I got a little carried away this time, sorry if it's too long!
Whereas the first chapter of The Critique Handbook focuses on the formal elements of a work of art, and elucidates the factors that need to be taken into consideration, this chapter examines how those formal choices create meaning in the work. Above all else it must be stressed that meaning, in fine art, is slippery, potentially multiple, often open to interpretation, and highly dependent on the context surrounding the work. Even in language, a system designed explicitly for communication, there are ambiguities (the double entendre relies on this), and the context can easily change the connotation of a message.
Representative art begins with a layer of meaning in the form of denotation- the recognizable objects that the work is depicting. On their own, the represented objects may carry a meaning, but more often it is only when the image of the object is activated (by means of context, material, construction, affect, etc) that it begins to become significant. An object in of itself rarely has a significance, especially when considered at too high of a level of abstraction: a sculpture of “a boy” could be meaningless, but if it is a sculpture of “a boy in a dress crying” then new layers of significance arise- the rendering of his dress and his crying are denoted, but the message itself is connoted. In a representative work, the connotations that the work will evoke are all wrapped up in the subtleties of the execution of the image. The reading gives examples of two still lives of flowers, one blooming with life and the other withered and dead.
Even without considering representation, however, there are myriad opportunities to create meaning through the formal choices surrounding a work. The general rule of thumb seems to be dependent on the idea that there is a sort of “status quo” regarding any formal choice in the art world; canvases for painting are usually rectangles, sculptures are usually made out of bronze or marble and usually rest on pedestals, skies are usually blue, etc. Only when a work breaks these norms that a given formal choice becomes foregrounded. A purely aesthetic painting of a still life will never be read as such if it's painted with the artist's blood, and using oil paints to refer to an oil spill will most likely fly under most critics radars.
Every formal consideration that was discussed in the last chapter is discussed here as well, in the context of creating meaning. Creating meaning is an exercise in creating connections to the real world- what kinds of things are small in a big room, and what does scale infer? What kinds of things are blue, and how do those blue things reflect on the object at hand? Site-specificity takes on a whole new life when examining the message of the work, because it no longer relates only to the physical dimensions of the place but of the entire history, culture, and context of the area, not only in space but in time as well. A sculpture of a Vietnamese man would be read drastically different in Vietnam today than in the US during the Vietnam War.
Highly important in the reading is the question of the artist's identity, which comes into play most significantly when the artist is dealing with sociological meanings. There aren't simple ways to codify these interactions, but they most often come up when someone starts making art that represents the condition of someone other than themselves. The reading gives the example of four paintings of nude women, made by four individuals of different genders, ages, and temperaments. Because the identities of the artists and the handling of the subject matter changes so drastically, the paintings are read significantly differently.
Overall I felt the reading was helpful. It laid out the basics of reading art in the sort of “you knew it but needed it spelled out” kind of way. What I found most interesting was the “Color as Index” section, and the idea of creating a highly parseable language within the work itself. Ultimately I don't find the act of decryption very interesting, and some of the methods of creating meaning presented in the reading feel like that- they create a 1:1 correlation between a form and an idea in order to express a message, but in doing so they create (and even celebrate) a huge amount of room for ambiguity. There is a difference between poetic truths and factual truths, and there's certainly room for ambiguity and interpretations in some cases, but if you have a clear thesis show it some respect and communicate it clearly.
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