Lauren Dubay: Reading Response: Chapter 2

Lauren Dubay: Reading Response: Chapter 2

This chapter of The Critique Handbook is appropriately called “The Story It Tells.” It discusses the different meanings of pieces of artwork and how those meanings are never absolute because they can change over time. It then goes on to define connotation and denotation of different aspects of a piece. In this section it explains how connotations are endless, by each viewer having their own opinions. The chapter then goes on to a section on loaded messages and brings up the point, for example, if it matters or not if the lighting in a photograph is bad even if it makes us a witness to a mass grave. Basically asking; do we or should we concentrate on the message of the formal elements if the piece is so compelling. Many different things can change ones view of a piece. Also, when a piece is very important to the artist the suggests that the commentary can become a personal attack. The reading asks if viewers should judge the formal elements if a piece is a terribly rendered depiction of the artists’ lost loved one. I feel that I have run into this problem several times, by wanting to comment on how the artist can improve but I am hesitant to speak up when I know the artist has worked so hard and their piece means a lot to them. I like how there is a part in this chapter that discusses the idea of a “loaded messenger.” It talks about how the identity of an artist affects a viewer’s opinion of a piece and I believe it does. When the artist is in the gallery with you while you look around, which typically happens here at San Jose State, your views change of their artwork? When people know the artist because they are well-known and for instants a particular piece is not the artist’s best work but a viewer may feel that they should like it anyways because they know they have liked other artworks by the same artist and/or simply because the artist is famous. The chapter goes on about nudes, specifically female nude. It gives different scenarios and explains the differences of piece’s meanings due to who composed them. Then the chapter discusses more and more about nude pieces. There is a small section on political artwork and how the meanings of those pieces can obviously change with time. Then has a part about aesthetic horror which I think can also be categorized as ironic art. There is next a section about how different things cause different meanings by imagery. Like how color can trigger certain memories or associations. I never thought of patterns as being associated with anything, but the few examples brought to light that there are many patterns that can be tied down to one meaning. The chapter makes a claim towards the end, that meaning can be explored by peeling back layers of imagery, which I think basically sums up this entire chapter.