L. Dubay Reading 1

This first chapter of The Critique Handbook discusses an array of ways to critique art. It focuses on the formal matters of how to critique and analyze art. It begins with form and content and then speculates about how analysis of a piece can triggers questions. The example given of a red painted rectangle with a simple title of “Red Rectangle” gives an entirely different message than the same piece titled “After the Massacre.” Which now makes me think about how an artist’s title of a piece influences me? The chapter then proceeds to discuss formal praise and complaints. The examples given seem to be standard critique where one says what they like about a piece then gives an example or suggestion on how it may be improved. The next sections are about formalism and modernism, and abstracting and abstraction. These two topics bring up questions that are answered in several points. If an abstraction of an image maintains its recognizable traits of an object or if it is just a reference to something real, which is abstraction or realism? This brings up the many questions on how to critique realism versus abstraction. If a piece is not as close to looking real as it possibly can be with the materials given, should it still be classified as realism or abstraction? It states that, what is real all depends on what the source is. Many artists learned their craft through looking at mirror or photographs. These visuals are flat references that are aiding flat images, so how real can realism get? Then the chapter talks about how associations need to be recognized in a critique. People need to see a likeness in a piece.

The chapter then goes on in detail of different elements of types of artworks. There is a part that discusses what the ingredients are for a painting to be categorized as a painting and if a painting is still a painting without some of the essential tools. It talks about edges and how they define the outer edge of a painting and where the pictorial space ends and the rest of the world begins. This reminds me of many paintings that have clean crisp edges that are obviously taped off on purpose. I have also seen several where the artist has a defined edge but intentionally meander past it and continues an element in the picture in that stark space. It then talks about how when people discuss composition of a piece they always speak of the formal analysis of the composition, which they were taught of in school. The chapter then goes on about elements of formal sculpture critique. There are many good specific examples of ideas expressed in this section. In this sculpture section there is information on what elements to think of on how to display sculptural pieces. The materials and process section discusses how, in sculpture, the material sometimes dictates the process or the process dictates what materials to use. Then it tells about how materials used to be used in one a few ways with a few processes, but now lots of different materials are being used in a variety of ways. The process of construction starts with a list of materials that can be used with a list of processes that can work with those materials.