What is Art? It is usually visual It makes you think It can be beautiful It is expressive It requires skill and imagination Art is a visual language

What is Art? You will be shown a range of images. You have to decide: Is it art? Why is it art? Grade it on a scale of 0-10, 10 being outstanding. Justify your score? I.e. why is it not art? Why is it amazing?

Things to think about when viewing works of Art What is it of? What materials has the artist used? What is your initial response: i.e. what do you think of it? What is the context? Does this effect what you think? What do you like about it/find interesting? What does it make you think about?/ How does it make you feel? I.e. do you have an emotional response to the work?

Mona Lisa - Leonardo da Vinci

Guernica - Pablo Picasso

David Shrigley

Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath - Eugene Smith

Cildo Meireles

The Scream - Edvard Munch

Alison Lapper Pregnant - Marc Quinn

Bas Jan Ader Brokenfalls: Geometric + Organic (1971)

Thomas Kinkade

San Clemente – Philip Guston

No woman No Cry –Chris Ofili

Mona Hatoum

Anish Kapoor

Jean Michel Basquiat

Anselm Kiefer

What is Art? It is usually visual It makes you think It can be beautiful It is expressive It requires skill and imagination Art is a visual language

Wikipedia Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics,symbolicsensesemotionsintellectmusicliteraturefilm photographysculpturepaintings philosophyaesthetics

Traditionally, the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".1 Generally, art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions.Romantic1

Dictionary Definition art 1 (ärt) n. 1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature. 2. a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. b. The study of these activities. c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value. 4. A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature. 5. A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.

Encyclopedia Britannica art, also called visual art, a visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination. The term art encompasses diverse media such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, decorative arts, photography, and installation. painting sculptureprintmakingdrawing decorative arts

A simplified dictionary definition of art: –art/ärt/ –Noun: The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture. –Works produced by such skill and imagination.

An even more simple definition: The expression of human creative skill and imagination

What is creativity? Wikipedia: “Refers to the phenomenon where by a person creates something new.” Dictionary: “The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination..”

David Shrigley

What are the characteristics of really good art? Thought provoking/challenges how you think It doesn’t have a fixed meaning… has lots of different interpretations. It has many layers… it is often complex… (Visually) arresting/captivating… It pinches you. Moves beyond being interesting. It may make you look at the world differently. Raises broader questions about life.

Why is this really good Art? No woman No Cry – Chris Ofili

Cildo Meireles

What constitutes art and what constitutes good art is (to a degree) subjective

San Clemente – Philip Guston

Why is this really poor art?

His painting technique is poor. The painting is visual candy floss. The colours are very sickly. I don’t regard this as being beautiful. The subject is sickly. The landscape he creates is delusional… Is the world really like this? Was the world ever like this? The world is not like this… His paintings encourage people to bury there heads in the sand. He encourages the viewer to aspire to ‘perfect’ world that doesn’t exist and which I wouldn’t want to exist. His paintings encourage people not to think… and therefore encourage ignorance…They make their owners feel artificially safe about the world. His painting lacks truth.

Is truth important in art?

Is Art Important? If so why is it important?

Why are the arts/culture important?

Analysing a work of Art What is it of? What is your initial response: i.e. what do you think of it? Technique - What materials has the artist used? What is the context? What are the conditions and circumstances around the work? Give some information on the artist and then the context for the piece itself. The content of the work – Your research, analysis and conjecture (opinions) around the work. What does it make you think about? What is your response to the work – I.e. is it a good work of Art? Explain why?