experience—the undivided and sustained attention to an object or event that makes us lose our sense of separation from that object or event—is induced by strong or artistic form. participation is not likely to develop with weak form be- cause weak form tends to allow our attention to wander. Therefore, one indication of a strong form is the fact that participation occurs. Another indication of artistic form is the way it clearly identifies a whole, or totality. In the visual arts, a whole is a visual field limited by boundaries that separate that field from its surroundings.

Both Adams’s photograph (Figure 2-2) and Goya’s painting (Figure 2-3) have visual fields with boundaries. No matter what wall these two pictures are placed on, the Goya will probably stand out more distinctly and sharply from its background. This is partly because the Goya is in vibrant color and on a large scale—eight feet nine inches by thirteen feet four inches—whereas the Adams photograph is nor- mally exhibited as an eight by ten-inch print. However carefully such a photograph is printed, it will probably include some random details. No detail in the Goya, though, fails to play a part in the total structure. To take one further instance, notice how the lines of the soldiers’ sabers and their straps reinforce the ruthless forward push of the firing squad. The photograph, however, has a relatively weak form be- cause a large number of details fail to cooperate with other details. For example, running down the right side of General Loan’s body is a very erratic line that fails to tie in with anything else in the photograph. If this line were smoother, it would connect more closely with the lines formed by the Vietcong prisoner’s body. The connection between killer and killed would be more vividly established.

Artistic form normally is a prerequisite if our attention is to be grasped and held. Artistic form makes our participation possible. Some philosophers of art, such as Clive Bell and Roger Fry, even go so far as to claim that the presence of artistic form—what they call “significant form”—is all that is necessary to identify a work of art. And by “significant form,” in the case of painting, they mean the interrela- tionships of elements: line to line, line to color, color to color, color to shape, shape to shape, shape to texture, and so on. The elements make up the artistic medium, the “stuff” the form organizes. According to Bell and Fry, any reference of these elements and their interrelationships to actual objects or events should be basically irrelevant in our awareness.

According to the proponents of significant form, if we take explicit notice of the executions as an important part of Goya’s painting, then we are not perceiv- ing properly. We are experiencing the painting not as a work of art but rather as an illustration telling a story, thus reducing a painting that is a work of art to the level of commercial communications. When the lines, colors, and the like pull to- gether tightly, independently of any objects or events they may represent, there is a significant form. That is what we should perceive when we are perceiving a

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work of art, not a portrayal of some object or event. Anything that has significant form is a work of art. If you ignore the objects and events represented in the Goya, significant form is evident. All the details depend on one another and jell, creating a strong structure. Therefore, the Goya is a work of art. If you ignore the objects and events represented in the Adams photograph, significant form is not evident. The organization of the parts is too loose, creating a weak structure. Therefore, the photograph, according to Bell and Fry, would not be a work of art. “To appreciate a work of art,” according to Bell, “we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowl- edge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions.”

Does this theory of how to identify a work of art satisfy you? Do you find that in ignoring the representation of objects and events in the Goya, much of what is important in that painting is left out? For example, does the line of the firing squad carry a forbidding quality partly because you recognize that this is a line of men in the process of killing other men? In turn, does the close relationship of that line with the line of the long shadow at the bottom right depend to some degree on that forbidding quality? If you think so, then it follows that the artistic form of this work legitimately and relevantly refers to objects and events. Somehow artistic form goes beyond itself, referring to objects and events from the world beyond the form. Artistic form informs us about things outside itself. These things—as revealed by the artistic form—we shall call the “content” of a work of art. But how does the artistic form do this?

Content Let us begin to try to answer the question posed in the previous section by examining more closely the meanings of the Adams photograph (Figure 2-2) and the Goya paint- ing (Figure 2-3). Both basically, although oversimply, are about the same abstract idea—barbarity. In the case of the photograph, we have an example of this barbarity. Since it is very close to any knowledgeable American’s interests, this instance is likely to set off a lengthy chain of thoughts and feelings. These thoughts and feelings, fur- thermore, may seem to lie “beyond” the photograph. Suppose a debate developed over the meaning of this photograph. The photograph itself would play an important role primarily as a starting point in a discussion of man’s inhumanity to man.

In the debate about the Goya, every detail and its interrelationships with other de- tails become relevant. The meaning of the painting may seem to lie “within” the paint- ing. And yet, paradoxically, this meaning, as in the case of the Adams photograph, involves ideas and feelings that lie beyond the painting. How can this be? Let us first consider some background information. On May 2, 1808, guerrilla warfare had flared up all over Spain. By the following day, Napoleon’s men were completely back in con- trol in Madrid and the surrounding area. Many of the guerrillas were executed. And, according to tradition, Goya portrayed the execution of forty-three of these guerrillas on May 3 near the hill of principe pio just outside Madrid. This background informa- tion is important if we are to understand and appreciate the painting fully.

The execution in Adams’s photograph was of a man who had just murdered one of General Loan’s best friends and had then knifed to death his wife and six children. The general was part of the Vietnamese army fighting with the assistance of the United States, and this photograph was widely disseminated with a caption describing the victim as a suspected terrorist. What shocked Americans who saw

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the photograph was the summary justice that Loan meted out. It was not until much later that the details of the victim’s crimes were published.

With the Goya, the background information, although very helpful, is not as es- sential. Test this for yourself. Would your interest in Adams’s photograph last very long if you completely lacked background information? In the case of the Goya, the background information helps us understand the where, when, and why of the scene. But even without this information, the painting probably would still grasp and hold the attention of most of us because it would still have significant meaning. We would still have a powerful image of barbarity, and the artistic form would hold us on that image. In the prado Museum in Madrid, Goya’s painting continually draws and holds the attention of innumerable viewers, many of whom know little or nothing about the rebellion of 1808. Adams’s photograph is also a powerful image, of course—and probably initially more powerful than the Goya—but the form of the photograph is not strong enough to hold most of us on that image for very long.

With the Goya, the abstract idea (barbarity) and the concrete image (the firing squad in the process of killing) are tied tightly together because the form of the paint- ing is tight. We see the barbarity in the lines, colors, masses, shapes, groupings, and lights and shadows of the painting itself. The details of the painting keep referring to other details and to the totality. They keep holding our attention. Thus, the ideas and feelings that the details and their organization awaken within us keep merging with the form. We are prevented from separating the meaning or content of the painting from its form because the form is so fascinating. The form constantly intrudes, how- ever unobtrusively. It will not let us ignore it. We see the firing squad killing, and this evokes the idea of barbarity and the feeling of horror. But the lines, colors, mass, shapes, and shadowings of that firing squad form a pattern that keeps exciting and guiding our eyes. And then the pattern leads us to the pattern formed by the victims. Ideas of fatefulness and feelings of pathos are evoked but they, too, are fused with the form. The form of the Goya is like a powerful magnet that allows nothing within its range to escape its pull. Artistic form fuses or embodies its meaning with itself.

In addition to participation and artistic form, then, we have come upon another basic distinction—content. Unless a work has content—meaning that is fused or em- bodied with its form—we shall say that the work is not art. Content is the meaning of artistic form. If we are correct (for our view is by no means universally accepted), artistic form always informs—has meaning, or content. And that content, as we experience it when we participate, is always ingrained in the artistic form. We do not perceive an artistic form and then a content. We perceive them as inseparable. Of course, we can separate them analytically. But when we do so, we are not hav- ing a participative experience. Moreover, when the form is weak—that is, less than artistic—we experience the form and its meaning separately.

PERCEPTION KEY Adams and Goya Revisited We have argued that the painting by Goya is a work of art and the photograph by Adams is questionable. Even if the three basic distinctions we have made so far— artistic form, participation, and content—are useful, we may have misapplied them. Bring out every possible argument against the view that the painting is a work of art and the photograph may not be a work of art.

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subjeCt mAtter The content is the meaning of a work of art. The content is embedded in the artistic form. But what does the content interpret? We shall call it subject matter. Content is the interpretation—by means of an artistic form—of some subject matter. Thus, subject matter is the fourth basic distinction that helps identify a work of art. Since every work of art must have a content, every work of art must have a subject matter, and this may be any aspect of experience that is of human interest. Anything related to a human interest is a value. Some values are positive, such as pleasure and health. Other values are negative, such as pain and ill health. They are values because they are related to human interests. Negative values are the subject matter of both Adams’s photograph (Figure 2-2) and Goya’s painting. But the photograph, unlike the painting, has no con- tent. The less-than-artistic form of the photograph simply presents its subject matter. The form does not transform the subject matter, does not enrich its significance. In comparison, the artistic form of the painting enriches or interprets its subject matter, says something significant about it. In the photograph, the subject matter is directly given. But the subject matter of the painting is not just there in the painting. It has been transformed by the form. What is directly given in the painting is the content.

The meaning, or content, of a work of art is what is revealed about a subject mat- ter. But in that revelation you must infer or imagine the subject matter. If someone had taken a news photograph of the May 3 executions, that would be a record of Goya’s subject matter. The content of the Goya is its interpretation of the barbarity of those executions. Adams’s photograph lacks content because it merely shows us an example of this barbarity. That is not to disparage the photograph, for its pur- pose was news, not art. A similar kind of photograph—that is, one lacking artistic form—of the May 3 executions would also lack content. Now, of course, you may disagree with these conclusions for very good reasons. You may find more trans- formation of the subject matter in Adams’s photograph than in Goya’s painting. For example, you may believe that transforming the visual experience in black and white distances it from reality while intensifying its content. In any case, such dis- agreement can help the perception of both parties, provided the debate is focused. It is hoped that the basic distinctions we are making—subject matter, artistic form, content, and participation—will aid that focusing.

subjeCt mAtter And ArtIstIC form Whereas a subject matter is a value—something of importance—that we may per- ceive before any artistic interpretation, the content is the significantly interpreted subject matter as revealed by the artistic form. Thus, the subject matter is never di- rectly presented in a work of art, for the subject matter has been transformed by the form. Artistic form transforms and, in turn, informs about life. The conscious in- tentions of the artist may include magical, religious, political, economic, and other purposes; the conscious intentions may not include the purpose of clarifying values. Yet underlying the artist’s activity—going back to cavework (Figure 1-1)—is always the creation of a form that illuminates something from life, some subject matter.

Artistic form draws from the chaotic state of life, which, as van Gogh describes it, is like “a sketch that didn’t come off ”—a distillation. In our interpretation, a work of art creates an illusion that illuminates reality. Thus, such paradoxical declarations as

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Delacroix’s are explained: “Those things which are most real are the illusions I create in my paintings.” Or edward Weston’s “The photographer who is an artist reveals the essence of what lies before the lens with such clear insight that the beholder may find the recreated image more real and comprehensible than the actual object.” Camus: “If the world were clear, art would not exist.” Artistic form is an economy that produces a lucidity that enables us better to understand and, in turn, manage our lives. Hence, the informing of a work of art reveals a subject matter with value dimensions that go beyond the artist’s idiosyncrasies and perversities. Whether or not Goya had idiosyncrasies and perversities, he did justice to his subject matter: He revealed it. The art of a period is the revelation of the collective soul of its time.

pArtICIpAtIon, ArtIstIC form, And Content participation is the necessary condition that makes possible our insightful percep- tion of artistic form and content. Unless we participate with the Goya (Figure 2-3), we will fail to see the power of its artistic form. We will fail to see how the details work together to form a totality. We will also fail to grasp the content fully, for artis- tic form and content are inseparable. Thus, we will have failed to gain insight into the subject matter. We will have collected just one more instance of barbarity. The Goya will have basically the same effect on us as Adams’s photograph except that it may be less important to us because it happened long ago. But if, on the contrary, we have participated with the Goya, we probably will never see such things as execu- tions in quite the same way again. The insight that we have gained will tend to refo- cus our vision so that we will see similar subject matters with heightened awareness.

Look, for example, at the photograph by Kevin Carter (Figure 2-5), which was published in the New York Times on March 26, 1993, and which won the pulitzer

FIGURE 2-5 Kevin Carter, Vulture and Child in Sudan. 1993. Silver halide. Carter saved this child but became so depressed by the terrible tragedies he had recorded in Sudan and South Africa that he committed suicide a year after taking this photograph.

©Kevin Carter/Sygma/Getty Images

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prize for photography in 1994. The form isolates two dramatic figures. The closest is a starving Sudanese child making her way to a feeding center. The other is a plump vulture waiting for the child to die. This powerful photograph raised a hue and cry, and the New York Times published a commentary explaining that Carter chased away the vulture and took the child to the feeding center. Carter committed suicide in July 1994.

Artistic Form: Examples

Let us examine artistic form in two examples of work by an anonymous cartoon- ist and Roy Lichtenstein. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lichtenstein became interested in comic strips as subject matter. The story goes that his two young boys asked him to paint a Donald Duck “straight,” without the encumbrances of art. But much more was involved. Born in 1923, Lichtenstein grew up before the invention of television. By the 1930s the comic strip had become one of the most important of the mass media. Adventure, romance, sentimentality, and ter- ror found expression in the stories of Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Superman, Wonder Woman, Steve Roper, Winnie Winkle, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Batman and Robin, and the like.

The purpose of the comic strip for its producers is strictly commercial. And be- cause of the large market, a premium has always been put on making the processes of production as inexpensive as possible. And so generations of mostly unknown commercial artists, going far back into the nineteenth century, developed ways of quick, cheap color printing. They developed a technique that could turn out car- toons like the products of an assembly line. Moreover, because their market in- cluded a large number of children, they developed ways of producing images that were immediately understandable and striking.

Lichtenstein reports that he was attracted to the comic strip by its stark simplicity—the blatant primary colors, the ungainly black lines that encircle the shapes, the balloons that isolate the spoken words or thoughts of the characters.

PERCEPTION KEY Adams, Goya, and Carter 1. How does our discussion of the Adams photograph affect your response to Carter’s

photograph? 2. To what extent does Carter’s photograph have artistic form?  3. Why are your answers to these questions fundamentally important in determining

whether Adams’s photograph, Carter’s photograph, Goya’s painting, or all of them are works of art?

4. Describe your experience regarding your participation with either Adams’s or Carter’s photograph or Goya’s painting. Can you measure the intensity of your participation with each of them? Which work do you reflect upon most when you relax and are not thinking directly on the subject of art?

5. The intensity of your reactions to the Adams and Carter photographs may well be stronger than the intensity of your experience with the Goya. If so, should that back up the assertion that the photographs are works of art?

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He was struck by the apparent inconsistency between the strong emotions of the stories and the highly impersonal, mechanical style in which they were expressed. Despite the crudity of the comic strip, Lichtenstein saw power in the directness of the medium. Somehow the cartoons mirrored something about ourselves. Lichten- stein set out to clarify what that something was. At first people laughed, as was to be expected.

However, Lichtenstein saw how adaptable the style was for his work. He pro- duced a considerable number of large oil paintings that, in some cases, referred specifically to popular cartoon strips. They were brash in much the same way cartoons are, and they used brilliant primary colors that were sensational and visually overwhelming. Much of his early work in this vein involved war planes, guns, and action scenes. For him the cartoon style permitted him to be serious in what he portrayed.

examine Figures 2-6 and 2-7. Lichtenstein saw artistic potential for the anony- mous cartoon panel with a woman tearing up in reaction to an unknown problem. Because these two representations of a sad woman are detached from the narrative in which the original cartoon appeared, we are left to respond only to the image we see. Lichtenstein did not expect that his painting would relate to any missing nar- rative: It was made to stand alone. However, the anonymous cartoon was created in greater haste partly because its significance would have been understood in a dramatic context.

FIGURE 2-7 Roy Lichenstein, Hopeless. 1963. Magna on canvas. 

©estate of Roy Lichtenstein

FIGURE 2-6 Anonymous cartoon panel.

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Hopeless treats an emotional moment that is familiar to everyone who has ever been involved in the breakup of a love affair. Comparing the two panels, it is clear that Lichtenstein has simplified the portrayal of the woman by making her hair light in color, thus changing the focal point of the image. In the cartoon the hair is the darkest form, taking up the most room and attention in the panel. Lichtenstein’s revision shifts the viewer’s attention to the face. By smoothing out the tone of the skin—by removing the mechanical “dots” in the cartoon version— he makes the face more visually prominent. The addition of the fingers gives the viewer the sense that the woman is holding on. By placing the balloon (with the dialogue) close to the woman’s ear and removing the background—very prominent in the cartoon—Lichtenstein gives the woman’s representation much more space in the panel. These are subtle differences, and while both panels treat the same subject matter, it seems to us that the content of the Lichtenstein is greater and more significant because his control of artistic form informs us more fully of the circumstances represented in the painting. Compare our analyses of these works. You may disagree with our view but, if so, make an effort to establish your own assessment of these two examples in terms of artistic form.

examine Figure 2-8, Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting.

PERCEPTION KEY Cartoon Panel and Lichtenstein’s Transformation 1. Begin by establishing which formal elements are similar or the same in both works.

Consider the shape of the face and hair, the features of the woman. 2. Then establish what Lichtenstein removed from the original cartoon. What seems

to you the most important omission? Does it strengthen or weaken the overall visual force of the work?

3. The power of the line makes cartoons distinct. Compare the strength of the line in each work. Which is more satisfying? Which is stronger?

4. What has Lichtenstein added to the composition? What has he changed from the original?

5. Is it fair to say one of these is a work of art and the other is not? Or would you say they are both works of art? 

6. Is either of these works an example of artistic form? How would you describe ar- tistic form?

7. Discuss with others who have seen these works what you and they think is their subject matter. Do they have the same content?

PERCEPTION KEY  Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting

1. Compare the painter’s arms. How effective is their contrast in terms of their movement and their pose?

2. How does the simplicity of the background help clarify the essential form of the painter? What are the most powerful colors in the compostion?

3. What is the figure actually doing? How does Gentileschi make us aware of her action?

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FIGURE 2-8 Artemisia Gentileschi, Rome 1593– Naples 1652, Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura). Circa 1638–1639. 

©Fine Art Images/Superstock

4. Place yourself in the same pose as Gentileschi. How would you paint yourself in that position?

5. What forms in the painting work best to achieve a visual balance? Which forms best express a sense of energy in the painting?

6. How does Gentileschi achieve artistic form? If you think she does not achieve it, explain why.

7. The painting is titled Allegory. Allegory is a special kind of symbol; what is this paint- ing a symbol for? Does it work for you as a symbol? 

8. How does answering these questions affect your sense of participating with the painting?

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We feel this is a particularly powerful example of artistic form. For one thing, Gentileschi’s challenge of painting her own portrait likeness in this pose is extraor- dinary. It has been supposed that she may have needed at least two mirrors to permit her to position herself. Or her visual memory may have been unusually powerful. Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most famous female artists of the seventeenth century. This painting was done in england for King Charles I and remains in the Royal Collection. The painting is an allegory, which is to say it represents the classical idea of the painter, which was expressed as female, pittura. Because no male painter could do a self-portrait as pittura, Gentileschi’s painting is singular in many respects. The color of her clothing—silken, radiant—is rich and appropriate to the painter. Her right arm is strong in terms of its being brilliantly lighted as well as strong in reach- ing out dramatically in the act of painting. Her clothing and decolletage emphasize her femininity. Her straggly hair and the necklace containing a mask (a symbol of imitation) were required by the conventional allegorical representations of the time describing pittura. The contrasting browns of the background simplify the visual space and give more power to the figure and the color of her garment. One powerful aspect of the painting is the light source. Gentileschi is looking directly at her paint- ing, and the painting—impossibly—seems to be the source of that light.

The subject matter of the painting seems to be, on one level, the idea of painting. On another level, it is the act of painting by a woman painter. On yet another level, it is the act of Artemisia Gentileschi painting her self-portrait. The content of the painting may be simply painting itself. On the other hand, this was an age in which women rarely achieved professional status as royal painters. The power of the phys- ical expression of the self-portrait implies a content expressing the power of woman, both allegorically and in reality. Artemisia is declaring herself as having achieved what was implied in having the allegory of painting expressed as a female deity.

As in the painting by Goya and the photograph by Adams, the arms are of great significance in this work. Instead of a representation of barbarity, the painting is a representation of art itself, and therefore of cultivated society. The richness of the garment, the beauty of Artemisia, and the vigor of her act of painting imply great beauty, strength, and power. We are virtually transfixed by the light and the urgency of the posture. Some viewers find themselves participating so deeply that they experience a kinesthetic response as they imagine themselves in that pose.

What significance does the artistic form of the painting reveal for you? How would you describe the content of the painting? Would the content of this painting be different for a woman than for a man? Would it be different for a painter than for a non-painter? What content does it have for you?

Subject Matter and Content

While the male nude was a common subject in Western art well into the Renaissance, images of the female body have since predominated. The variety of treatment of the female nude is bewildering, ranging from the Greek idealization of erotic love in the Venus de Milo to the radical reordering of Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. A number of female nude studies follow (Figures 2-9 through 2-18). Consider, as you look at them, how the form of the work interprets the female body. Does it reveal it in such a way that you have an increased understanding of and sensitivity to the female body? In other words, does it have content? Also ask yourself whether the content is different in the two paintings by women compared with those by men.

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FIGURE 2-9 Giorgione, Sleeping Venus. 1508– 1510. Oil on canvas, 43 × 69 inches. Gemaldegalerie, Dresden. Giorgione established a Renaissance ideal in his painting of the goddess Venus asleep in the Italian countryside.

©Superstock

FIGURE 2-10 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bather Arranging Her Hair. 1893. Oil on canvas, 363⁄8 × 291⁄8 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Chester Dale Collection. Renoir’s impressionist interpretation of the nude provides a late-nineteenth- century idealization of a real-life figure who is not a goddess.

Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Chester Dale Collection 35

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FIGURE 2-11 Venus de Milo. Greece. Circa 100 BCE. Marble, 5 feet 1⁄2 inch. Louvre, Paris. Since its discovery in 1820 on the island of Cyclades, the Venus de Milo has been thought to represent the Greek ideal in feminine beauty. It was originally decorated with jewelry and may have been polychromed.

©DeA picture Library/Art Resource, NY

FIGURE 2-12 Rokeby Venus. Circa 1647–1651. 48 × 49.7 inches (122 × 177 cm). National Gallery, London. Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus (Toilet of Venus) is an idealized figure of the goddess. Cupid holds a mirror for Venus to admire herself.

©VCG Wilson/Corbis/Getty Images

FIGURE 2-13 Tom Wesselmann, 1931–2004, Study for Great American Nude. 1975. Watercolor and pencil, 19½ × 54 inches. Private collection. Wesselmann’s study leaves the face blank and emphasizes the telephone as a suggestion of this nude’s availability in the modern world.

Art: ©estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. photo: ©Connaught Brown, London/Bridgeman Images

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FIGURE 2-14 Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. 1912. Oil on canvas, 58 × 35 inches. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection. This painting provoked a riot in 1913 and made Duchamp famous as a chief proponent of the distortions of cubism and modern art at that time.

©Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGp, paris/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2017. photo: ©philadelphia Museum of Art, philadelphia/Art Resource, NY

FIGURE 2-15 Standing Woman. Ivory Coast. Nineteenth or twentieth century. Wood and beads, 203⁄8 × 75⁄8 × 53⁄8 inches. Detroit Institute of Arts. Standing Woman was once owned by Tristan Tzara, a friend of Picasso. Sculpture such as this influenced modern painters and sculptors in France and elsewhere in the early part of the twentieth century. It is marked by a direct simplicity, carefully modeled and polished.

©Detroit Institute of Arts/Bridgeman Images

FIGURE 2-16 Suzanne Valadon, Reclining Nude. 1928. Oil on canvas, 235⁄8 × 3011⁄16 inches. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Robert Lehman Collection, 1975. Valadon interprets the nude simply, directly. To what extent is the figure idealized?

Source: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975/ The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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FIGURE 2-17 Alice Neel, Margaret Evans Pregnant. 1978. Oil on canvas, 57¾ × 38 inches. Collection, John McEnroe Gallery. Neel’s Margaret Evans Pregnant is one of a series of consciously anti-idealized nude portraits of pregnant women.

Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York/London. ©The estate of Alice Neel

FIGURE 2-18 Philip Pearlstein, Two Female Models in the Studio. 1967. Oil on canvas, 501⁄8 × 601⁄4 inches. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen B. Booke. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Pearlstein’s attention to anatomy, his even lighting, and his unsensuous surroundings seem to eliminate the erotic content associated with the traditional female nude.

Courtesy of the Artist and Betty Cuningham Gallery. photo: ©The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY

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WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?

Most of these works are highly valued—some as masterpieces—because they are powerful interpretations of their subject matter, not just presentations of the human body as erotic objects. Notice how different the interpretations are. Any important subject matter has many different facets. That is why shovels and soup cans have lim- ited utility as subject matter. They have very few facets to offer for interpretation. The female nude, however, is almost limitless. The next artist interprets something about the female nude that had never been interpreted before, because the female nude seems to be inexhaustible as a subject matter, more so perhaps than the male nude.

More precisely, these works all have somewhat different subject matters. All are about the nude, but the painting by Giorgione is about the nude as idealized, as a goddess, as Venus. Now there is a great deal that all of us could say in trying to describe Giorgione’s interpretation. We see not just a nude but an idealization that presents the nude as Venus, the goddess who the Romans felt best expressed the ideal of woman. She represents a form of beautiful perfection that humans can only strive toward. A description of the subject matter can help us perceive the content if we have missed it. In understanding what the form worked on—that is, the subject matter—our perceptive apparatus is better prepared to perceive the form-content, the work of art’s structure and meaning.

The subject matter of Renoir’s painting is the nude more as an earth mother. In the Venus de Milo, the subject matter is the erotic ideal, the goddess of love. In the Du- champ, it is a mechanized dissection of the female form in action. In the Wesselmann, it is the nude as exploited. In the Velazquez, the nude is idealized; however, with Cupid holding the mirror for Venus to admire herself, we sense a bit of coyness, perhaps a touch of narcissism. This painting is the only surviving nude by Velazquez. Because the Spanish Inquisition was in power when he painted, it was dangerous to have and dis- play this work in Spain. In 1813 it was purchased by an english aristocrat and taken to Rokeby park. In all eight paintings by men, the subject matter is the female nude—but qualified in relation to what the artistic form focuses upon and makes lucid.

The two paintings by Suzanne Valadon and Alice Neel treat the female nude somewhat differently than those painted by men. Neel’s painting emphasizes an aspect of femaleness that the men usually ignore—pregnancy. Her painting does not show the alluring female but the female who is beyond allure. Valadon’s nude is more traditional, but a comparison with Renoir and Giorgione should demonstrate that she is far from their ideal.

PERCEPTION KEY Ten Female Nudes 1. Which of these nudes is most clearly idealized? What visual qualities contribute

to that idealization? 2. Which of these nudes seem to be aware of being seen? How does their awareness

affect your interpretation of the form of the nude? 3. Nude Descending a Staircase caused a great uproar when it was exhibited in New

York in 1913. Do you feel it is still a controversial painting? How does it interpret the female nude in comparison with the other paintings in this group? Could the nude be male? Why not? Suppose the title were Male Descending or Body Descend- ing. Isn’t the sense of human movement the essential subject matter? continued

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CHApTeR 2 4. If you were not told that Suzanne Valadon and Alice Neel painted, would you have

known they were painted by women? What are the principal differences in the treatment of the nude figure on the part of all these artists? Does their work sur- prise you?

5. Decide whether Standing Woman is the work of a male artist or a female artist. What criteria do you use in your decision?

EXPERIENCING Interpretations of the Female Nude 1. Is there an obvious difference between the representations of the female nude by

male and female artists? 2. Does distortion of the human figure help distance the viewer from the subject? 3. To what extent does the represented figure become a potential sexual object?

Following are some suggestions for analysis. First, working backward, we can see that the question of the figure being a

sexual object is to a large extent parodied by Tom Wesselmann’s Study for Great American Nude. The style and approach to painting are couched in careful design, including familiar objects—the telephone, the rose, the perfume bottle, the sofa cushions, the partial portrait—all of which imply the boudoir and the commodifi- cation of women and sex. The figure’s face is totally anonymous, implying that this is not a painting of a woman but of the idea of the modern American woman, with her nipple carefully exposed to accommodate advertising’s breast fetish as a means of selling goods.

Even Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus, a painting whose subject is more sensual than ideal, is less a sexual object than Wesselmann’s. For one thing, her body is less revealed than Wesselmann’s, and her face, shown to us in a mirror, is looking at her reflection, sug- gesting that she is in command of herself and is not to be taken lightly. The colors in the painting are sumptuous and sensuous—rich red fabrics, an inviting bed, and a delighted boy-god Cupid. Since Cupid is the archer who causes people to fall in love, could it be that some of the subject matter is Venus loving herself? What does the form of the painting reveal to you in terms of its content?

Then, the question of the distortion of the subject is powerfully handled by Du- champ’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. This painting provoked a riot in 1913 because it seemed to be a contemptuous portrait of the nude at a time when the nude aesthetic was still academic in style. Duchamp was taunting the audience for art while also finding a modern technological representation of the nude on canvas that mimed the cinema of his time. Philip Pearlstein’s study of two nudes moves toward a de-idealization of the nude. He asks us to look at the nudes without desire, yet with careful attention to form and color.

Finally, we may partly answer the question of whether women paint nude females differently by looking at Suzanne Valadon’s and Alice Neel’s paintings. Neel represents Margaret Evans in a manner emphasizing her womanness, not her sexual desirability. Hers is the only pregnant female figure—emphasizing the power of women to create life. Valadon’s nude makes an effort to cover herself while looking at the viewer. She is relaxed yet apprehensive. There is no attempt at commodification of either of these figures, which means we must look at them very differently than the rest of the paint- ings represented here.

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WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?

Further Thoughts on Artistic Form

Artistic form is an organized structure, a design, but it is also a window opening on and focusing our world, helping us to perceive and understand what is import- ant. This is the function of artistic form. The artist uses form as a means to un- derstanding some subject matter, and in this process the subject matter exerts its own imperative. A subject matter has, as edmund Husserl puts it, a “structure of determination,” which to some significant degree is independent of the artist. even when the ideas of the artist are the subject matter, they challenge and resist, forcing the artist to discover their significance by discarding irrelevancies.

Subject matter is friendly, for it assists interpretation, but subject matter is also hostile, for it resists interpretation. Otherwise, there would be no fundamental stim- ulus or challenge to the creativity of the artist. Only subject matter with interesting latent or uninterpreted values can challenge the artist, and the artist discovers these values through form. If the maker of a work takes the line of least resistance by ignoring the challenge of the subject matter—pushing the subject matter around for entertaining or escapist effects instead of trying to uncover its significance—the maker functions as a decorator rather than an artist.

Whereas decorative form merely pleases, artistic form informs about subject mat- ter embedded in values that to an overwhelming extent are produced independently of the artist. By revealing those values, the artist helps us understand ourselves and our world, provided we participate with the work and understand the way artistic form produces content. The artist reveals the content in the work—the content is revealed to us through the act of participation and close attention to artistic form.

participation is a flowing experience. One thought, image, or sensation merges into another, and we don’t know where we are going for certain, except that what we are feeling is moving and controlling the flow, and clock time is irrelevant.

participation is often interrupted—someone moves in front of the painting, the telephone call breaks the reading of the poem, someone goes into a coughing fit at the concert—but as long as we keep coming back to the work as dominant over distraction, we have something of the wonder of participation.

summAry A work of art is a form-content. An artistic form is a form-content. An artistic form is more than just an organization of the elements of an artistic medium, such as the lines and colors of painting. The artistic form interprets or clarifies some subject matter. The subject matter, strictly speaking, is not in a work of art. When participating with a work of art, one can only imagine the subject matter, not perceive it. The subject matter is only suggested by the work of art. The interpretation of the subject matter is the content, or meaning, of the work of art. Content is embodied in the form. The content, unlike the subject matter, is in the work of art, fused with the form. We can separate content from form only by analysis. The ultimate justification of any analy- sis is whether it enriches our participation with that work, whether it helps that work “work” in us. Good analysis or criticism does just that. But, conversely, any analysis not based on participation is unlikely to be helpful. participation is the only way to get into direct contact with the form-content, so any analysis that is not based upon a participative experience inevitably misses the work of art. participation and good analysis, although necessarily occurring at different times, end up hand in hand.

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©2017 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: ©Fine Art Images/agefotostock

C h a p t e r 3

BEING A CRITIC OF THE ARTS

The goals of responsible criticism aim for the fullest understanding and par-ticipation possible. Being a responsible critic demands being at the height of awareness while examining a work of art in detail, establishing its context, and clarifying its achievement. It is not to be confused with popular journalism, which can sidetrack the critic into being flashy, negative, and cute. The critic aims at a full understanding of a work of art.

You Are AlreAdY An Art CritiC On a practical level, everyday criticism is an act of choice. You decide to change from one program to another on television because you have made a critical choice. When you find that certain programs please you more than others, that, too, is a matter of expressing choices. If you decide that Albert Inaurrato’s film Revenant is better than John Ford’s film The Searchers, you have made a crit- ical choice. When you stop to admire a powerful piece of architecture while ignoring a nearby building, you have again made a critical choice. You are ac- tive every day in art criticism of one kind or another. Most of the time it is low-level criticism, almost instinctive, establishing your preferences in music, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, film, and video art. You have made such judgments since you were young. The question now is how to move on to

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BEING A CRITIC OF THE ARTS

a higher-level criticism that accounts for the subtlest distinctions in the arts and therefore the most-complex choices.

What qualifies us to make critical distinctions when we are young and unin- formed about art? Usually it is a matter of simple pleasure. Art is designed to give us pleasure, and for most children the most pleasurable art is simple: representa- tional painting, lyrical and tuneful melodies, recognizable sculpture, light verse, action stories, and animated videos. It is another thing to move from that pleasur- able beginning to account for what may be higher-level pleasures, such as those in Cézanne’s still lifes, Beethoven’s symphonies, Jean Arp’s sculpture Growth, Amy Lowell’s poem “Venus Transiens,” Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex, or David Si- mon’s video triumph The Wire. One of the purposes of this chapter is to point to the kinds of critical acts that help us expand our repertoire of responses to the arts.

PArtiCiPAtion And CritiCism Participation with a work of art is complex but also sometimes immediate. Partici- pation is an essential act that makes art significant in our lives. We have described it as a loss of self, by which we mean that when contemplating, or experiencing, a work of art we tend to become one with the experience. As in films such as Citizen Kane, Thelma and Louise, or Dunkirk, we become one with the narrative and lose a sense of our physical space. We can also achieve a sense of participation with paint- ing, music, and the other arts. The question is not so much how we become outside ourselves in relation to the arts, but why we may not achieve that condition in the face of art that we know has great power but does not yet speak to us. Developing critical skills will help bridge that gap and allow participation with art that may not be immediately appealing. In essence, that is the purpose of an education in the arts.

Patience and perception are the keys to beginning high-level criticism. Using painting as an example, it is clear that careful perceptions of color, rhythm, line, form, and balance are useful in understanding the artistic form and its resultant content. Our discussion of Goya’s May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3) in terms of the empha- sis of the line at the bottom of the painting and the power of the lines formed by the soldiers’ rifles, while in contrast with the white blouse of one of the men being executed, helps us perceive the painting’s artistic form. Coming to such a huge and demanding painting with enough patience to stand and perceive the underly- ing formal structures, while seeing the power of the color and details designed to heighten our awareness of the significance of the action, makes it possible to achieve participation. From there it is possible to go back to the Eddie Adams photograph Execution in Saigon (Figure 2-2) and decide whether the same kind of participation is possible and whether the formal significance of the photograph is comparable. Any decision we make in this context is an act of art criticism.

three Kinds of CritiCism We point to three kinds of criticism that aim toward increasing our ability to partic- ipate with works of art. In Chapter 2, we argued that a work of art is a form-content and that good criticism, which involves careful examination and thoughtful analysis,

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will sharpen our perception and deepen our understanding. Descriptive criticism aims at a careful accounting of the formal elements in the work. As its name implies, this stage of criticism is marked by an examination of the large formal elements as well as the details in the composition. Interpretive criticism focuses on the content of the work, the discovery of which requires reflection on how the formal elements transform the subject matter. Evaluative criticism, on the other hand, is an effort to qualify the relative merits of a work.

Descriptive Criticism

Descriptive criticism concentrates on the form of a work of art, describing, some- times exhaustively, the important characteristics of that form in order to improve our understanding of the part-to-part and part-to-whole interrelationships. At first glance this kind of criticism may seem unnecessary. After all, the form is all there, completely given—all we have to do is observe. Yet we can spend time attending to a work we are very much interested in and still not perceive all there is to perceive. We miss things, often things that are right there for us to observe.

Good descriptive critics call our attention to what we otherwise might miss in an artistic form. And more important, they help us learn how to do their work when they are not around. We can, if we carefully attend to descriptive criticism, develop and enhance our own powers of observation. Descriptive criticism, more than any other type, is most likely to improve our participation with a work of art, for such criticism turns us directly to the work itself.

Study Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper (Figure 3-1), damaged by repeated res- torations. Leonardo unfortunately experimented with dry fresco, which, as in this case, deteriorates rapidly. Still, even in its present condition, this painting can be overwhelming.

CONCEPTION KEY Kinds of Criticism 1. In Chapter 2, which portions of the discussion of Goya’s May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3)

and Adams’s Execution in Saigon (Figure 2-2) are descriptive criticism? How do they help you better perceive the formal elements of the works?

2. Comment on the usefulness of the descriptive criticism of Robert Herrick’s poem “The Pillar of Fame” in Chapter 1. When does that discussion become interpretive criticism?

3. “Experiencing: Interpretations of the Female Nude” (Figures 2-9 through 2-18) in- troduces a series of interpretive criticisms of some of the paintings in the chapter. Which of these interpretations, in your opinion, is most successful in sharpening your awareness of the content of the painting? What are the most useful interpre- tive techniques used in the discussion of the paintings of female nudes?

4. Evaluative criticism is used in Chapters 1 and 2. To what extent are you most en- lightened by this form of criticism in our discussion of the Goya painting and the Adams photograph? 

5. In what other discussions in this book do you find evaluative criticism? How often do you practice it on your own while examining the works in this book?

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Leonardo planned the fresco so that the perspectival vanishing point would re- side in the head of Jesus, the central figure in the painting (Figure 3-2). He also used the concept of the trinity, in the number 3, as he grouped each of the disciples in threes, two groups on each side of the painting. Were you to diagram them, you would see they form the basis of triangles. The three windows in the back wall also repeat the idea of three. The figure of Jesus is itself a perfect isosceles triangle, while the red and blue garment centers the eye. In some paintings, this kind of archi- tectonic organization might be much too static, but because Leonardo gathers the figures in dramatic poses, with facial expressions that reveal apparent emotions, the viewer is distracted from the formal organization while being subliminally affected by its perfection. It seems that perfection—appropriate to his subject matter—was what Leonardo aimed at in creating the underlying structure of the fresco. Judas, the disciple who will betray Jesus, is the fourth figure from the left, his face in shadow, pulling back in shock.

FIGURE 3-1 Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper. Circa 1495–1498. Oil and tempera on plaster, 15 feet 11⁄8 inches × 28 feet 101⁄2 inches. Refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Leonardo’s painting was one of many on this subject, but his is the first to represent recognizably human figures with understandable facial expressions. This is the dramatic moment when Jesus tells his disciples that one of them will betray him.

©Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

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PERCEPTION KEY Last Supper Descriptively criticize the Last Supper. Point out every facet of form that seems im- portant. Look for shapes that relate to each other, including shapes formed by group- ings of figures. Do any shapes stand out as unique—for example, the shapes of Christ and Judas, who leans back, fourth from the left? Describe the color relationships. Describe the symmetry, if any. Describe how the lines tend to meet in the landscape behind Christ’s head.

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Detail and Structural Relationships When we address a painting we concern our- selves both with the structural relationships and the detail that control our visual attention. For example, the dominant structures in the Last Supper are the white rectangular table cloth contrasting with the high receding white walls that create the single-point vanishing perspective ending in the head of Jesus. These dynamic lines of force imply a dramatic moment. As you examine the painting and consider the following discussion, decide whether the relationship of structural elements or detail elements is dominant in how you see this painting.

When we talk about details, we are concerned with how the smaller elements of the work function together. For example, in the Last Supper, we see that the figure of Jesus at the center is a geometric shape, an isosceles triangle. Within this painting, this triangle constitutes a detail. Moreover, when examining the paint- ing for more details, we see that all the apostles are grouped in patterns of three. However, their triangular shapes are not as perfect as the center triangle. If you draw the implied triangle for any other group of three, you will see that it is not isosceles, but somewhat misshapen. Perfection in this painting is reserved for only one figure.

In examining other details in the painting we see that the three open windows in the rear are details that replicate the idea of three, echoing the three lines of the triangle. The four tapestries on each wall act as background, but may refer to the traditional “perfect” number, eight, which signifies the new beginning. (The eight white keys on a piano illustrate that idea: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C.)

The triangular figure of Jesus, with red and blue garments, in the center of the Last Supper is a dominant settling force for the eye, but it contrasts immediately with the other triangular arrangements of the apostles. Among other contrasting details are the colors of the garments of the apostles. They are paler complementary

FIGURE 3-2 The Last Supper is geometrically arranged with the single-point vanishing perspective centered on the head of Jesus. The basic organizing form for the figures in the painting is the triangle. Leonardo aimed at geometric perfection.

©Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

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colors of red, blue, and ochre, competing with the dominant darkness of the rear wall and the tapestries on the left and right walls. Observing the apostles’s colored garments and their less than equilateral triangular grouping is important for inter- preting their relationship to the main figure in the painting and its main dramatic moment.

In Jackson Pollock’s The Flame (Figure 3-3), the details of the flames, in the brilliant reds, the orange-whites, and the deep contrasts in the blacks of the composition, are so vigorous that on first inspection it is difficult to see the forms that begin to appear. If we did not know the name of the painting, we might have no idea whether some- thing is being represented or if the painting is an example of abstraction, a style for which Pollock was usually known. But closer examination shows the formal order in the center of the painting, creating a triangular structure controlled by the angular red flames rising to the top center. The central flame in orange-white seems to rise from two angular forms in white (possibly parts of a skeleton?) that angle down in the middle, the base for the central flames. All the detailed shapes angle upward, as we expect fire to do. The subject matter of the painting is flame, but the intensity of the colors and the power of the contrasts of black, white, and red reveal an energy in the flame that suggests something dreadful. If this were a painting made in the Mid- dle Ages, we would assume it an allusion to the pits of hell. However, Pollock was influenced in 1936 by the work of José Clemente Orozco portraying war in Mexico

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FIGURE 3-3 Jackson Pollock, The Flame (1934– 1938). Oil on canvas mounted on fiberboard, 201⁄2 × 30 inches (51.1 × 76.2 cm). Enid A. Haupt Fund. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.

©2017 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: ©Fine Art Images/agefotostock

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and threats to civilization. Destruction and skeletons figure in much of Orozco’s work in the 1930s. Could the content of the painting point to an apocalypse?

Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4) is more or less balanced with respect to detail and structure. The detail relationships are organized into three major regions: the great triangle—with the apex at the candle and two sides sloping down to the lower cor- ners—and the two large rectangles, vertically oriented, running down along the left and right borders. Moreover, these regions are hierarchically ordered. The triangu- lar region takes precedence in both size and interest, and the left rectangle, mainly because of the fascination of the impassive bull (what is he doing here?), dominates the right rectangle, even though both are about the same size. Despite the complex- ity of the detail relationships in Guernica, we gradually perceive the power of a very strong, clear structure.

The basic formal element in Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (Figure 1-5) is the isosceles triangle, but in this portrait the roundness of the three points of the triangle soften the impact of the form. We are drawn to the hands, which are crossed in such a way as to create an “upside down” triangle with the elbows and the other points. The flesh of her neck and bosom creates another triangle, while her oval face dominates the composition. Naturally her smile has been an enigma because it implies an understanding between the painter and the model. Its enigmatic quality is echoed slightly by the strange landscapes in the background—they carefully avoid any sta- ble geometric figure as a way of contrast. Return to the discussion of this painting in “Experiencing: The Mona Lisa” in Chapter 1 and consider the descriptive criticism offered there.

Interpretive Criticism

Interpretive criticism explicates the content of a work of art. It helps us under- stand how form transforms subject matter into content: what has been revealed about some subject matter and how that has been accomplished. The content of any work of art will become clearer when the structure is perceived in relation to the details and regions. The Le Corbusier and Sullivan examples (Figures 3-4 and 3-5) demonstrate that the same principle holds for architecture as for painting. The subject matter of a building—or at least an important component of it—is tradition- ally the practical function the building serves. We have no difficulty telling which of these buildings was meant to serve as a bank and which was meant to serve as a church.

PERCEPTION KEY Detail and Structural Dominance 1. In the Last Supper, do you find that detail or structural relationships dominate—or

are equal? Which analysis, of structure or detail, yields the most understanding of the painting’s content?

2. Whether detail or structural relationships dominate—or are equal—often var- ies widely from work to work. Compare Pollock’s The Flame, Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4), and Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (Figure 1-5). In which painting or paintings, if any, do detail relationships dominate? Structural relationships?

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BEING A CRITIC OF THE ARTS

Form-Content The interpretive critic’s job is to find out as much about an artistic form as possible in order to explain its meaning. This is a particularly useful task for the critic—which is to say, for us as critics—since the forms of numerous works of art seem important but are not immediately understandable. When we look at the examples of the bank and the church, we ought to realize that the significance of these buildings is expressed by means of the form-content. It is true that without knowing the functions of these buildings we could appreciate them as structures without special functions, but knowing about their functions deepens our apprecia- tion. Thus, the lofty arc of Le Corbusier’s roof soars heavenward more mightily when we recognize the building as a church. The form moves our eyes upward. For a Chris- tian church, such a reference is perfect. The bank, however, looks like a pile of square coins or banknotes and moves our eyes downward. Certainly the form “amasses”

FIGURE 3-4 Le Corbusier, Notre Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamps, France. 1950–1955. The chapel is built on a hill where a pilgrimage chapel was destroyed during the Second World War. Le Corbusier used soaring lines to lift the viewer’s eyes to the heavens and the surrounding horizon, visible on all four sides.

©F.L.C./ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2017. Photo: ©AWBT/Shutterstock RF

FIGURE 3-5 Louis Henry Sullivan, Guaranty (Prudential) Building, Buffalo, New York. 1894. Sullivan’s building, among the first high-rise structures, was made possible by the use of mass-produced steel girders supporting the weight of each floor.

©Buffalo History Museum

PERCEPTION KEY Le Corbusier and Sullivan 1. If you had not been told, would you know that Le Corbusier’s building is a church?

Now, having been told, which structural details help identify it as a church? 2. Which of these buildings better uses its basic structure to suggest solidity? Which

better uses formal patterns to suggest flight and motion? 3. In which of these buildings does detail better complement the overall structure? 4. Comment on how the formal values of these buildings contribute to their content

as serving their established functions as bank and church. 5. One of these buildings is symmetrical and one is not. Symmetry is often praised in

nature as a constituent of beauty. How important is symmetry in evaluating these buildings?

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something, an appropriate suggestion for a bank. We will not belabor these exam- ples, since it should be fun for you to do this kind of critical job yourself. Observe how much more you get out of these examples of architecture when you consider each form in relation to its meaning—that is, the form as form-content. Furthermore, such analyses should convince you that interpretive criticism operates in a vacuum unless it is based on descriptive criticism. Unless we perceive the form with sensitivity—and this means that we have the basis for good descriptive criticism—we simply cannot understand the content. In turn, any interpretive criticism will be useless.

Participate with a poem by William Butler Yeats:

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Source: William Butler Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” The Collected Works in the Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats, Volume 8 (of 8). Project Gutenberg.

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” is a lyric written from the first person, “I.” Its three stanzas of four lines each rhyme in simple fashion with full vowel sounds, and as a result, the poem lends itself to being sung, as indeed it has often been set to music. The poet portrays himself as a simple person preferring the simple life. The descrip- tive critic will notice the basic formal qualities of the poem: simple rhyme, steady meter, the familiar quatrain stanza structure. But the critic will also move further to talk about the imagery in the poem: the image of the simply built cabin, the small garden with bean rows, the bee hive, the sounds of the linnet’s wings and the lake water lapping the shore, the look of noon’s purple glow. The interpretive critic will address the entire project of the poet, who is standing “on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,” longing to return to the distant country and the simple life. The poet “hears” the lake waters “in the deep heart’s core,” which is to say that the

PERCEPTION KEY Yeats’s Poem 1. Offer a brief description of the poem, concentrating on the nature of the rhyme-

words, the contrasting imagery, the rhythms of the lines. 2. What does the poet say he intends to do? Do you think he will actually do it?

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simple life is absolutely basic to the poet. The last three words actually repeat the same idea. The heart is always at the core of a person, and it is always deep in that core. Such emphasis helps produce in the reader a sense of completion and signif- icance. In a sense the triangular shape of the heart is replicated in the three words applied to it, as if the idea of the number 3 were a stabilizing “shape” similar to the visually stabilizing shape of the triangles in the paintings we have been describing.

Yeats later commented on this poem and said it was the first poem of his career to have a real sense of music. He also said that the imagery came to him when he was stepping off a curb near the British Museum in the heart of London and heard the sound of splashing water. The sounds immediately brought to mind the imagery of the island, which is in the west of Ireland.

It is important that we grasp the relative nature of explanations about the con- tent of works of art. Even descriptive critics, who try to tell us about what is really there, will perceive things in a way that is relative to their own perspective. An amusing story in Cervantes’s Don Quixote illustrates the point. Sancho Panza had two cousins who were expert wine tasters. However, on occasion, they disagreed. One found the wine excellent except for an iron taste; the other found the wine ex- cellent except for a leather taste. When the barrel of wine was emptied, an iron key with a leather thong was found. As N. J. Berrill points out in Man’s Emerging Mind,

The statement you often hear that seeing is believing is one of the most misleading ones a man has ever made, for you are more likely to see what you believe than believe what you see. To see anything as it really exists is about as hard an exercise of mind and eyes as it is possible to perform.1

Two descriptive critics can often “see” quite different things in an artistic form. This is not only to be expected but also desirable; it is one of the reasons great works of art keep us intrigued for centuries. But even though they may see quite different aspects when they look independently at a work of art, when they talk it over, the critics will usually come to some kind of agreement about the aspects each of them sees. The work being described, after all, has verifiable, objective qualities each of us can perceive and talk about. But it has subjective qualities as well, in the sense that the qualities are observed only by “subjects.”

In the case of interpretive criticism, the subjectivity and, in turn, the relativity of explanations are more obvious than in the case of descriptive criticism. The content is “there” in the form, and yet, unlike the form, it is not there in a directly perceiv- able way. It must be interpreted.

Interpretive critics, more than descriptive critics, must be familiar with the sub- ject matter. Interpretive critics often make the subject matter more explicit for us at the first stage of their criticism, bringing us closer to the work. Perhaps the best way initially to get at Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4) is to discover its subject mat- ter. Is it about a fire in a building or something else? If we are not clear about this, perception of the painting is obscured. But after the subject matter has been eluci- dated, good interpretive critics go much further: exploring and discovering mean- ings about the subject matter as revealed by the form. Now they are concerned with helping us grasp the content directly, in all of its complexities and subtleties. This final stage of interpretive criticism is the most demanding of all criticism.

1N. J. Berrill, Man’s Emerging Mind (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1955), p. 147.

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Evaluative Criticism

To evaluate a work of art is to judge its merits. At first this seems to suggest that evaluative criticism is prescriptive criticism, which prescribes what is good as if it were a medicine and tells us that this work is superior to that work. However, our approach is somewhat different. Evaluative criticism functions to establish the quality and excellence of the work. To some extent, our discussion will include comparisons that inevitably urge us to make quality decisions. Those decisions are best made after descriptive and interpretive criticism have taken part in examining the work of art.

It may be that this kind of evaluative criticism makes you uncomfortable. If so, we think your reaction is based on good instincts. First, each work of art is unique, so a relative merit ranking of several of them seems arbitrary. This is especially the case when the works are in different media and have different subject matters, as in the second question of the Perception Key. Second, it is not clear how such judging helps us in our basic critical purpose—to learn from our reflections about works of art how to participate with these works more intensely and enjoyably.

Nevertheless, evaluative criticism of some kind is generally necessary. As au- thors, we have been making such judgments continually in this book—in the selec- tions for illustrations, for example. You make such judgments when, as you enter a museum, you decide to spend your time with this painting rather than that. Ob- viously directors of museums must also make evaluative criticisms, because usu- ally they cannot display every work owned by the museum. If a van Gogh is on sale—and one of his paintings, Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers, was bought in 1997 for $90 million—someone has to decide its worth. Evaluative criticism, then, is always functioning, at least implicitly.

The problem, then, is how to use evaluative criticism as constructively as pos- sible. How can we use such criticism to help our participation with works of art? Whether Giorgione’s painting (Figure 2-9) or Pearlstein’s (Figure 2-18) deserves first prize seems trivial. But if almost all critics agree that Shakespeare’s poetry is far superior to Edward Guest’s, and if we have been thinking Guest’s poetry is better, we should do some reevaluating. Or if we hear a music critic whom we respect state that the music of Duke Ellington is worth listening to—and up to this time we have dismissed it—then we should make an effort to listen. Perhaps the basic importance of evaluative criticism lies in its commendation of works that we might otherwise dismiss. This may lead us to delightful experiences. Such criticism may also make us more skeptical about our own judgments.

PERCEPTION KEY Evaluative Criticism 1. Suppose you are a judge of an exhibition of painting, and in Chapter 2 (Figures 2-9

through 2-18) have been placed into competition. You are to award first, second, and third prizes. What would your decisions be? Why?

2. Suppose, further, that you are asked to judge which is the best work of art from the following selection: Le Corbusier’s church, Yeats’s “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” and Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4). What would your decision be? Why?

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Evaluative criticism presupposes three fundamental standards: perfection, insight, and inexhaustibility. When the evaluation centers on the form, it usually values a form highly only if the detail and regional relationships are organically related. If they fail to cohere with the structure, the result is distracting and thus inhibits participation. An ar- tistic form in which everything works together may be called perfect. A work may have perfect organization, however, and still be evaluated as poor unless it satisfies the stan- dard of insight. If the form fails to inform us about some subject matter—if it just pleases, interests, or excites us but doesn’t make some significant difference in our lives—then, for us, that form is not artistic. Such a form may be valued below artistic form because the participation it evokes, if it evokes any at all, is not lastingly significant. Incidentally, a work lacking representation of objects and events may possess artistic form. Abstract art has a definite subject matter—the sensuous. Who is to say that the Pollock is a lesser work of art because it informs only about the sensuous? The sensuous is with us all the time, and to be sensitive to it is exceptionally life-enhancing.

Finally, works of art may differ greatly in the breadth and depth of their content. The subject matter of Pollock’s The Flame—the sensuous—is not as broad as the sub- ject of Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4). Yet it does not follow necessarily that the Cézanne is a superior work. The stronger the content—that is, the richer the insight into the subject matter—the more intense our participation, because we have more to keep us involved in the work. Such works apparently are inexhaustible, and evaluative critics usually will rate only those kinds of works as masterpieces.

The sensuous was central to the British art show titled Sensation, which showed controversial works that caused the Royal Academy of Art to restrict entry to those over age eighteen. Some of the works were perceived as repugnant by some church- men and politicians in New York. Ron Mueck’s four-foot-long Mask II: Self-portrait (Figure 3-6) was a sensation because of its hugeness and its hyper-real style. The Saatchi Gallery commissioned this work for the Sensation show in London.

FIGURE 3-6 Ron Mueck, Mask II. 2001–2002. Mixed media, 303⁄8 × 461⁄2 × 331⁄2 inches (77.2 × 118.1 × 85.1 cm). Collection of the Art Supporting Foundation to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Mueck’s huge sculptures were part of the original Sensation show in London. Their effect on the viewer is one of surprise and, ultimately, delight.

©MaxPPP/Annie Viannet/Newscom

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Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York at the time, did not see the show but was horrified by complaints from William Donahue, president of the Catholic League, and cut off funding to the museum. He later restored it, but not until protesters accused him of censorship. Churchmen and politicians thought the most shock- ing work of art was by Chris Ofili, a young black painter whose Holy Virgin Mary (Figure 3-7) alarmed religious New Yorkers because images of naked female bot- toms and elephant dung were part of the mixed media that went into the painting.

FIGURE 3-7 Chris Ofili, Holy Virgin Mary. 1996. Mixed media, 96 × 72 inches. Victoria Miro Gallery, London. This is another example of shock art, by Ofili, a British artist noted for works referencing his African heritage. Audiences were alarmed when they discovered one of the media was elephant dung, a substance common in African art but not easily accepted by Western audiences.

Courtesy of Chris Ofili/Afroco and David Zwirner

PERCEPTION KEY The Sensation Show 1. David Bowie said Sensation was the most important show since the 1913

New York Armory show in which Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (Figure 2-14) created a scandal, protest, and intense controversy. Most art that was once shocking seems tame a few years later. To what extent do any of these works of art still have shock value?

2. Should politicians, like the mayor of New York, punish major museums for showing art that the politicians feel is offensive? Does such an act constitute a legitimate form of evaluative art criticism? Does it constitute art criticism if, like ex-mayor Giuliani, the politician has not seen and experienced the art?

3. The Sensation show was described as shock art. Ofili’s use of naked female bot- toms and dung in a portrait of the Madonna shocked many people. Why would it have been shocking? To what extent is shock an important value in art? Would you agree with those who said Chris Ofili’s work was not art? What would be the basis for such a position?

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BEING A CRITIC OF THE ARTS 4. Would Chris Ofili’s painting be shocking if people were unaware that he painted

some of it with elephant dung? Would people be less alarmed if they knew that in Africa such a practice in art is relatively common? Does any of this matter in mak- ing a judgment about the painting’s success as a work of art? What matters most for you in evaluating this painting?

EXPERIENCING The Polish Rider 1. Does knowing The Polish Rider was

probably painted by Willem Drost instead of Rembrandt van Rijn di- minish your participation with the painting? Does the fact that it was painted by a student negatively af- fect your evaluation of the painting?

2. Should a work of art be evaluated completely without reference to its creator?

3. How should our critical judgment of the painting be affected by knowing it was once valued at millions of dol- lars and is now worth vastly less?

One of the authors, as a young adult, saw this painting in the Frick Museum and listened to a discussion of its mer- its when it was thought to be by Rem- brandt. Although today the painting is neglected, it is no less excellent than it was. 

One school of thought holds that paintings are to be evaluated wholly on their own merit without reference to the artist who created it. The Polish Rider, for instance, would still be held in great esteem if it had not been as- sumed to be by Rembrandt. But an- other school of thought holds that a

FIGURE 3-8 Willem Drost, The Polish Rider. 1655. Oil on canvas, 46 × 531⁄8 inches. Frick Collection, New York. Long thought to be a painting by Rembrandt, The Polish Rider is now credited to one of his gifted students. The Frick removed it from a prominent place after Julius Held determined that it is probably the work of Willem Drost.

©Fine Art Images/Heritage/The Image Works

The Polish Rider (Figure 3-8), featured in “Experiencing: The Polish Rider,” was originally attributed to Rembrandt. But in 1982 a group of five scholars, members of the Rembrandt Research Project, “disattributed” the painting. Studying subtleties such as brushwork, color transitions, transparency, shadowing, and structuring, they concluded that Willem Drost, a student of Rembrandt, was probably the artist. In the Frick Museum in New York City, The Polish Rider no longer draws crowds. Another work, presumably by Rembrandt, had been expected to sell for at least $15 million. It, too, was disattributed and was sold for only $800,000!

continued

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summArY Being a responsible critic demands being at the height of awareness while examin- ing a work of art in detail, establishing its subject matter, and clarifying its achieve- ment. There are three main types of criticism: Descriptive criticism focuses on form, interpretive criticism focuses on content, and evaluative criticism focuses on the relative merits of a work.

Good critics can help us understand works of art while giving us the means or techniques that will help us become good critics ourselves. They can teach us about what kinds of questions to ask. Each of the following chapters on the individual

painting is best evaluated when seen in the context of other paint- ings by the same artists, or even in the context of other paintings with similar style and subject matter.

Because in modern times artworks have sometimes been investment opportunities for wealthy people, the question of value has become a financial ques- tion even more than an aesthetic question. The result is that some works of art have been grossly overvalued by art critics who are swayed by the dollar value, not the artistic value. We believe art must be valued for its capacity to provide us with insight and to pro- mote our participation, not for its likelihood to be worth a fortune.

4. Which school of thought do you belong to: those who eval- uate a painting on its own merits or those who consider the reputation of the artist?

5. Prices for art soared enormously beginning in the 1980s. The highest recent price paid at auction for a work of art was $170 million for Amedeo Modigliani’s nude, Nu Couché (Sleeping Nude) (Figure 3-9). How does its money value affect its artistic value?

This painting surprised the art world by selling for $170 million to a Chinese collec- tor, a taxi driver who became a billionaire. It took nine minutes to sell this painting via an international telephone call. Examine this painting in terms of descriptive, interpretive, and evaluative criticism. How does it compare with the nudes in Chapter 2? Why would any information regarding its sale or the price paid for it affect our sense of the artistic value of the painting? What is your judgment of Nu Couché’s artistic value?

FIGURE 3-9 Amedeo Modigliani, Nu Couché (Sleeping Nude). 1917–1918. Via Christies.

©Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images

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arts is designed to do just that—to give some help about what kinds of questions a serious viewer should ask in order to come to a clearer perception and deeper un- derstanding of any specific work. With the arts, unlike many other areas of human concern, the questions are often more important than the answers. The real lover of the arts will often not be the person with all the answers but rather the one who asks the best questions. This is not because the answers are worthless but because the questions, when properly applied, lead us to a new awareness, a more exalted consciousness of what works of art have to offer. Then when we get to the last chap- ter, this preparation will lead to a better understanding of how the arts are related to other branches of the humanities.

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©Universal History Archive/Getty Images

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PAINTING

Our Visual POwers Painting awakens our visual senses so as to make us see color, shape, light, and form in new ways. Painters such as Siqueiros, Goya, Cézanne, Gentileschi, Neel, and virtually all the painters illustrated in this book make demands on our sensitiv- ity to the visual field, rewarding us with challenges and delights that only painting can provide. But at the same time, we are also often dulled by day-to-day experience or by distractions of business or study that make it difficult to look with the inten- sity that great art requires. Therefore, we sometimes need to refresh our awareness by sharpening our attention to the surfaces of paintings as well as to their overall power. For example, by referring to the following Perception Key we may prepare ourselves to look deeply and respond in new ways to some of the paintings we con- sidered in earlier chapters.

PERCEPTION KEY Our Visual Powers 1. Jackson Pollock, The Flame (Figure 3-3). Identify the three major colors Pollock

uses. How do these colors establish a sense of visual rhythm? Which of the colors is most intense? Which most surprising?

2. Suzanne Valadon, Reclining Nude (Figure 2-16). Examine the piece of furniture, the sofa, on which Valadon’s nude reclines. What color is it? Why is it an effective

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Our point is that everyday life tends to dull our senses so that we do not observe our surroundings with the sensitivity that we might. For help we must go to the artists, especially the painter and the sculptor—those who are most sensitive to the visual appearances of things. Their works make things and their qualities much clearer than they usually appear. The artist purges from our sight the films of famil- iarity. Painting, with its “all-at-onceness,” more than any other art, gives us the time to allow our vision to focus.

The Media Of PainTing Throughout this book we will be talking about the basic materials and media in each of the arts, because a clear understanding of their properties will help us un- derstand what artists do and how they work. The most prominent media in West- ern painting—and most painting in the rest of the world—are tempera, fresco, oil, watercolor, and acrylic. In early paintings the pigment—the actual color—required a binder such as egg yolk, glue, or casein to keep it in solution and permit it to be applied to canvas, wood, plaster, and other substances.

Tempera

Tempera is pigment bound by egg yolk and applied to a carefully prepared surface like the wood panels of Cimabue’s thirteenth-century Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels (Figure 4-1). The colors of tempera sometimes look slightly flat and are difficult to change as the artist works, but the marvelous precision of detail and the subtlety of linear shaping are extraordinary. The purity of colors, notably in the lighter range, can be wondrous, as with the tinted white of the inner dress of Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned (Figure 4-2). In the fourteenth century, Giotto achieves an astonishing level of detail in the gold ornamentation below and around the Ma- donna. At the same time, his control of the medium of tempera permitted him to represent figures with a high degree of individuality and realism, representing a profound change in the history of art.

contrast to the nude? What are the designs on the sofa? What color are the lines of the designs? How do they relate to the subject matter of the painting?

3. Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning (Figure 1-6). What are the most important colors in the painting? How do they balance and complement each other? Why does Hopper limit the intensity of the colors as he does? What is the visual rhyth- mic effect of the patterns formed in the windows of the second floor? Are any two windows the same? How does Hopper use unexpected forms to break the rhythm of the first level of shops? What emotional qualities are excited by Hopper’s con- trol of the visual elements in the painting?

4. Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4). How many colors does Cézanne use in this painting? Which color is dominant? Which figure in the painting is most dominant? How do the most important lines in the painting direct your vision? Describe the way your eye moves through the painting. How does Cézanne use line and color to direct your attention?

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FIGURE 4-1 Cimabue, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels. Circa 1285–1290. Tempera and gold on wood, 12 feet 7¾ inches × 7 feet 4 inches. Uffizi, Florence. Cimabue’s painting is typical of Italian altarpieces in the thirteenth century. The use of tempera and gold leaf creates a radiance appropriate to a religious scene.

©Alinari/Art Resource, NY

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The power of these works, when one stands before them in Florence’s Uffizi Gal- leries, is intense beyond what can be shown in a reproduction. Cimabue’s painting is more than twelve feet tall and commands the space as few paintings of the period can. The brilliance of the colors and the detail of the expressions of all the figures in the painting demand a remarkable level of participation. By comparison, the Giotto, only a few years later, uses contrasting colors to affect us. But Giotto’s faces are more real- istic than Cimabue’s, marking an important shift in Renaissance art. Giotto achieves an illusion of depth and a sense that the figures are distinct, as if they were portraits.

Fresco

Because many churches and other buildings required paintings directly on plaster walls, artists perfected the use of fresco, pigment dissolved in lime water applied to wet plaster as it is drying. In the case of wet fresco, the color penetrates to about

FIGURE 4-2 Giotto, Madonna Enthroned. Circa 1310. Tempera and gold on wood, 10 feet 83⁄16 inches × 6 feet 83⁄8 inches. Uffizi, Florence. Giotto, credited with creating a realistic portrayal of figures from nature in religious art, lavishes his Madonna Enthroned with extraordinary detail permitted by the use of tempera and gold leaf. Giotto was one of Florence’s greatest painters.

©Scala/Art Resource, NY

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one-eighth of an inch and is bound into the plaster. There is little room for error because the plaster dries relatively quickly, and the artist must understand how the colors will look when embedded in plaster and no longer wet. One advantage of this medium is that it will last as long as the wall itself. One of the greatest examples of the use of fresco is Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, on the ceiling of which is the famous Creation of Adam (Figure 4-3).

Oil

Oil painting uses a mixture of pigment, linseed oil, varnish, and turpentine to pro- duce either a thin or thick consistency, depending on the artist’s desired effect. In the fifteenth century, oil painting dominated because of its flexibility, the richness of its colors, and the extraordinary durability and long-lasting qualities. Because oil paint dries slowly and can be put on in thin layers, it offers the artist remark- able control over the final product. No medium in painting offers a more flexible blending of colors or subtle portrayal of light and textures, as in Parmigianino’s The Madonna with the Long Neck (Figure 4-4). Oil paint can be messy, and it takes some- times months or years to dry completely, but it has been the dominant medium in easel painting since the Renaissance.

FIGURE 4-3 Michelangelo, Creation of Adam, detail. Circa 1508–1512. Fresco. Michelangelo’s world-famous frescoes in the Sistine Chapel have been cleaned to reveal intense, brilliant colors. This detail from the ceiling reveals the long-lasting nature of fresco painting. The period 1508–1512 marks the High Renaissance in Italy.

©Killer Stock Inc./Getty Images

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FIGURE 4-4 Parmigianino, The Madonna with the Long Neck. Circa 1535. Oil on panel, 85 × 52 inches. Uffizi, Florence. Humanistic values dominate the painting, with recognizably distinct faces, young people substituting for angels, and physical distortions designed to unsettle a conservative audience. This style of oil painting, with unresolved figures and unanswered questions, is called Mannerism—painting with an attitude.

©Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

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Watercolor

The pigments of watercolor are bound in a water-soluble adhesive, such as gum- arabic, a gummy plant substance. Usually watercolor is slightly translucent so that the whiteness of the paper shows through. Unlike artists working with tempera or oil painting, watercolorists work quickly, often with broad strokes and in broad washes. The color resources of the medium are limited in range, but often striking in effect. Modern watercolor usually does not aim for precise detail. In his Sketch for “Hound and Hunter” (Figure 4-5), Winslow Homer delights in the unfinished quality of the watercolor and uses it to communicate a sense of immediacy. He controls the range of colors as a way of giving us a sense of atmosphere and weather.

Acrylic

A modern synthetic polymer medium, acrylic is fundamentally a form of plastic resin that dries very quickly and is flexible for the artist to apply and use. One ad- vantage of acrylic paints is that they do not fade, darken, or yellow as they age. They can support luminous colors and look sometimes very close to oil paints in their

FIGURE 4-5 Winslow Homer, Sketch for “Hound and Hunter." 1892. Watercolor on wove paper. 1315⁄16 × 1915⁄16 inches. Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel. Accession No. 1975.92.7. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Although a mixed-media composition, Sketch for “Hound and Hunter" is dominated by watercolor. An apparently unfinished quality imparts a sense of energy, spontaneity, and intensity, typical of Homer’s work.

Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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final effect. Many modern painters use this medium. Morris Louis’s Beta Lamda (Figure 4-6) is a large abstract painting whose colors suggest a range of intensities similar to what we see in oil paintings.

The ease of using acrylic shows in the fluidity of the lines of stark colors balanc- ing a huge open space of uncolored canvas. This painting was done in Louis’s small dining room, but its size is such that only a few spaces can exhibit it. In viewing, one is captured by its gigantic presence. The triangular forms that dominate give the color a power that seems to radiate from the wall. Louis was a colorist exper- imenting with acrylic up to his death only a year after this painting was finished.

Other Media and Mixed Media

The great Japanese artist Hokusai was prominent in the first half of the nineteenth century in the medium of woodcuts, using ink for his color. The process is extremely complex, but he dominated in the Edo period, when many artists produced bril- liantly colored prints that began to be seen in Europe, especially in France, where the painters found great inspiration in the brilliance of the work. The Great Wave, his most famous work (Figure 4-7), is from his project, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. Here the mountain is tiny in comparison with the roiling waves threatening even smaller figures in two boats. The power of nature is the subject matter, and the respect for nature may be part of its content.

The dominant medium for Chinese artists has been ink, as in Wang Yuanqi’s Landscape after Wu Zhen (Figure 4-8). Modern painters often employ mixed media, using duco and aluminum paint, house paint, oils, even grit and sand. Andy Warhol used acrylic and silk-screen ink in his famous Marilyn Monroe series. Some basic kinds of prints are produced by methods including woodcut, engraving, linocut, etching, drypoint, lithography, and aquatint.

FIGURE 4-6 Morris Louis,  Beta Lambda. 1961. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 8 feet 73⁄8 inches × 13 feet 4¼ inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Gift of Mrs. Abner Brenner. Object number 428.1983. The painting reveals the fluid qualities of acrylics, essentially sensuous color permitted to radiate through a range of tones. Its size, more than 8 by 13 feet, intensifies our reaction to the shapes the colors take. 

©2017 Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Rights Administered by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York, All Rights Reserved. Photo: ©The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

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FIGURE 4-7 Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849). Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei). Circa 1830–1832. Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper; 101⁄8 × 1415⁄16 inches (25.7 × 37.9 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929.

Source: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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PERCEPTION KEY  The Media of Painting 1. Compare the detail of tempera in Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned with the radiance of

color in Parmigianino’s oil painting The Madonna with the Long Neck. What differences do you see in the quality of detail in each painting and in the quality of the color?

2. Compare the color effects of Hokusai’s The Great Wave woodblock print with the colors in Winslow Homer’s Sketch for “Hound and Hunter.” What seem to be the dif- ferences in the treatment of color?

3. Contrast the effect of Homer’s watercolor approach to nature with Wang Yuanqi’s use of ink. Which communicates a sense of nature more readily? In which is nature the most evident subject matter? Compare the formal structure of each painting. 

4. Compare the traditional fresco of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam with Leonardo’s experimental fresco of the Last Supper (Figure 3-1). To what extent does Michel- angelo’s use of the medium help you imagine what Leonardo’s fresco would have looked like if he had used Michelangelo’s technique?

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FIGURE 4-8 Wang Yuanqi, Landscape after Wu Zhen. 1695. Hanging scroll; ink on paper, 42¾ × 20¼ inches. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bequest of John M. Crawford Jr. Typical of many of the great Chinese landscape scrolls, Wang Yuanqi uses his brush and ink prodigiously, finding a powerful energy in shaping the rising mountains and their trees. The presence of tiny houses and rising pathways to the heights places humanity in a secondary role in relation to nature and to the visual power of the mountain itself.

Source: Bequest of John M. Crawford Jr., 1988/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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eleMenTs Of PainTing The elements are the basic building blocks of a medium. For painting they are line, color, texture, and composition.* Before we discuss the elements of painting, con- sider the issues raised by the Perception Key associated with Frederic, Lord Leigh- ton’s painting Flaming June (Figure 4-9).

PERCEPTION KEY Goya, Leighton, and Cézanne 1. Goya used both closed and open lines in his May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3). Locate these

lines. Why did Goya use both kinds? 2. Does Leighton use both closed and open lines in Flaming June? 3. Identify outlines in Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4). There seem to be no

outlines drawn around the small bushes in the foreground. Yet we see these bushes as separate objects. How can this be?

PERCEPTION KEY Flaming June The subject matter of this painting is sleep itself. But it is also a painting with intense sensuous content. We respond to it partly because it is so vivid in color.  1. What powerful ideas does sleep imply?  2. What does the painting tell us about the pleasures of watching a beautiful woman

sleeping? How difficult is it for you to imagine this a nymph rather than a living woman? 3. Comment on the color in this painting. In most visions of sleeping figures the tones

are dampened, sometimes dark, as one would expect in a nighttime vision. In what ways does the astounding contrast between sleep and the brilliance of the color affect your sense of what the subject matter is? How does it contribute to your efforts to decide on the content of the painting?

4. How does the clarity of the line in this painting help you understand its significance? 5. Compare Flaming June with the paintings by Giorgione (Figure 2-9), Tom Wessel-

mann (Figure 2-13), and Philip Pearlstein (Figure 2-18). All are slumbering women. What makes the concerns of Leighton different from those of the other painters?

Line

Line is a continuous marking made by a moving point on a surface. Line outlines shapes and can contour areas within those outlines. Sometimes contour or inter- nal lines dominate the outlines, as with the robe of Cimabue’s Madonna (Figure 4-1). Closed line most characteristically is hard and sharp, as in Lichtenstein’s Hope- less (Figure 2-7). In the Cimabue and in Leighton’s Flaming June, the line is also closed but somewhat softer. Open line most characteristically is soft and blurry, as in Renoir’s Bather Arranging Her Hair (Figure 2-10).

*Light, shape, volume, and space are often referred to as elements, but strictly speaking, they are compounds.

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Line can suggest movement. Up-and-down movement may be indicated by the vertical, as in Parmigianino’s The Madonna with the Long Neck (Figure 4-4). Lateral movement may be indicated by the horizontal and tends to stress stability, as in the same Parmigianino. Depending on the context, however, vertical and horizon- tal lines may appear static, as in Wesselmann’s Study for Great American Nude and Lichtenstein’s Hopeless. Generally, diagonal lines, as in Cézanne’s Mont Sainte- Victoire, express more tension and movement than verticals and horizontals. Curving lines usually appear softer and more flowing, as in Leighton’s Flaming June.

Line in Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie (Figure 4-10) can also suggest rhythm and movement, especially when used with vibrant colors, which in this painting are intended to echo the neon lights of 1940s Broadway. Mondrian lived and worked for twenty years in Paris, but in 1938, with Nazis threatening war, he moved to Lon- don. In 1940, with the war under way, he went to New York. He was particularly attracted to American jazz music. He arrived in New York when the swing bands reached their height of popularity and he used his signature grid style in Broadway Boogie Woogie to interpret jazz visually. The basic structure is a grid of vertical and

FIGURE 4-9 Frederic, Lord Leighton, Flaming June. Circa 1895. Museo de Arte Ponce, Puerto Rico. Oil on canvas. 47½ × 47½ inches. Leighton was near the end of his career when he did this painting. He was an admirer of classical figures, such as Michelangelo’s sculpture of Night in the Medici Tombs, which inspired the pose in this painting. He is said to have compared this figure with the sleeping naiads and mythic nymphs of classical literature. He aimed at a perfection of the figure as well as of the clothing.

©Universal History Archive/Getty Images

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horizontal yellow lines—and only vertical and horizontal lines. On these lines, and between these lines, Mondrian places patterns of intense blocks of color to suggest the powerful jazz rhythms he loved so much. Even the large “silent” blocks of white imply musical rests.

An axis line is an imaginary line that helps determine the basic visual directions of a painting. In Goya’s May 3, 1808, for example, two powerful axis lines move toward and intersect at the white shirt of the man about to be shot: Lines of the rifles appear to converge and go on, and the line of those to be executed moving out of the ravine seems to be inexorably continuing. Axis lines are invisible vectors of visual force. Every visual field is dynamic, a field of forces directing our vision, some visible and some invisible but controlled by the visible. Only when the invisi- ble lines are basic to the structuring of the image, as in the Goya, are they axis lines.

Since line is usually the main determinant of shapes, and shapes are usually the main determinant of detail, regional, and structural relationships, line is usually fun- damental in the overall composition—Willem de Kooning’s Woman I (Figure 4-11) is an exception. Here lines and colors seem to perform the same kind of operation on the canvas.

FIGURE 4-10 Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie,1942–1943. Oil on canvas, 50 × 50 inches (127 × 127 cm). Given anonymously. Museum of Modern Art, New York.

©The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

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FIGURE 4-11 Willem de Kooning, American, born in the Netherlands. 1904– 1997. Woman I, 1950–1952. Oil on canvas, 6 feet 37⁄8 inches by 58 inches (192.7 x 147.3 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York. At more than six feet high, Woman I has a huge physical impact on the viewer. De Kooning worked on this painting for quite a while, beginning with sketches, then reworking the canvas again and again. He is said to have drawn inspiration from female fertility goddesses as well as images of dark female figures in literature and myth. 

©2017 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: ©Peter Horree/Alamy

Examine the lines in de Kooning’s Woman I. Critics have commented on the vigor with which de Kooning attacked the canvas, suggesting that he was working out psychological issues that bordered on misogyny. We cannot know if that was the case, but we can see how the lines—vertical, horizontal, lateral—all intersect to produce an arresting power, completely opposite of the power of Leighton’s Flam- ing June.

By way of contrast, Cézanne’s small bushes in Mont Sainte-Victoire are formed by small, juxtaposed, greenish-blue planes that vary slightly in their tinting. These planes are hatched by brushstrokes that slightly vary the textures. And from the

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center of the planes to the perimeters there is usually a shading from light to dark. Thus emerges a strong sense of volume with density. We see those small bushes as somehow distinct objects, and yet we see no separating outlines. Colors and tex- tures meet and create impressions of line. As with axis lines, the visible suggests the invisible—we project the outlines.

In the Asian tradition, the expressive power of line is achieved generally in a very different way from the Western tradition. The stroke—made by flexible brushes of varying sizes and hairs—is intended to communicate the spirit and feelings of the artist, directly and spontaneously. The sensitivity of the inked brush is extraordi- nary. The ink offers a wide range of nuances: texture, shine, depth, pallor, thick- ness, and wetness. The brush functions as a seismograph of the painter’s mind.

The brushwork in Wang Yuanqi’s painting (Figure 4-8) varies with the tone of the ink. The rising forms of the mountains are made with a broad brush, almost trans- lucent ink-tone, with intense, dark dots implying the vegetation defining the top of each ridge. The manmade structures in the painting are made with a smaller brush, as in the curved bridge at the lower right of the painting. The rooftops and buildings in the mid portion of the painting on both the left and right use a small brush with strong lines, like those of the trees in the mid foreground. The leaves of the nearest trees and bushes are deep-tone dark ink produced by chopping strokes, sometimes known as the ax-cut. The painting demands that our eyes begin with the trees in the foreground, then rise inexorably upward following the rising nearby mountains, leading us to the smooth, distant higher mountains that have no vegetation.

PERCEPTION KEY Line 1. Which of the paintings in this chapter have the most vigorous line? How does the

line in these paintings interact with color? 2. When does the color in the painting actually constitute line? How can color do the

work of line? 3. Try drawing a copy of one of these paintings using only the line of your pencil or

pen. What do you learn about how the artist used line to clarify his subject matter? 4. Compare the brushwork of Cézanne and Wang Yuanqi with the brushwork of

Frederic Leighton and Willem de Kooning.

Color

Color is composed of three distinct qualities: hue, saturation, and value. Hue is simply the name of a color. Red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors. Their mixtures produce the secondary colors: green, orange, and purple. Further mix- ing produces six more, the tertiary colors. Thus, the spectrum of the color wheel shows twelve hues. Saturation refers to the purity, vividness, or intensity of a hue. When we speak of the “redness of red,” we mean its highest saturation. Value, or shading, refers to the lightness or darkness of a hue, the mixture in the hue of white or black. A high value of a color is obtained by mixing in white, and a low value is obtained by mixing in black. The highest value of red shows red at its lightest; the lowest value of red shows red at its darkest. Complementary colors are opposite

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each other—for example, red and green, orange and blue. When two complements are equally mixed, a neutral gray appears. An addition of a complement to a hue will lower its saturation. A red will look less red—will have less intensity—by even a small addition of green. And an addition of either white or black will change both the value and the saturation of the hue.

Texture

Texture is the surface “feel” of something. When the brushstrokes have been smoothed out, the surface is seen as smooth, as in Wesselmann’s Study for Great American Nude. When the brushstrokes have been left rough, the surface is seen as rough, as in van Gogh’s The Starry Night (Figure 15-4) and Pollock’s The Flame (Fig- ure 3-3). In these two examples, the textures are real, for if—heaven forbid!—you were to run your fingers over these paintings, you would feel them as rough.

Distinctive brushstrokes produce distinctive textures. Compare, for example, the soft hatchings of Valadon’s Reclining Nude (Figure 2-16) with the grainy effect of most of the brushstrokes in Wang Yuanqi’s painting (Figure 4-8). Sometimes the textural effect can be so dominant that the specific substance behind the textures is disguised, as in the background behind the head and shoulders of Renoir’s Bather Arranging Her Hair.

PERCEPTION KEY Texture 1. In what ways are the renditions of textures an important part in Willem de Koon-

ing’s Woman I?  2. Suppose the ultra-smooth surfaces of Wesselmann’s nude had been used by Neel.

How would this have significantly changed the content of her picture?

Neel’s nude would be greatly altered, we believe, if she had used textures such as Wesselmann’s. A tender, vulnerable, motherly appearance would become harsh, confident, and brazen. With the de Kooning, the vigor of the painting would have lost power if the texture were smooth. De Kooning’s constant attack at the canvas, and his overpainting, produces a unique texture.

The medium of a painting may have much to do with textural effects. Tempera usually has a dry feel. Watercolor naturally lends itself to a fluid feel. Because they can be built up in heavy layers, oil and acrylic are useful for depicting rough tex- tures, but of course they can be made smooth. Fresco usually has a grainy, crystal- line texture.

Composition

In painting or any other art, composition refers to the ordering of relationships: among details, among regions, among details and regions, and among these and the total structure. Deliberately or more usually instinctively, artists use organizing principles to create forms that inform.

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Principles Among the basic principles of traditional painting are balance, grada- tion, movement and rhythm, proportion, variety, and unity.

• Balance refers to the equilibrium of opposing visual forces. Leonardo’s Last Supper (Figure 3-1) is an example of symmetrical balance. Details and regions are arranged on either side of a central axis. Goya’s May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3) is an example of asymmetrical balance, for there is no central axis.

• Gradation refers to a continuum of changes in the details and regions, such as the gradual variations in shape, color value, and shadowing in Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream (Figure 1-2).

• Movement and rhythm refers to the way a painting controls the movement and pace of our vision. For example, in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam (Figure 4-3), the implied movement of God from right to left establishes a rhythm in contrast with Adam’s indolence.

• Proportion refers to the emphasis achieved by the scaling of sizes of shapes—for example, the way the large Madonna in the Cimabue (Figure 4-1) contrasts with the tiny prophets.

• Unity refers to the togetherness, despite contrasts, of details and regions to the whole, as in Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4).

• Variety refers to the contrasts of details and regions—for example, the color and shape oppositions in O’Keeffe’s Rust Red Hills (Figure 4-12).

FIGURE 4-12 Georgia O’Keeffe, 1930. Rust Red Hills, 1930. Oil on canvas, 16 x 30 inches. Sloan Fund Purchase. Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University. O’Keefe found the American West to be a refreshing environment after living for years in New York. This is a study of hills that fascinated her near her home in Abiqui, New Mexico, where she painted many landscapes such as this.

©2017 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: ©Fine Art Images/Heritage/The Image Works

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Space and Shapes Perhaps the best way to understand space is to think of it as a hollow volume available for occupation by shapes. Then that space can be described by referring to the distribution and relationships of those shapes in that space; for example, space can be described as crowded or open.

Shapes in painting are areas with distinguishable boundaries, created by colors, textures, and usually—and especially—lines. A painting is a two- dimensional surface with breadth and height. But three-dimensional simu- lation, even in the flattest of paintings, is almost always present, even in de Kooning’s Woman I. Colors when juxtaposed invariably move forward or back- ward visually. And when shapes suggest mass—three-dimensional solids—depth is inevitably seen.

The illusion of depth—perspective—can be made by various techniques, includ- ing setting a single vanishing point, as in Leonardo’s Last Supper (Figure 3-2), in which all lines in the painting seem to move toward Jesus’s head. The vanish- ing point in Figure 4-17, Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party, is in the upper right corner, in which figures seem to recede into darkness. Many techniques, such as darkening and lightening colors, will help give the illusion of depth to a painting.

PERCEPTION KEY Principles of Composition After defining each principle briefly, we listed an example. Go through the color photographs of paintings in the book and select another example for each principle.

PERCEPTION KEY Composition Choose four paintings not discussed so far and answer the following questions:

1. In which painting does color dominate line, or line dominate color? 2. Which painting is most symmetrical? Which most asymmetrical? 3. Which pleases your eye more: symmetry or asymmetry? 4. In which painting is the sense of depth perspective the strongest? How does the

artist achieve this depth? 5. In which painting is proportion most important? 6. Which painting pleases you the most? Explain how its composition pleases

you.

The ClariTy Of PainTing The Swing (Figure 4-13), Fragonard’s painting of young libertines, seems to be the picture of innocent pleasures, but the painter and his audience knew that he was portraying a liberal society that enjoyed riches, station, and erotic opportunity. This painting has been considered one of the Wallace Collection’s masterpieces.

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FIGURE 4-13 Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Swing. 1776. Oil on canvas, 35 × 32 inches. The Wallace Collection, London. This famous painting seems at first glance to be a picture of young people at play, emulating innocent children. But the eighteenth-century audience read this as a libertine and his mistress. The swing was a code for the sexual freedom of the privileged “playmates” in the painting. 

©Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library/ Alamy

PERCEPTION KEY The Swing 1. What are the most contrasting colors in this painting? Which character is most

highlighted by color? What does the color imply? 2. How is nature portrayed in the painting? What colors and contrasts seem most

expressive of nature’s powers? 3. Why is the richness of the garden the best locale for this scene? What do the lovers

have in common with the garden? 4. One of the men on the ground is a clergyman. One is the woman’s lover. Which is

which? How does the use of color clarify the relationship? 5. The bough and leaves above the woman are mysteriously shaped. In what sense

may it be a comment on the relationship of the woman and her lover?

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This painting was commissioned by a French baron who explicitly asked Frag- onard to paint the woman as a portrait of his mistress. The baron is himself high- lighted by color at the lower left looking up the skirts of his mistress. The painting established a clarity of the relationships of the figures to the eighteenth-century viewer, and of course to the characters portrayed. The figure of the man in the lower right is a clergyman who may be hopeful that the baron will marry his mistress.

The small stone sculptures are classical figures, a Cupid on the left and putti in the lower center. The overabundance of the leaves and trees implies a fruitfulness and an erotic quotient illustrated by the castoff slipper and the baron’s recumbent posture.

This painting has a special clarity because it is something of an allegorical rep- resentation of erotic play. Audiences today would not necessarily be aware of the specifics of the relationship of the man on the lower left with the woman on the swing. However, a careful analysis of the details of the painting—the pink dress, the man looking up her skirt, the overabundance of the vegetation, and the Cupid with his finger to his lips—and the richness of the coloration point to erotic play and erotic joy.

The “all-aT-OnCeness” Of PainTing In addition to revealing the visually perceptible more clearly, paintings give us time for our vision to focus, hold, and participate. Of course, there are times when we can hold on a scene in nature. We are resting with no pressing worries and with time on our hands, and the sunset is so striking that we fix our atten- tion on its redness. But then darkness descends and the mosquitoes begin to bite. In front of a painting, however, we find that things stand still, like the red in Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream (Figure 1-2). Here the red is peculiarly impervi- ous and reliable, infallibly fixed and settled in its place. It can be surveyed and brought out again and again; it can be visualized with closed eyes and checked with open eyes. There is no hurry, for all of the painting is present, and under normal conditions it is going to stay present; it is not changing in any significant perceptual sense.

Moreover, we can hold on any detail or region or the totality as long as we like and follow any order of details or regions at our own pace. No region of a painting strictly presupposes another region temporally. The sequence is subject to no abso- lute constraint. Whereas there is only one route in listening to music, for example, there is a freedom of routes in seeing paintings. With The Swing (Figure 4-13), for example, we may focus on the overhanging trees, then on the figure on the lower left, and finally on the woman in her pink dress. The next time, we may reverse the order. “Paths are made,” as the painter Paul Klee observed, “for the eye of the beholder which moves along from patch to patch like an animal grazing.” There is a “rapt resting” on any part, an unhurried series, one after the other, of “nows,” each of which has its own temporal spread.

Paintings make it possible for us to stop in the present and enjoy at our lei- sure the sensations provided by the show of the visible. That is the second reason paintings can help make our vision whole. They not only clarify our world but also

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may free us from worrying about the future and the past, because paintings are a framed context in which everything stands still. There is the “here-now” and rela- tively speaking nothing but the “here-now.” Our vision, for once, has time to let the qualities of things and the things themselves unfold.

absTraCT PainTing Abstract, or nonrepresentational, painting may be difficult to appreciate if we are confused about its subject matter. Since no objects or events are depicted, abstract painting might seem to have no subject matter: pictures of nothing. But this is not the case. The subject matter is the sensuous. The sensuous is composed of visual qualities—line, color, texture, space, shape, light, shadow, volume, and mass. Any qualities that stimulate our vision are sensa. In representational painting, sensa are used to portray objects and events. In abstract painting, sensa are freed. They are depicted for their own sake. Abstract painting reveals sensa, liberating us from our habits of always identifying these qualities with specific objects and events. They make it easy for us to focus on sensa themselves, even though we are not artists. Then the radiant and vivid values of the sensuous are enjoyed for their own sake, satisfying a fundamental need. Abstractions can help fulfill this need to behold and treasure the images of the sensuous. Instead of our controlling the sensa, transform- ing them into signs that represent objects or events, the sensa control us, transform- ing us into participators.

Moreover, because references to objects and events are eliminated, there is a peculiar relief from the future and the past. Abstract painting, more than any other art, gives us an intensified sense of here-now, or presentational immediacy. When we perceive representational paintings such as Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4), we may think about our chances of getting to southern France sometime in the future. Or when we perceive May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3), we may think about similar massa- cres. These suggestions bring the future and past into our participation, causing the here-now to be somewhat compromised. But with abstract painting—because there is no portrayal of objects or events that suggest the past or the future—the sense of presentational immediacy is more intense.

Although sensa appear everywhere we look, in paintings sensa shine forth. This is especially true with abstract paintings, because there is nothing to attend to but the sensa. What you see is what you see. In nature the light usually appears as ex- ternal to the colors and surface of sensa. The light plays on the colors and surface. In paintings the light usually appears immanent in the colors and surface, seems to come—in part at least—through them, even in the flat, polished colors of a Mondrian.

In Arshile Gorky’s Untitled 1943 (Figure 4-14), the light seems to be absorbed into the colors and surfaces. There is a depth of luminosity about the sensa of paintings that rivals nature. Generally the colors of nature are more brilliant than the colors of painting, but usually in nature the sensa are either so glitter- ing that our squints miss their inner luminosity or so changing that we lack the time to participate and penetrate. To ignore the allure of the sensa in a painting, and in turn in nature, is to miss one of the chief glories life provides. It is espe- cially the abstract painter—the shepherd of sensa—who is most likely to call us back to our senses.

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Study the Gorky. Then reflect on how you experienced a sense of the rhythms of your eyes as you moved across and through the painting, aware of the various shapes and their colors. The rhythmic durations are “spots of time”—ordered by the relationships between the regions of sensa. Compare your experience of this painting with listening to music. What music might be “illustrated” by this painting?

FIGURE 4-14 Arshile Gorky, Untitled, 1943–1948. Oil on canvas, 54½ × 64½ inches. The power of Gorky’s red is dominant in the painting. The interruptions of the indefinite dark-colored objects offer a contrast that makes the red even more powerful. A close look at the painting shows the levels of color in the brushstrokes that reveal layers of color beneath the surface. We see yellows and light blues and tints of gray, but they all make us aware of the sensa that clarify our understanding of Gorky’s red. 

©2017 The Arshile Gorky Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase, Contemporary Arts Council Fund

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inTensiTy and resTfulness in absTraCT PainTing Abstract painting reveals sensa in their primitive but powerful state of inno- cence. This makes possible an extraordinary intensity of vision, renewing the spontaneity of our perception and enhancing the tone of our physical existence. We clothe our visual sensations in positive feelings, living in these sensations instead of using them as means to ends. And such sensuous activity—sight, for once minus anxiety and eyestrain—is sheer delight. Abstract painting offers us a complete rest from practical concerns. Abstract painting is, as Matisse in 1908 was beginning to see,

an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which might be for every mental worker, be he businessman or writer, like an ap- peasing influence, like a mental soother, something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue.1

PERCEPTION KEY de Kooning, Gorky, and O’Keeffe 1. De Kooning’s Woman I (Figure 4-11) is, we think, an example of timelessness and

the sensuous. O’Keeffe’s Rust Red Hills (Figure 4-12) also emphasizes the sensuous, especially the rich reds, browns, and blue. What makes one painting presumably more timeless?

2. Examine the sensa in the O’Keeffe. Does the fact that the painting represents real things distract you from enjoying the sensa? How crucial are the sensa to your full appreciation of the painting?

3. What difference do you perceive in de Kooning’s and Gorky’s treatment of sensa? 4. Look at the Gorky upside down. Is the form weakened or strengthened? Does it

make a difference? If so, what?

Gorky’s Untitled 1943 (Figure 4-14) is characterized by a color field that has been worked over and over. It is essentially red, but a close look will show that there are levels of red, layers of red. And the painting seems to have a range of floating ob- jects that, when taken symbolically, seem to impersonate ideas or messages. All the symbols have been connected to what the Dallas Museum calls a special language of Gorky’s own. In this way the expression is not of abstract ideas but of concrete color, of the sensa that Gorky moves through the painting’s plane. Nothing specific is represented in this painting, but instead color is itself presented. It is for us to enjoy and to respond to in a fundamental way without the imposition of meaning or ideas. Ironically we call this abstract art as a way of contrasting it with represen- tational art. But abstract art is not abstract—it presents to us the concrete material of sensory experience. We see concrete color and form, and that may be the most profound aesthetic purpose of painting.

1Source: Matisse, “Notes of a Painter,” La Grande Revue, December 25, 1908.

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rePresenTaTiOnal PainTing In the participative experience with representational paintings, the sense of here- now, so overwhelming in the participative experience with abstractions, is some- what weakened. Representational paintings situate the sensuous in objects and events. A representational painting, like an abstraction, is “all there” and “holds still.” But past and future are more relevant than in our experience of abstract paint- ings because we are seeing representations of objects and events. Inevitably, we are at least vaguely aware of place and date; and, in turn, a sense of past and future is a part of that awareness. Our experience is more ordinary than it is when we feel the extraordinary isolation from objects and events that occurs in the perception of abstract paintings. Representational paintings always bring in some suggestion of “once upon a time.” Moreover, we are kept closer to the experience of every day, because images that refer to objects and events usually lack something of the strangeness of the sensuous alone.

Representational painting furnishes the world of the sensuous with objects and events. The horizon is sketched out more closely and clearly, and the spaces of the sensuous are filled, more or less, with things. But even when these furnishings (sub- ject matter) are the same, the interpretation (content) of every painting is always different.

COMParisOn Of fiVe iMPressiOnisT PainTings From time to time, painters have grouped themselves into “schools” in which like- minded artists sometimes worked and exhibited together. The Barbizon school in France in the 1840s, a group of six or seven painters, attempted to paint out- doors so that their landscapes would have a natural feel in terms of color and light, unlike the studio landscapes that were popular at the time. Probably the most famous school of art of all time is the Impressionist school, which flourished between 1870 and 1905, especially in France. The Impressionists’ approach to painting was dominated by a concentration on the impression light made on the surfaces of things.

PERCEPTION KEY Comparison of Five Impressionist Paintings 1. In which of the following paintings is color most dominant over line? In which is line

most dominant over color? How important does line seem to be for the impres- sionist painter?

2. In terms of composition, which paintings seem to rely on diagonal lines or diagonal groups of objects or images?

3. Comment on the impressionist reliance on balance as seen in these paintings. In which painting is symmetry most effectively used? In which is asymmetry most effective? How is your response to the paintings affected by symmetry or asymmetry?

4. If you were to purchase one of these paintings, which would it be? Why?

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Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (Figure 4-15) was shown at the first show of the impressionist painters in Paris in 1874, and it lent its name to the entire group. The scene in Sunrise has a spontaneous, sketchy effect, the sunlight breaking on glimmering water. Boats and ships lack mass and definition. The solidity of things is subordinated to shimmering surfaces. We sense that only a moment has been caught. Monet and the Impressionists painted, not so much objects they saw but the light that played on and around them.

Edouard Manet was considered the leader of the impressionist group. His strik- ing painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Figure 4-16) is more three-dimensional than Monet’s, but the emphasis on color and light is similar. In this painting the Im- pressionists’ preference for everyday scenes with ordinary people and objects is present. Details abound in this painting—some mysterious, such as the legs of the trapeze artist in the upper left corner.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s joyful painting (Figure 4-17) also represents an ordinary scene of people dining on a warm afternoon, all blissfully unaware of the painter. The scene, like many impressionist scenes, could have been captured by a camera. The perspective is what we would expect in a photograph, while the cut-off ele- ments of people and things are familiar from our experience with snapshots. The use of light tones and reds balances the darker greens and grays in the background. Again, color dominates in this painting.

Childe Hassam was well known for his cityscapes, particularly for his color- ful views of New York and Paris. But he also spent summers in the New En- gland countryside, capturing moments such as Summer Evening (Figure 4-18),

FIGURE 4-15 Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise. 1873. Oil on canvas, 19 × 24 inches. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. This painting gave the name to the French Impressionists and remains one of the most identifiable paintings of the age. Compared with paintings by Ingres or Giorgione, this seems to be a sketch, but that is the point. It is an impression of the way the brilliant light plays on the waters at sunrise.

©Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

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FIGURE 4-16 Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. 1881–1882. Oil on canvas, 37¾ × 51¼ inches. Courtauld Institute Galleries, London. Typical of impressionist paintings, this one has for its subject matter ordinary, everyday events. Viewers may also surmise a narrative embedded in the painting, given the character in the mirror, not to mention the feet of the trapeze artist in the upper left.

©The Samuel Courtauld Trust/The Courtauld Gallery/Art Resource, NY

recollecting an ordinary evening in New Hampshire. The sharp, diagonal figure of a woman is presented in contrast to the strong, horizontal lines of the window. Hassam creates a relaxed moment, a sense of the ordinary in life, by avoiding any studied traditional composition. He seems to depend upon a photographer’s “trick” called the “rule of thirds,” by placing the figure in the right third of the composition and placing the lower horizontal of the window one-third of the way up from the bottom of the canvas. By avoiding traditional centrality of organiza- tion, Hassam produces a painting that echoes a photograph, as if doing little more than recording a simple moment.

Mary Cassatt’s sister Lydia is also posed in a sharp diagonal in Autumn (Figure 4-19). Cassatt’s intense autumn colors create a brilliance almost unexpected. For most

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people autumn suggests a duller pallette and a more somber mood. Lydia is dressed very warmly in a bulky but cheerful coat, with a warm hat and gloves, and while her expression is calm and perhaps enigmatic, she is restful in the midst of an explosion of colors. In this painting, line may be less significant in terms of composition than the vitality of the brushstrokes that seem to attack the canvas. The deep, resonant colors suggest the ripening of autumn vegetables and fruits characteristic of harvest time.

FIGURE 4-18 Childe Hassam, Summer Evening. 1886. Oil on canvas, 121⁄8 × 203⁄8 inches. Florence Griswold Museum. The softness of both color and line implies a muted moment. Childe Hassam studied and painted in France and New York, but this scene commemorates a visit to New Hampshire. It has some of the influence of photography—an off- the-cuff pose, the figure and window both cut off—a characteristic of much impressionist painting. Hassam was considered an American Impressionist and famously connected with the Old Lyme, Connecticut, painters from the 1880s to the 1920s.

Courtesy of the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT

FIGURE 4-17 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party. 1881. Oil on canvas, 51 × 68 inches. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Renoir, one of the greatest of the Impressionists, portrays ordinary Parisians in Luncheon of the Boating Party. Earlier painters would have seen this as unfit for exhibition because its subject is not heroic or mythic. The Impressionists celebrated the ordinary.

©Album/Art Resource, NY

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FIGURE 4-19 Mary Cassatt, Autumn (Profile of Lydia Cassatt). 1880. Musée du Petit Palais, Paris. Mary Cassatt and her sister Lydia shared an apartment in Paris. Lydia frequently modeled for her. This scene is rich with autumn colors set in a Parisian garden.

©RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY

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FOCUS ON The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Historically, groups of painters have gathered together to form a “school” of painting. They are like-minded, often young and starting out, and usually disliked at first because they produce a new, unfamiliar style. The Impressionists in France faced a struggle against pre- vailing taste but eventually were accepted as innova- tive and marvelous. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is such a school. In 1848 in England, Henry Wallis (Figure 4-20), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Figure 4-21), Arthur Hughes (Figure 4-22), and William Holman Hunt (Fig- ure 4-23), along with a few other painters, began hav- ing monthly meetings to discuss their ideas. They felt that followers of Italian Renaissance painter Raphael (1483–1520) had moved painting in the wrong direc- tion, toward a realistic portrayal of life. Instead, they vowed to return to some of the medieval styles, those characterized by Giotto’s use of tempera (see  Figure 4-2), although they used oil paint and watercolor. Much of their subject matter was spiritual and reli- gious. 1848 was a year of revolutions in Europe, and the Pre-Raphaelites felt they were revolting against corruption and immorality in modern life.

The first paintings Rossetti and others exhibited included the letters “PRB,” signaling their associa- tion, which at the time was a secret society. Their first

FIGURE 4-20 Henry Wallis, The Death of Chatterton. 1855–1856. Oil on canvas, 23¼ × 36 inches. Tate Gallery, London. Bequeathed by Charles Gent Clement 1899. Reference N01685. Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) was a romantic figure. At age seventeen he committed suicide after having been rejected by critics. He had written a book of poems in a medieval style and passed them off as authentic relics. John Ruskin, a great writer and critic, praised the painting as “faultless and wonderful.”

©Peter Barritt/Alamy

FIGURE 4-21 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine. 1874. Oil on canvas, 49.3 × 24 inches. Tate Britain, London. Rossetti painted this many times in different tonalities. This version was the last he did, for a client, and soon after Rossetti died. The model was Jane Morris, a favorite of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Proserpine was taken to Hades to be wife to Pluto. Her mother, Ceres, asked Jupiter to let her go and he agreed as long as she did not eat of the fruit of Hades. But she ate one pomegranate seed and was lost forever.

©Art Collection/Alamy

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paintings were not well received. Their purposes, how- ever, were stated clearly by William Michael Rossetti, who explained the aims of the brotherhood: to have genuine ideas, to study nature very closely, to respond deeply to medieval and renaissance art, to produce ex- cellent pictures.

The result of their efforts is a style that is deeply sen- suous, with rich color; subject matter connected with re- ligion, myth, and literature; and careful attention to the smallest details of nature. Their style is rich with the sensa that we see in abstract painting, but it includes a narrative that explores a moral issue.

FIGURE 4-22 Arthur Hughes, April Love. 1855–1856. Oil on canvas, 35 × 19½ inches. Tate Gallery, London. The rich color of the young woman’s gown contrasts with the green leaves (ivy?) and the bark of the trees. She looks down to the fallen petals, and the man behind her seems a vague presence. The scene is spring and the lovers have found a quiet grotto in which to talk. Hughes married the model for this painting, and it may be a tribute to their love. 

©Tate, London/Art Resource, NY

FIGURE 4-23 William Holman Hunt, Awakening Conscience. 1853. Oil on canvas, 30 × 22 inches. Tate Gallery, London. This is another painting like Fragonard’s The Swing, in that it needs to be “read” by the viewer. Because the standing woman has no wedding ring, it is clear that she is the young man’s mistress. The awakening conscience is her becoming aware that she must change her ways and become “respectable.” She is inspired by nature as she looks out the window to a brilliant spring garden—visible in the mirror behind her. The room is full of symbols: The music on the piano is a Tom Moore melody, “Oft in the Stilly Night”; the cat is toying with a bird; the man’s tossed off glove on the floor suggests her future; the tangled skein of wool in the lower right implies disorder.

©Christophel Fine Art/UIG/Getty Images

continued

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Typical of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s ap- proach to nature, the details of the leaves and the fallen petals are extraordinary. But the young woman’s gown is portrayed with a richness that, in the dark corner these two have found, radiates so powerfully that it seems to be a source of illumination. The detail of her scarf is also notable. Only the young man remains a mys- tery, although the bright floral opening in the distance implies a bright future.

These paintings have a wide variety, yet they all pres- ent a richness of sensa, profound colors that dominate the composition. Their narratives are romantic and their attention to detail roots us in the worlds they portray. They are fascinating in that they are often profoundly sensuous at the same time that they seem to reject sen- suality and praise morality. We see this particularly in The

Awakening Conscience. In the case of The Death of Chatterton, Wallis reminds us how fragile the life of the artist can be and pictures Chatterton as a victim of a world that did not appreciate his gifts. We are meant to be moved by the death of a youth, and most of Wallis’s audience were indeed moved. In the case of Rossetti’s Proserpine, the col- ors are deep and dark, suitable for a view of Hades, and the portrait of Proserpine is haunting.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began with a small group of painters in the 1840s, but it left its mark on painting because its style was modern even as it declared that it was looking backward to the Renaissance. They achieved their success in part because of their subject matter and in part because they produced intense vi- sions in brilliant color and appealed to our sense of emo- tional understanding. 

fraMes Photographs of paintings, as in this book, usually do not include their frames, the exceptions being Figures 4-1, 4-2, and 4-10. In general, it seems obvious that a “good” or appropriate frame should harmonize and enhance rather than dom- inate the picture. For example, the frame of the Cimabue delicately picks up the colors and lines of the Madonna’s throne. Furthermore, an appropriate frame usu- ally should separate the picture from its surroundings, as again with the Cimabue. Sometimes the artist doesn’t bother with a frame.

PERCEPTION KEY The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 1. Which of these paintings is most dominated by detail? How does color control the

detail? 2. In which of the portraits is the facial expression most mysterious? 3. What do these paintings reveal about their subject matter? With which of the

paintings do you find it easiest to participate? 4. In which painting does line play the most important role? In which does color play

the most important role? 5. Which painting has the most complex composition? Which has the simplest? 6. Which painting tells you the most about the painter’s personality? Which is most

psychologically revealing? 7. Which of the paintings has the most original composition?   8. Using one of these paintings, block out the most important shapes and analyze the

effectiveness of its composition.

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EXPERIENCING Frames

1. What importance does the frame have for our enjoyment of a painting?

2. Giotto’s frame is plainer than Cimabue’s. But would a more decorative frame be appropriate for the Giotto?

3. The fresco on the ceiling of the Som- maria Chapel in Castel Capuano (Fig- ure 4-24) is an extreme example of the domination of frames. What is the rela- tionship of the frames in this ceiling to the paintings they support?

4. If the frames in the Sommaria Chapel ceiling rise to the level of artifacts, what might be their artistic function? How do you react to them?

Sometimes a frame overwhelms a painting, and sometimes paintings have no frames, as in almost all of Mondrian’s paintings. The consensus seems to be that a frame is valuable when it complements the painting, either by establishing its preciousness—as in the ordinary gold frame—or by estab- lishing its shape and purpose, as in the case of the Giotto and Cimabue frames. Neither is very ornate; both are sufficient and useful. Clearly the fact that almost all the paintings illustrated in this book lack frames tells us something about the frame’s ultimate worth. Yet all museums include frames for most of the paintings represented here. Frames stabilize the canvas, establish the period and value of a painting, and set it off from the wall. They also “finish” the painting—almost like the final chord of a great symphony or the closing of the final curtain on a play. They say “the end.”

The fresco on the ceiling of the Sommaria Chapel in Naples is an example of frames that rise to the level of artifacts in themselves. The paintings in the center of the ceiling portray religious themes, as in the Ascension of Christ in the center. But the paintings themselves are overwhelmed by the frames. As a result, we look at the ceiling and respond to the astounding detail in the frames: their intersection and symmetry, their brilliance and harmony. One comes to the chapel not just to see the paintings, but to marvel at the decorative elements. The frames take on a value similar to architecture (of which they are clearly a part). In this case it would not be difficult to imagine the ceiling with no paintings at all, but merely frames. If that were the case, would we be correct in describing them as frames—since all they would frame is empty space? Or would we consider them as sculptural elements?

When you next go to a gallery or museum to see paintings, take time to examine the frames and decide what their value is to the paintings themselves. Find one example of a good relationship between painting and frame, and one poor relationship. What makes you decide one way or the other?

FIGURE 4-24 Fresco on the ceiling of the Sommaria Chapel, in Castel Capuano, Naples, Campania, Italy, 16th century.

©DeAgostini/Getty Images

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suMMary Painting is the art that has most to do with revealing the sensuous and the visual ap- pearance of objects and events. Painting shows the visually perceptible more clearly. Because a painting is usually presented to us as an entirety, with an all-at-onceness, it gives time for our vision to focus, hold, and participate. This makes possible a vision that is both extraordinarily intense and restful. Sensa are the qualities of objects or events that stimulate our sense organs. Sensa can be disassociated or abstracted from the objects or events in which they are usually joined. Sensa and the sensuous (the color field composed by the sensa) are the primary subject matter of abstract painting. Objects and events are the primary subject matter of represen- tational painting.

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The concept of “all-at-onceness” that usually relates to painting does not relate to sculpture because in most cases sculpture is a mass extending into space inviting us to walk around and view it from several positions. While some sculpture seems best viewed from a single position, as in carved reliefs such as the Temple Carving (see Figure 5-2), most sculpture, such as Michelangelo’s David (see Figure 5-8) or Rodin’s Danaïde (see Figure 5-9), must be viewed from a number of positions. As we move around a sculpture, we build in our imagination’s eye the whole, but at no instant in time can we conceive its wholeness.

Henry Moore, one of the most influential sculptors of the twentieth century, said that the sculptor “gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head—he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand.” Moore continues: The sculptor “mentally visualizes a complex form all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like; he identifies him- self with its center of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.”1 In a sense, Moore tells us that sculpture is per- ceptible not only by sight, as with painting, but by our either real or imagined sense of touch. The tactile nature of sculpture is important for us to recognize, just as it is important to recognize imaginatively the density and weight of a piece of sculpture.

1Source: Henry Moore, “Notes on Sculpture,” in Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1948, 4th rev. ed., David Sylvester ed. (New York: George Wittenborn, 1957), p. xxxiii ff.

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SenSory InterconnectIonS It is an oversimplification to distinguish the various arts on the basis of which sense organ is activated—for example, to claim that painting is experienced solely by sight and sculpture solely by touch. Our nervous systems are far more complicated than that. Generally no clear separation is made in experience between the faculties of sight and touch. The sensa of touch, for instance, are normally joined with other sensa—visual, aural, oral, and olfactory. Even if only one kind of sensum initiates a perception, a chain reaction triggers other sensations, either by sensory motor con- nections or by memory associations. We are constantly grasping and handling things as well as seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling them. And so when we see a thing, we have a pretty good idea of what its surface would feel like, how it would sound if struck, how it would taste, and how it would smell if we approached. And if we grasp or handle a thing in the dark, we have some idea of what its shape looks like.

Sculpture and paIntIng compared Compare Arshile Gorky’s Untitled 1943 (Figure 4-14) with Arp’s Growth (Figure 5-1). Both works are abstract, we suggest, for neither has objects or events as its pri- mary subject matter. Arp’s sculpture has something to do with growth, of course, as confirmed by the title. But is it human, animal, or vegetable growth? Male or female? Clear-cut answers do not seem possible. Specificity of reference, just as in the Gorky, is missing. And yet, if you agree that the subject matter of the Gorky is the sensuous, would you say the same for the Arp? To affirm this may bother you, for Arp’s marble is dense material. This substantiality of the marble is very much a part of its appearance as sculpture. Conversely, Untitled 1943 as a painting—that is, as a work of art rather than as a physical canvas of such and such a weight—does not appear as a material thing. The weight of the canvas is irrelevant to our partici- pation with Untitled 1943 as a work of art.

Gorky has abstracted sensa, especially colors, from objects or things, whereas Arp has brought out the substantiality of a thing—the density of the marble. Figura- tion is not “in” Gorky’s painting. Conversely, Arp has made the marble relevant to his sculpture. This kind of difference is perhaps the underlying reason the term “ab- stract painting” is used more frequently than the term “abstract sculpture.” There is an awkwardness about describing as abstract something as material as most sculp- ture. Still, the distinction between abstract and representational sculpture is worth making, just as with painting, for being clear about the subject matter of a work of art is essential to all sensitive participation. It is the key to understanding the con- tent, for the content is the subject matter interpreted by means of the form.

PERCEPTION KEY Gorky and Arp 1. Which work seems to invite you to touch it? Why? 2. Would you expect either the Gorky or the Arp to feel hot or cold to your touch? 3. Which work seems to require the more careful placement of lighting? Why?

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Most sculpture, whether abstract or representational, returns us to the volumi- nosity (bulk), density (mass), and tactile quality of things. Thus, sculpture has touch or tactile appeal. Most sculptures appear resistant, substantial. Hence, the primary subject matter of most abstract sculpture is the density of sensa. Sculpture is more than skin deep. Abstract painting can only represent density, whereas sculpture,

FIGURE 5-1 Jean Arp, Growth. 1938. Marble, 39½ inches high. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Curt Valentin. Shown here in marble, Growth was also cast in bronze. Arp showed his work with the Surrealists, who often included chance in abstract pieces that suggest organic natural forms.

©2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: ©The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation/Art Resource, NY

4. Which of the two works appears to be the more unchangeable in your perception? 5. Why do the authors claim that Untitled 1943 is more abstract than Growth? Can you

think of other reasons—for example, the shapes in the two works?

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whether abstract or representational, presents density. Abstract painters generally emphasize the surfaces of sensa, as in Untitled 1943. Their interest is in the vast ranges of color qualities, lines, and the play of light that bring out textural nuances. Abstract sculptors, on the other hand, generally restrict themselves to a minimal range of color, line, and textural qualities and emphasize light not only to play on these qualities but also to bring out the inherence of these qualities in things. Whereas abstract painters are shepherds of surface sensa, abstract sculptors are shepherds of depth sensa.

Sculpture and Space A painting is usually set off by a frame, the painting space being imaginary, sepa- rate and distinct from real space. Between the painting and us, space is transpar- ent. With sculpture, the space between is translucent, the space from the material body of a work of art to the participator we call “the between.” With sculpture, even if we do not actually touch the material body, we can still sense the solidity of the material body permeating and animating the surrounding space. Shadows cast by a sculpture, for example, slant into the space between us and the material body of the sculpture, charging the between with energy, whereas shadows cast by the things represented in a painting stay within the painting. The convexities of a sculpture are actively outgoing into the between, and the between invades the concavities, whereas the convexities and concavities of a painting stay within the frame.

With sculpture, however, in our view there is also a direct or physical impact. The space between us and any three-dimensional thing that we are perceiving comes forth into our perception, by literally pushing into our bodies. Sculpture transforms real space, making the between more perceptible and impacting. To put it awk- wardly but succinctly, sculpture is a “more real world.”

Sunken-relIef Sculpture The Temple Carving (Figure 5-2) is incised in sandstone, representing the gods Horus and Hathor. These figures have weathered for millennia, yet they are sharp and distinct. For the ancient Egyptians they told a familiar story, reassuring them that the gods are supportive in the next world. Compare this sunken-relief sculpture with Jackson Pollock’s The Flame (Figure 3-3). While their subject matters are very different, their surfaces are curiously similar. The Temple Carving does not project into space, as do most sculptures, but actually projects inward, into the surface of the stone. Pollock’s painting, although considered essentially flat, is built up and, in some spots, projects slightly into space.

The light helps clarify the tactile qualities of the Temple Carving by revealing the sharp edges of the sandstone. The density of the stone is evident. We virtually sense the weight of the object. Pollock’s work lacks significant tactile appeal despite the projection of its thick paint. And while the Temple Carving makes us aware of its material texture and substance—perhaps even revealing essential qualities of the limestone—the painting remains an essentially two-dimensional image whose im- pact is much less tactile than visual.

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low-relIef Sculpture Low-relief sculpture projects relatively slightly from its background plane, and so its depth dimension is very limited. Medium- and high-relief sculpture project farther from their backgrounds, their depth dimensions expanded. Sculpture in the round is freed from any background plane, and so its depth dimension is unrestricted. Frank Stella’s Giufà, the Moon, the Thieves, and the Guards (Figure 5-3) is, we think, most usefully classified as sculpture of the medium-relief species. The materiality of the magnesium, the fiberglass, and especially the aluminum is brought out very powerfully by their juxtaposition. Unfortunately, this is difficult to perceive from a photograph. Because of its three-dimensionality, sculpture generally suffers even more than painting from being seen only in a photograph.

Relief sculpture, except sunken relief, allows its materials to stand out from a background plane. Thus, relief sculpture in at least one way reveals its materials simply by showing us—directly—their surface and something of their depth. By moving to a side of Giufà, the Moon, the Thieves, and the Guards, we can see that

FIGURE 5-2 Temple Carving at the Temple of Edfu. Wall sculpture of ancient Egypt. The gods Horus and Hathor greet royalty.

©Lee A. Jacobus

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the materials are of such and such thickness. However, this three-dimensionality in relief sculpture, this movement out into space, is not allowed to lose its ties to its background plane. Hence, relief sculpture, like painting, is usually best viewed from a frontal position.

HIgH-relIef Sculpture The high-relief sculpture from a thirteenth-century temple in Orissa (Figure 5-4) was carved during a period of intense temple-building in that part of India. The tenderness of the two figures is emphasized by the roundness of the bodies as well as by the rhythms of the lines of the figures and the overarching swoop of the veg- etation above them. This temple carving was made in a very rough stone, which emphasizes the bulk and mass of the man and woman, despite their association with religious practice. Almost a thousand years of weathering have increased its sense of texture. The happy expression on the faces is consistent with the great erotic religious sculpture of this period.

FIGURE 5-3 Frank Stella, Giufà, the Moon, the Thieves, and the Guards. 1984. Synthetic polymer paint, oil, urethane enamel, fluorescent alkyd, and printing ink on canvas, and etched magnesium, aluminum, and fiberglass, 9 feet 7¼ inches × 16 feet 3¼ inches × 24 inches. Museum of Modern Art. This work was done after Stella spent two years at the American Academy at Rome. Giufà is a character out of Sicilian folklore, a trickster who gets into amusing situations. This work refers to a story called “Giufà and the Judge” in which the boy kills a fly on the nose of the judge, doing great damage to the judge. Stella’s sculpture was influenced by Picasso’s cubist experiments.

©2017 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: ©The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

FIGURE 5-4 Mithuna Couple. Twelfth to thirteenth century. Orissa, India. Stone, 83 inches high. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Stone, high-relief sculpture like this, found on Indian temples built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, represents figures combining the divine spirit with the erotic.

Source: Purchase, Florance Waterbury Bequest, 1970/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Sculpture In tHe round Edgar Degas’s The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (Figure 5-5), one of several of his sculptures of dancers, was not universally approved by the critics at its first showing. A number of critics thought it grotesque and others were mystified by its subject matter, which they thought rather common. But some commentators saw immediately that it was one of the most modern of sculptures and its simplicity has helped it become one of the most admired modern sculptures.

FIGURE 5-5 Edgar Degas, The Little Fourteen- Year-Old Dancer, 1880, cast 1922. Bronze, partially tinted, with cotton skirt and satin hair ribbon; wood base. H. 38½ × W. 17¼ × D. 143⁄8 inches. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 Accession Number: 29.100.370. Degas was better known as a painter of dancers, but The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer is his most famous sculpture. His model was Marie van Goethem, a young Belgian dancer in the Paris Opera Dance School.

©Tate, London/Art Resource, NY

PERCEPTION KEY The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer 1. What details of the posture of the dancer help the sculpture seem to command its

space? 2. What is the subject matter of the sculpture? What does the composition of the

dancer tell us about the subject matter? What do you think the content of the work is?

3. Is this sculpture in the round? The viewer can walk around this work. But is The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer in the round in the same way as Arp’s Growth (Figure 5-1)?

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Despite the fact that the little dancer is not dancing, we sense that she is pre- pared to move almost immediately. The subject matter on one level is the dancer herself, and the content points to her capacity to move, even though she is bronze. Her posture, leg forward, leaning back as if to spring upon the viewer, implies great energy and power. She is small, and her tutu—which differs in every museum dis- playing the work—clarifies her talent for dance. As we look at her we see her pose as only a dancer would pose. For some viewers the subject matter is not only the fourteen-year-old girl, but dance itself. It is as if Degas had somehow distilled the essence of dance in this one figure.

Sculpture and arcHItecture compared Architecture is the art of separating inner from outer space so that the inner space can be used for practical purposes. Sculpture does not provide a practically usable inner space. What about the Sphinx and the Pyramid of Cheops (Figure 5-6)? They are the densest and most substantial of all works. They attract us visually and tactilely. But since there is no usable space within the Sphinx, it is sculpture. Within the Pyramid, how- ever, space was provided for the burial of the dead. There is a separation of inner from outer space for the functional use of the inner space. Yet the use of this inner space is so limited that the living often have a difficult time finding it. The inner space is functional only in a restricted sense—is this Pyramid, then, sculpture or architecture? The difficulty of the question points up an important factor to keep in mind. The distinctions between

FIGURE 5-6 The Sphinx and Pyramid of Cheops, Egypt. Fourth dynasty. Circa 2850 BCE. Limestone and masonry. Base of pyramid ca. 13 acres; Sphinx 66 feet high, 172 feet wide.

©Lee A. Jacobus

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SCULPTURE

the arts that we have been and will be making are helpful in order to talk about them intelligibly, but the arts resist neat pigeonholing, and attempts at that are futile.

SenSory Space The space around a sculpture is sensory rather than empty. Despite its invisibility, sensory space—like the wind—is felt. Sculptures such as Arp’s Growth (Figure 5-1) are surrounded by radiating vectors, something like the axis lines of painting. But with sculpture, our bodies as well as our eyes are directed. Growth is like a magnet drawing us in and around. With relief sculptures, excep