1) What kind of genre is it?2) Central or basic subject matter3) The location or the setting of a particular scene4) The historical period depicted5) Season or time of year shown6) The time of day7) Particular instant
pp. 16-17 Visual Culture
Look for yourself (active looking):
Describe what’s there
What-you-see-is-what-you-get approach
John Constable, The Haywain (1821)
Edward Hopper, Nighthawks (1942)
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled from the series Twilight (2001-2)
Peter Paul Rubens, Saint Peter (1611)
Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait (1434)
Master of Flémalle, The Annunciation (c. 1428)
Primary/natural subject matter:“What is depicted?” Secondary/conventional subject matter:“What is the story?”Intrinsic content“What does this all mean?”
IconologyDeveloped by Erwin Panofsky
Jackson Pollock, Number 32 (1950)
Form
Robert Fry:
Not what painting shows, but how:
1) Rhythm of the line2) Mass3) Space4) Light and shade5) Color
Paul Cézanne, Still Life with Milk Jug and Fruit (c. 1900)
Mark Rothko, untitled (1969)
Rembrandt van Rijn, self-portrait (c. 1663)
Art and Ideology
Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors (1533)
Thomas Gainsborough, Mr and Mrs Andrews (c. 1750)
Yinka Shonibare, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews without their Heads (1998)
Eugène Delacroix, The Women of Algiers (1834)
Léon Cogniet, The 1798 Egyptian Expedition Under the Command of Bonaparte (1835)
Eugène Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus (1827)
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, La Grande Odalisque (1814)
Ellen Harvey, The Nudist Museum (2010)
Francios Boucher, L’Odalisque Brune (1745)
Gustave Courbet, The Sleepers (1866)
Aggie, The Body Project: Men in “Women’s” Poses (2013-15)