Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #13 (1978) — Cindy Sherman, *Untitled Film Still #13* (1978)

Weekly Flipboard Links and Media Round Up

January 24, 2016

The semester is well underway and it always seems like a million deadlines appear in the first few weeks of every term. The past seven days have been a blur of editing, teaching, prepping, grant writing, and attending many many meetings. I also have some exciting projects and events that I have been working on (both on my own and in collaboration) that I am looking forward to sharing when the time comes. Still, I have been enjoying the process of settling into my courses and getting to know my students. Part of this week's media round up includes a podcast that I have been obsessed with. If you guessed Serial, you are close. It is in fact the Slate Serial Spoiler Special that reviews and discusses each episode of the popular podcast after it airs. I truly enjoy listening to the commentators unpack all that is good and not so good about Serial. Another pick I want to draw your attention to is the long article on Steve Jobs published by the New York Review of Books this month. Having read the Jobs bio by Walter Isaacson last summer and experienced Sorkin's screenplay in the Danny Boyle movie a few months ago, it was great to see an in depth review of the many recent treatments of Jobs' life and legacy. Enjoy your week and happy linking!

Bushwick Artist Will Sit Naked on a Toilet for 2 Days to Protest Bullshit in the Art World

bushwickdaily.com

The 15 Most Anticipated Movies of Sundance 2016

vulture.com

Ken Lum on Canada vs. the USA

canadianart.com

The Best New Videogames Are All About … Videogames

wired.com

A Show of Over 100 Women Artists Offers Redress but No Resolution

hyperallergic.com

The Automation Paradox

theatlantic.com

The Real Legacy of Steve Jobs

nybooks.com

‘Vinyl,’ Backed by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, Looks at 1970s Rock

nytimes.com

Slate Spoiler Special, Making A Murderer Season 2, Episode 5 PODCAST

slate.com

NYT Book Review "Dark Money" PODCAST

nytimes.com

List of links (for quicker linking):

The circumstances surrounding a visual object's production, distribution, circulation, and interpretation makes up the history and theory part of art history as a discipline.

Focus on Fundamentals of Visual Art & Culture: CONTEXT

January 23, 2016

You have probably heard the saying that “Context is everything,” and for art historians this is especially true. The history in art history is all about context—the circumstances that make up the world supporting and informing the meaning around the visual object under investigation—and context is the third element of art following my earlier explorations of the fundamentals of FORM and the fundamentals of CONTENT. Researching context is the task that drives most art historian’s (including my own) research and interests, and the task also takes up much of the time and energy spent by researchers and students working on art history related essays and projects.

CONTEXT

Returning to Robert Belton’s descriptions in Elements of Art in an Online Handbook, we find a clear and concise sentence that sums up the multifaceted work of assessing context:

“Context means the varied circumstances in which a work of art is (or was) produced and/or interpreted.”

— Dr. Robert Belton

Approaching these varied circumstances is very dependent on the kind of interests one has and the stakes or ideas one wants to explore in connection to the object. In other words, compiling context is not entirely a neutral exercise. Some researchers are more naturally drawn to the artist in question—their life, legacy, and intentions for the work-- while others are far more captivated by the historical period that a work was produced or the kinds of varied critical responses making up the legacy of how the work was (and is) read. Contextual analysis therefore naturally appeals to students who enjoy history, philosophy, and archival research. What is important here is that context must be assessed from a large number of perspectives in order to create a more dynamic assessment. It is not enough, for example, to research only the artist's intention for the work—even if they wrote or stated exactly what the work was meant to be about—since that fact alone does not account for the multiple and sometimes conflicting meanings that can circulate around a visual object. Meaning is made in the circulation of visual objects across time, and in order to account for all of the contingencies, it is important to start with at least these three areas of context:

Producer (Artist/Filmmaker):

Who produced the work?
Where was the artist/filmmaker trained?
What are some of the artist’s/filmmaker's beliefs, attitudes, and values?
Was there a stated intention about why the work was made?

Exhibition and Circulation:

When was the work produced? What is the historical/social/political context of the time?
Where was the work produced?
Who commissioned the work? Is there a money trail?
Where was the work first shown, was it for private or public exhibition?
How and where did the work circulate—where is it today?

Critical Readings and Interpretations:

What was the immediate reaction and critical response to the work?
What has been written or argued since about the work?
What kinds of readings or interpretations have dominated the discourse?
How has the meaning making around the art object changed over time?

Returning to our three examples, I will offer a contextual analysis of each work looking at one of the three areas of context listed above (if I did all three for each work, this blog post would become three essays!):

EDOUARD MANET, OLYMPIA (1863)

Edoaurd Manet. Olympia (1863) — Edoaurd Manet. *Olympia* (1863)

For Manet’s painting, I will gather context related to the Producer questions.

Edouard Manet, a French nineteenth century painter and one of the most influential painters on the Impressionist movement produced Olympia. This is a self portrait from 1878. — Edouard Manet, a French nineteenth century painter and one of the most influential painters on the Impressionist movement produced *Olympia.* This is a self portrait from 1878.

Who produced the work?: With this question, you can begin by inventorying relevant bits of the artist’s bio. Edouard Manet, a French nineteenth century painter, created this work. He is often described as producing paintings that would spark and inspire the French Impressionists, and his art was considered very controversial at the time of production. He is also regarded today as one of the most influential and significant artists of the nineteenth century, and an artist who would help develop of the visual vocabulary we now associate with modern art.

Where was the artist trained? This question sets up the context surrounding his affiliations and influences. Manet was a traditional and academically trained artist, studying in Paris under Thomas Couture. He would later reject and challenge aspects of his training as he went on to create works such as Olympia that deviated in many ways from traditional academic nudes. His choice of colours and brushwork, along with the subject choice of a known Parisian prostitute, were dismissed as “bad art” by the general public but celebrated as intentionally modern and progressive by a new generation of artists and critics.

The public, press, and Salon critics ruthlessly critiqued Manet's painting. Here is a caricature that appeared in the press at the time.

Many of Manet's ideas about what would come to be understood by art historians as a new attitude and visual vocabulary of modern art came from his readings of Charles Baudelaire.

What are some of the artist’s beliefs, attitudes, and values? Manet was an ambitious artist who wanted to be recognized by the official Paris Salon and art establishment and worked to innovate and experiment in his paintings. He was often shocked by the controversy surrounding his art work, but he was determined to be recognized for his ideas and talent.

Was there a stated intention about why the work was made? Manet wanted to take up the challenge that poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire made to visual artists of his time (in the 1863 essay “The Painter of Modern Life”), to represent the contemporary world around them in all of its flux, contradictions, and complexities. Painting a classical nude (in the long respected tradition going back to Titian’s Venus of Urbino ) that is at the same time referencing a known prostitute in Paris and all of the social taboos her personal represented was one way to explore this kind of modernity in a new form of modern art.

DOROTHEA LANGE, MIGRANT MOTHER (1936)

For Lange’s photograph, I will gather information related to the Exhibition and Circulation question:

When was the work produced? What is the historical/social/political context of the time? A straightforward set of questions that is key to unlocking a flood of context. In the case of this photograph, Dorothea Lange produced the photo as part of a series in February or March 1936. Lange was on a trip photographing migratory farm labourers, and she came across the pictured family. She gave an account of the experience and stated the following:

“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it. (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).”

— Dorothea Lange in and Interview in Popular Photography, 1960.

Lange took this photo during the height of America’s Great Depression (1929-1939) when the plight of the poor and homeless became the focus of her professional interests as a documentary photographer.

Migrant Mother is part of a much larger series of photographs that were first published and circulated together. Later, the single image would come to represent one of the most iconic images of universal suffering. — *Migrant Mother* is part of a much larger series of photographs that were first published and circulated together. Later, the single image would come to represent one of the most iconic images of universal suffering.

Where was the work produced? The picture was taken in Nipomo, California, a place where she came upon a group of hungry, and out-of-work, migrant farm workers living in temporary shelter. This is a part of the United States that became a destination for many migrants because of the warmer weather and potential for work.

Since Lange's image has no copyright restrictions, anyone can reproduce the image, resulting in new and varied meanings that have little connection to the original intention of the artist. Here, a fictional story is written by Mary Coin based on the… — Since Lange's image has no copyright restrictions, anyone can reproduce the image, resulting in new and varied meanings that have little connection to the original intention of the artist. Here, a fictional story is written by Mary Coin based on the photograph.

Who commissioned the work? Is there a money trail? The photographs were taken as part of Lange's work for US President Roosevelt’s New Deal efforts through the Farm Security Administration, a rural rehabilitation program dedicated to combating rural poverty in the 1930's. The FSA created a photography project to portray the lives of the poor, and they paid Lange to take the photographs including the iconic Migrant Mother image that established her professional reputation. The woman in the photo, Florence Thompson, allowed the photos to be taken but was never compensated for the images despite becoming internationally famous as the face of the Great Depression.

Where was the work first shown, was it for private or public exhibition? Migrant Mother was first published in the San Francisco News on March 11, 1936 as a series. This is a critical distinction from how the single photograph circulates today because the series provides a more complete picture of the situation the family was in, operating more as a documentary object of the time and not the out-of-context universalizing picture of poverty that the photo is associated with today.

How and where did the work circulate—where is it today? The photo series continued to be re-published in magazines, but increasingly the single photo was isolated and circulated for decades as the iconic image representing the Great Depression. The image was even reproduced on a US stamp. Since the FSA photos had no restrictions for reproduction, Migrant Mother entered into many museum exhibitions and has been reprinted and studied by countless scholars. The original images are held today in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

The American government issued a stamp of Lange's photograph, labeling the image "America Survives the Depression." This is one of the many ways this photograph has transformed via channels of exhibition and circulation.

THE WIZARD OF OZ, DIR. VICTOR FLEMING (1939)

For The Wizard of Oz, I will gather context related to Critical Readings and Interpretations question:

What was the immediate reaction and critical response to the work? Here, it is always important to distinguish what was said and written about a work at the time of initial production. It is often surprisingly different from how later critics may react to the work. In the case of The Wizard of Oz, the initial reception to the film in 1939 was wide acclaim, but most critics remarked on the technological achievements made in film through the use of Technicolor and special effects, while others focused on Judy Garland’s performance as Dorothy with special attention to her singing and acting ability. The film placed high on the critics’ choice list of 1939 and went on to win Best Song and Best Original Score at the Academy Awards, with nominations for Best Picture, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Special Effects. Some critics at the time did argue about the superficial and escapist qualities of the film, while European critics largely ignored the film since the outbreak of WWII delayed audiences from engaging with the allegorical aspects of the film linking a fantasy escape from the realities of life.

A newspaper advertising of The Wizard of Oz from 1939 shows how much the technological elements and special effects of the film were foregrounded. — A newspaper advertising of *The Wizard of Oz* from 1939 shows how much the technological elements and special effects of the film were foregrounded.

What has been written or argued since about the work? This is a tough question to answer without a whole new blog post, but I will cover some basics here. According to the Library of Congress, The Wizard of Oz stands as the most watched American film ever made and the most favorite movie of Americans in the twentieth century. Many interpretations of the film have been offered through the years, both from within academic and more popular culture circles, arguing for political and social meanings linked to the film's narrative. This one article in Vulture summarizes the best of the bunch (keep in mind that I would look first to scholarly sources, so I am using this as a quick summary). Among them include a parable on populism suggesting how the story links to transformation within US politics at the time; a religious allegory reading tying the Yellow Brick Road to notions of a path to enlightenment; an atheist allegory that links the Wizard not being real as a symbol of the death of God; a feminist allegory suggesting all the power in the story resides with women; and so on and so on…. This one question can lead to a PhD thesis!

During the Academy Awards in 1939, the film was among the favourite of critics. It went on to win awards in a number of categories.

The adaptation of the original film seen in The Wiz (1978) featured an all African American cast. As such, new meanings and interpretations have emerged for both the way audiences engage and create memories about the story of Oz. — The adaptation of the original film seen in *The Wiz* (1978) featured an all African American cast. As such, new meanings and interpretations have emerged for both the way audiences engage and create memories about the story of Oz.

What kinds of readings or interpretations have dominated the discourse? Perhaps the most important reading of The Wizard of Oz dominating the conversation both with critics and audiences has to do with its popularity and wide appeal and the way the story unites people of all classes, backgrounds, and religions. In this way, the film sets forth many of America’s most enduring values, but at the same time presents many challenges to ideas around tradition and authority. As writer Salman Rushdie has argued about The Wizard of Oz, it is a narrative that channels an optimistic worldview of modern Western culture.

One of the most popular plays of recent decades, Wicked keeps new generations of audiences engaged with what has been called in America the most loved and watched film of all time. — One of the most popular plays of recent decades, *Wicked* keeps new generations of audiences engaged with what has been called in America the most loved and watched film of all time.

How has the meaning making around the art object changed over time? Many adaptations, plays, and other performances have been inspired by the Hollywood version of the film for new generations and audiences. Among these include films such as The Wiz (1978); Return to Oz (1985); and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), and stage adaptations such as Wicked (1995 to the present) and countless book and game adaptations. Each reworking of the original film creates new ways of thinking about the characters and plot of the original movie. Subsequent film directors such as David Lynch and George Lucas have also talked about the influence of the film, both in terms of form and content, on their own cinematic projects.

Rene Magritte, The Treachery of Images (1929). Understanding an artwork's meaning or content means literally looking at what is in front of you. What you see is not always, however, what you get. — Rene Magritte, *The Treachery of Images* (1929). Understanding an artwork's meaning or content means literally looking at what is in front of you. What you see is not always, however, what you get.

Focus on Fundamentals of Visual Art & Culture: Content

January 19, 2016

All art seeks to express something—whether it be concise, profound, and substantive, or less immediately clear, contingent, or even superficial. In my previous blog post focusing on FORM, we inventoried how medium and materials helps express meaning through a consideration of the art object or film’s physical makeup. Moving to our next fundamental element, CONTENT, we tackle the question of subject matter, meaning, and the overall “message(s)” produced in a close reading of the visual object.

CONTENT

Returning to Robert Belton’s descriptions in Elements of Art in an Online Handbook, we can locate a useful and basic definition:

“There is less consensus here. Some distinguish “subject matter” from “content” - - i.e., denotations vs. connotations, more or less — while others prefer terms like “meaning” vs. “significance.” To simplify matters, content means “message,” however that message may be organized…The primary content is the simplest way of taking inventory of what you see, as in literal images; straightforward subjects and imagery; and describable facts, actions, and/or poses. You might think, “what you see is what you get.” …The secondary content includes things which push “what you see” into “what you understand,” so to speak. ”

— Dr. Robert Belton

When looking at a visual object, the key to assessing content is to do a close visual reading of what you see right in front of you, nothing else. This sounds easy enough, but the temptation may be to add meaning to your assessment based on information you may know about the object’s date, artist/director, or other outside information related to the production and distribution of the object. Once again, you have to ignore the strong pull towards other aspects and only focus on what is before you. Content analysis usually comes quite naturally to most of us, as we are all storytellers to some extent, but I find that English and creative writing students (writers and poets) do best with picking up the nuances of this element of art.

Let us return to our three examples:

EDOUARD MANET, OLYMPIA (1863)

This servant bringing Olympia flowers is important to our understanding of her implied status.

The first observations should be the quick description you would tell someone if you were identifying the most basic bare bones story/message of what you are literally looking at. This is outlined in the primary content. Here, the title of the painting can also guide you. You can then move onto the secondary content where you make larger connections linking the straightforward subject matter to other visual cues that help create a better understanding of what you are assessing.

Detail of Olympia's hand at the central vertical axis of the painting

Primary Content: What we see is a reclining naked woman, and she is looking out at the viewer. Another woman is bringing her flowers, and there is a black cat appearing frightened in the far right hand side of the painting. Taking into account the painting’s title, we can also assume that the woman featured in the painting is named Olympia.

Secondary Content: The woman is naked and is looking at the audience quite brazenly. Always note the attitude and demeanor of subjects to help you assess their feeling or mood. Her look suggests she is quite confident and not at all shy or ashamed of her nudity. Is she waiting for someone? Why is she nude? There are some questions here for sure. When looking at the central vertical axis of the painting (an important place to look for important meaning in Western art, especially prior to the twentieth century) we see that her hand is covering her genitals. We can also note the colour of her skin as being almost yellow, not especially inviting, and that her body seems a bit out of proportion. She appears to be reclining on a bed or couch (note the bedding) and the framing of the image is very tight around this one place and moment in time. By looking more closely at her clothing and jewellery, we can make an assumption about her wealth and maybe her status. This is in contrast to the woman bringing Olympia flowers, who appears to be more simply dressed. This other woman is likely a servant, and this is also a cultural assumption based on racial differences and her body language as she presents this gift to Olympia. Later, you will be able to test your hypothesis when looking at CONTEXT. The black cat appears frightened with his back raised, almost like you have walked in on the scene and scared him. You could of course go on and on here—and paintings of this kind beg for just this kind of close attention— but I want to flesh out a broader story to give you an idea of what a content analysis involves.

Note the details of a painting-- here we see Olympia wearing expensive gold jewellery.

Look around all of the margins of an artwork to see fine details. We almost miss the cat since it is painted very dark and blends into the background. Note also the fine silk robe and expensive shoes worn by Olympia.

DOROTHEA LANGE, MIGRANT MOTHER (1936)

With this photograph, we will once again look at the most basic story and understanding of potential meaning.

Primary Content: A worried woman looks off into the distance as two children lean on her and turn their heads away from the camera. Taking into account the photograph’s title, we can assume that this woman is the mother of the two children.

Note the details of the dirt on the mother and children's hands and faces/heads. We can make inferences about the story of this photograph based on these visual cues.

Secondary Content: Looking more closely at the woman and children, we can see that they are dirty and that their clothing is very simple and worn, in fact rag-like. The children’s hair is cut very short and is messy—the canvas material behind them suggests they are in some kind of tent or temporary space. Deep worry lines on the mother’s weathered face and the gesture of her hand to her mouth suggest both concern and contemplation. Looking carefully to the bottom right, we see the mother is holding a baby, something that is not immediately apparent on first glance. The whole picture is very tight around this scene—we don’t have any sense of a bigger space or place that they belong to. We can also note that the set up for this kind of portrait image is not dissimilar to a long history of “mother with children” or “Madonna and Child” imagery, stretching all the way back to the Bible.

I want to add here, as with the previous image, that it is perfectly OK to use your own knowledge and guesses concerning metaphor and symbolism to help along your reading. Later when we add CONTEXT to the mix, you can decide if your hunches about content make sense.

Raphael, Small Cowper Madonna (1505) The theme of mother and children in visual art is a universal story that is part of the Western Judeo tradition. — Raphael, *Small Cowper Madonna* (1505) The theme of mother and children in visual art is a universal story that is part of the Western Judeo tradition.

THE WIZARD OF OZ, DIR. VICTOR FLEMING (1939)

With a film, the analysis of content takes on a bit more complexity since once again you are looking at far more material than a single still image. The content analysis follows more closely to the reading of a book since you are also often given dialogue and not just a visual experience. Even so, the mechanics of content analysis are very similar to the previous examples with the addition of two further points of consideration.

Primary Content: You are looking to identify the most basic synopsis of the film’s storyline. We can say that a girl named Dorothy from Kansas and her dog Toto are swept up in a tornado and transported to the Land of Oz where they embark on an adventure to find the Emerald City.

Secondary Content: Pushing the basic synopsis, you can note that the narrative follows a very typical three-act structure with a set-up, confrontation, and resolution (in this case, a happy ending). Along the way, many interludes allow musical numbers to unfold. The film’s storyline fits within the classic Hollywood genres of the musical and fantasy fiction. Looking closer, we can also note that Dorothy is set up as a classic hero—the audience is rooting for her—and that her adventures and many crossroads allow for new characters to enter into the narrative.

The Wizard of Oz follows a class three-act structure typical of many classic Hollywood films. — *The Wizard of Oz* follows a class three-act structure typical of many classic Hollywood films.

Explicit Content: Digging into the analysis of content, the explicit content suggest what we might think of as the “moral of the story” or attitude expressed by the narrative. Of course we don’t have to dig far with The Wizard of Oz since Dorothy hints to the audience near the very end of the film, “There’s no place like home.” We can also look at the core characters she encounters (i.e. the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion, Glenda the Good Witch, and the Wicked Witch of the East) as embodying particular traits that we can judge ourselves against.

Implicit Content: Moving deeper, the implicit content is more subjective and asks audiences to make broader connections to how the film’s story applies to general human relations. We can say here for example that Dorothy’s adventure, while following a yellow brick road, is similar to being on life’s path where we encounter obstacles and find resolutions. Finding maturity and strength through life lessons is one of the many implicit meanings communicated through the film’s plot.

To understand a film's content, you must consider the overall narrative structure and key turning points in the film's plot.

Stay tuned for the next post where I turn my attention finally to CONTEXT using the same three works discussed above.

David Bowie (1947-2016), a pioneer of the Internet age and a truly avant-garde artist. Here he is operating a desktop computer in 1994, only a few years from the creation of BowieNet-- see the article in my weekly round up discussing this new media … — David Bowie (1947-2016), a pioneer of the Internet age and a truly avant-garde artist. Here he is operating a desktop computer in 1994, only a few years from the creation of BowieNet-- see the article in my weekly round up discussing this new media history moment.

Weekly Flipboard Links and Media Round Up

January 17, 2016

Last weekend ended with a huge loss to the world of art, music, new media, and the avant-garde. David Bowie’s passing came as a big unexpected blow to many and the past week has been filled with tributes and reflections, all circulating and finding many audiences on social media. My round up this week bookends two pieces I found of particular interest—one talking about the phenomenon of feeling immense grief at the death of an artist, and the other telling the story of Bowie’s incredible foresight and understanding of the Internet’s power in its infancy. In my own circles, Bowie’s passing was remarked upon by many who understood his powerful influence on the artistic process, encouraging individuals to be their own unique selves, providing a living example of what it means to make art on one’s own terms. Releasing an album only days before his death speaks to his commitment to both his craft and his audience. I was also tremendously moved by the range of responses, from people my parent’s age (Bowie’s generation) telling stories of working with him, to people my age who remember buying their first Bowie albums and going to his concerts, and to many of my students, past and present, who took to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter this week to share their favourite Bowie moments mined from his vast archive of material.

The week was also filled with news of both the Golden Globes results, and of course the Oscar nominations (I have links reflecting both) and there was once again talk of the lack of diversity and also the problem women face in finding power and recognition in the highest ranks of Hollywood. As I am teaching an American New Wave Film course this semester, I have included a link to a fantastic interview I heard this week with Illeana Douglas. She has just released a new memoir I Blame Dennis Hopper: And Other Stories from a Life Lived in and Out of the Movies, discussing her life in the thick of 1970’s Hollywood (this one also goes on my reading list). Many more intriguing picks to share this week, and I am beginning to add podcast episodes to my mix since I spend several hours a week listening to them on my commute. So much media, so little time—ENJOY!

Stephen Colbert Interviewed the Guerrilla Girls Last Night

artfcity.com

"Why we grieve artists we’ve never met, in one tweet"

vox.com

"The Unbundling" PODCAST

canadalandshow.com

"Remembering a Time When New York City’s Subways Were Covered in Graffiti"

slate.com

"Oscar Nominations 2016: All the Major Snubs and Surprises"

vulture.com

"A Match Made in Hell: Mr. Brainwash Paints the Kardashians à la Renoir"

hyperallergic.com

"At 15, Wikipedia Is Finally Finding Its Way to the Truth"

wired.com

"The Revenant director Alejandro González Iñárritu: 'So much pain was implanted in that time'" VIDEO

guardian.com

Illeana Douglas says Hollywood owes women more credit" PODCAST

cbc.ca

"BowieNet is proof David Bowie was an Internet visionary before Napster"

mashable.com

List of links (for quicker clicking):

One of the fundamental elements of evaluating art begins with a look at FORM.

Focus on Fundamentals of Visual Art & Culture: FORM

January 14, 2016

What are we looking at? How do we judge? At the beginning of each semester, I start most of my art history and film studies classes with these two questions, along with a discussion about the fundamentals of performing a critical reading of visual and/or cinematic language. Over the years, the close reading of images based on the inventorying of FORM, CONTENT, and CONTEXT, has come to serve as a cornerstone of my teaching—in fact, the blog post describing these values in brief is one of the most visited posts on my website!—still, the ideas behind each of these categories is often confusing and takes time to distinguish and truly understand.

Over the next week as I begin to introduce these concepts in each of my classes, I will create a separate post detailing and describing each of the three core elements of form, content, and context—creating a kind of ready tool kit for looking and assessing art and film. I have decided to do this using the same three examples—Manet’s Olympia (1863), Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936), and the classic Hollywood film The Wizard of Oz (1939)—in order to build a dynamic set of examples that create a more comprehensive whole.

As I tell my students, all of us come to look at art and film with a sense of our own aesthetic tastes—we can’t help it since we all have eyes and feel we can judge what we see—but it is in bringing awareness to how and why we evaluate and create those judgments that is core to the study of any art. Let us then begin with FORM.

FORM

Following Dr. Robert Belton’s descriptions in Elements of Art in an Online Handbook (thanks again to Dr. Bob, my first art history professor, for taking the time to produce this useful document), we can locate a useful and basic definition:

“Form means the constituent elements of a work of art independent of their meaning (e.g., the colour, composition, medium or size of a flag, rather than its emotional or national significance). Formal elements include primary features which are not a matter of semantic significance (i.e., which do not carry meaning the way a word does): these include colour, dimensions, line, mass, medium, scale, shape, space, texture, value, and their corollaries. The secondary features are the relations of the primary features with one another: these include balance, composition, contrast, dominance, harmony, movement, proportion, proximity, rhythm, similarity, unity, and variety.”

— Dr. Robert Belton

When looking at a visual object, the key to assessing form is to try and ignore all of the strong pulls towards the narrative and/or other identifying characteristics of the works historical and/or social connections, and to just focus in on materials, size/scale, and the question of how the object under examination was literally put together. For artists and for those who make or repair objects, form is perhaps the easiest element of art to assess. Their natural curiosity about how another practitioner produces an object forces them to look first and foremost at the working parts and the “how to” of the piece.

Let us look at our three examples:

Edouard Manet, Olympia (1863)

The first item to inventory with any work is the medium. Here, we are looking at an oil painting. Now, please forget for a moment that you are also looking at what appears to be a naked woman staring out brazenly at the audience—we will get to that later in CONTENT—and note for a moment the following values:

Medium: Oil painting on canvas. This is important to distinguish since this kind of painting produces particular kinds of effects that differ from watercolour painting, or painting on wood, for example.

Size: 51.4 inches x 74.8 inches. Measurements signal little without a sense of what those numbers mean, so I like to say that this painting is smaller than life size, and I have also provided a silhouetted picture of a person looking at it to help you get a sense of scale. The picture is intimate enough to look at closely, but not so small that you need to really get close to what you are looking at. Consider how different the impact of this artwork would be for example if it were as small as a cameo worn around the neck or as large as a gigantic wall mural.

Getting a sense of a visual art object's scale is critical to assessing its form.

Colours and use of light: cool tones of red, greyed white, pink, green, and shades of brown/black with a subdued and limited palette. This is just a fancy way to talk about the obvious in what you see in the artist’s choice of colour. Noting the range of the colours used and how the light falls is also useful. Here, the light appears harsh, casting shadows and creating strong contrasts between areas of the picture.

We are at a disadvantage to assessing form when we cannot see the work up close, but with the use of tools such as Google Art Project, we can begin to appreciate materials and the production of art objects. See for example the dark contours around p… — We are at a disadvantage to assessing form when we cannot see the work up close, but with the use of tools such as Google Art Project, we can begin to appreciate materials and the production of art objects. See for example the dark contours around parts of the figure and note the many layers of paint building up the composition.

Composition: Figures appear flattened, without much depth, or an attempt to create perspective and deep dimension; there is contouring/outlining around some of the figures; there is sharp contrast between light and dark values in the painting; the painting also appears to be divided in two by the yellow line drawn through the middle of the painting. These are some of my preliminary observations about the balance, contrast, and general makeup of the composition, but note that I am only discussing how the forms are rendered, not about the actual "story" of what is being shown.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother (1936)

As with the previous work, I am going to ask you to ignore the obvious image of a woman with her children and ask you to notice that the medium we are examining here is a photograph.

Medium: Black and white analog photograph. Again, this is important since the quality of an analog image is different from a digital and/or colour photograph. The limitations of that media form are also important to consider.

Size: original negatives are 4 x 5 inches, but it is worth noting here that the size can range depending on how the image was reproduced (as photographs in a magazine layout, and/or print to fit in other newspapers and media). In other words, the size is variable and can be viewed at many different scales.

Assessing scale is not always an easy task with photographs, especially when the original prints have been shared and distributed widely, as is the case with this image.

The rule of thirds appears to apply in this image. In other words, It appears highly composed. — The rule of thirds appears to apply in this image. In other words, It appears highly composed.

Colour and use of light: since black and white photography is being used, light is even more important. It appears by the lack of sharp contrasts that natural lighting is used to create this photo, and the tones and values are lighter in the bottom part of the image in contrast to the top half.

Composition: the image appears very carefully composed and adheres to the “rule of thirds" where an artist divides their image into thirds horizontally and vertically and makes sure to center points of interest on one or more of the intersections of these lines. It is enough to say here that there is obvious care in how the image is put together—it is not a snapshot photograph-- and this attempt to impose some aesthetic qualities to the image puts its documentary qualities as a photo into some tension.

The Wizard of Oz, dir. Victor Fleming (1939)

In our final example, we will consider a work of film, a motion picture. Just as with traditional art, the inventory of FORM is concerned with the mechanics of how the movie is put together. Because films, by their nature as a moving media form, cannot and really should not be read via individual shots or freeze frames alone, we must consider the total system that the viewer perceives in the film. In other words, film form is the overall system of relations that we can perceive among the elements in the whole film.

Medium: Black and white and Technicolor motion picture

Size: 35 mm film with a 102 minute running time. Notice here that size and scale is considered differently for a work of film than other traditional art forms. The way we were originally meant to see the film by the director is also important to inventory.

Colour and use of light: With this film, we have a combination of black and white (sepia tones) and Technicolor for the majority of the film’s length. Most of the shots in the colour sequences are highly saturated with low contrast and shadows, while the black and white sequences follow almost a film-noir exaggeration of light and dark combined with use of shadows.

Transitions from black and white sepia tones to Technicolor occur at both the start and end of the film.

Composition: This is where things get a little different with the formal analysis of film. We can talk here about assessing the cinematic language being used and how the work is put together, but with film many additional elements can be considered. We can focus here on technical elements of cinematography, editing, sound, and overall design, which have been assembled to make the film. I will make a few observations here. First, continuity editing is used to shoot and sequence this film in order to create and ensure a smooth and continuous flow across and between various perspectives offered through the film’s storytelling. More technically, the film uses the 180 degree rule of editing. Music is also strategically used to draw attention to the main action of the film, and the overall pattern of the movie produces harmonies and pleasurable experiences in colour and sound throughout (with the small and notable exception of the opening and closing sequence of the film).

The overall pattern and feel of the cinematic language, including the sound design, is harmonious and pleasurable to the senses. — The overall pattern and feel of the cinematic language, including the sound design, is harmonious and pleasurable to the senses.

Stay tuned for the next two posts where I tackle the element of CONTENT and the element of CONTEXT using the same three works discussed above.