Art and Visual Culture
"Art and Visual Culture" expresses its key focus in its title; it is a course about art, but not only standard art, it also includes aspects of visual culture. Culture has many definitions listed in Encarta Dictionary, one of which is the set of shared beliefs, customs, and attitudes of a group of people. "Art and Visual Culture" aims to use cultural information to study the roles art plays in reflecting and shaping the societies in which it is created. This endeavor requires the study of basic art history from ancient times to the present. Throughout art history there are dominant themes that this course examines, the most prominent are gender roles, stereotyping, and censorship. A key goal of the class is to form personal opinions on issues that art history scholars debate today. Readings done from a variety of sources provide the material to formulate opinions with both sides of the issue represented. Before these complex issues can be discussed, a primary knowledge of a working vocabulary is needed, which learning how to look at art provides. The first skill developed in the class is viewing art. This includes the formal analysis of paintings, architecture, and sculpture. The formal elements of art include compositi
Leo discusses how new exhibitions focus too much on being politically correct and trying to please those groups of people who are not usually represented in art. During the Renaissance a good artist was educated and used aspects of antiquity and complex iconography in his works. For males they focused on the characteristic that males were supposed to value: muscles that show masculinity and power. Art that makes up the canon today was usually not included when it was being created. The carefully manipulated scenes were designed, as Barry states in Visual Intelligence, "to give Eisenhower stature and credibility. The study of Roman portraiture reveals a connection to political propaganda today via the power of images. NEA support provided opportunities for new forms of art to get tested. This is where the current evolution of art has reached. The discussion focused on Renaissance portraiture and highlighted many readings from both sides of the debate. They are helpful as peaceful journaling sessions that encourage taking the time to collect one's thoughts. Architecture is also important during this time for it is during The Middle Ages that Gothic and Romanesque cathedral architecture evolved. I feel that influential members of society who have the ability to do so have often used their power to regulate certain other groups via imagery. The Romans did not focus on art as much, but instead on major advances in technology, organization, and engineering. This use of images was a clever way for the church to instill its beliefs that Christians were superior. These two different interpretations of the same work challenge the reader to form an opinion.
Common topics in this essay:
Visual Culture,
Jardine Worldly,
Post-Painterly Abstraction,
Endowment Arts,
Greek Roman,
Italian Renaissance,
Modernism Postmodernism,
Renaissance Renaissance,
Christians Christians,
Gothic Romanesque,
art history,
visual culture,
art visual,
art visual culture,
subject matter,
middle ages,
art world,
italian renaissance,
le corbusier,
italian renaissance artists,
painting subject,
proper proportions,
history reflected painting,
visual culture class,
painting subject matter,
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Acceptance Essays
