How to Look at Art like a Pro!

Have you ever gone into a museum or an art gallery and thought, "They call that art? I bet my 3 year old cousin could do a much better job than that!" Or, "What in the world is that?" Well, I'm here for you! We are going to look at some art and introduce some art vocabulary that will help you to look and talk intelligently and critically at the art you see, even if you don't understand it or even like it. You see, most of us look at art subjectively. We might say "Oh I just love the color yellow and I love flowers, so that is a beautiful daffodil!" It is most likely that you will not be finding a yellow daffodil in every art museum or art gallery you walk into. So what then? That's when you need the tools of looking at art objectively. I'll give an example, some years ago in Paris, France, I had the pleasure of seeing a visual journey of Mark Rothko, one of my favorite abstract artists. I was able to see how he went from painting figuratively to his totally abstract color field paintings, which he continued until his life ended. Here is a link to a site with his work on it. http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/intro1.shtm Go check it out, then come back. Since art is not only about face value, as with many other things in life, you need to dig a little deeper to appreciate it.
I loved my art crititique class, because it taught me to never look at a work of art and just say "that's ugly or that's nice." Let's look at this piece together, called White Center from Mark Rothko, from 1950. That's the first step already.

1. Who is the artist and what is the title of the work, and when was it made. Unless of course, you are like me and like to test yourself from afar, to guess the who and what about the work before actually looking at the labels. You can find it here: http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/classic2a.shtm At first glance, one only sees what might look like a large colorful British-style licorice, at least that what I see. That's what you want to do, step number

2. Establish what you are seeing, literally. For instance, I see a thin white rectangle sandwiched between a larger orange and a larger still hot pink one, with just a thin line of what looks like black, between the on top Orange shape and the white, and another even thinner line of what appears to be blue(There's nothing like seeing a work of art in person), between the white and the hot pink shape underneath. In the background, I see a tiny bit of red around the top half of the painting and I see orange around the bottom half of the painting. I've used some descriptive words like background, top half, underneath, shape, and line, etc. to try to describe the elements and how they are composed, or placed on the plane, or in the space. Step number

3. What is the material used and how is it used. I would then say that it looks like oil paint on a canvas, used in thin transparent layers, giving just a bit more of a color from the layer underneath, as opposed to textured, opaque, impasto, or thick layers of paint that aren't see through and show the brush strokes.
The next step could be,

4. Analyze the dialogue of the elements. That's fancy for saying, how do the shapes, lines and colors relate to one another? I would say that as a unit they all seem to push forward away from the darker red and orange border that acts as a background. The middle white piece seems to stand out the most, not only because it is the brightest colored shape, but also because the two ends overlap onto the darker color beneath and pulls the ends back, pushing the middle out even more, making the white shape look more like a 3-D form than the rest of the mostly flat 2-D looking painting. The other 2 major shapes, are also bright, but the hot pink which is larger and more penetrating, keeps your eye from only looking at the middle. The background orange on the bottom als serves to talk to, or dialogue with orange rectangle on top assuring that you will not stay in only one place. Also the orange and red and also the hot pink, are traditional warm colors, while the white rectangle in the middle, the black, and the thin blue lines contrast as traditional cool colors making your eyes pop, since cool colors usually recede and warm colors come forward. At the same time, there are only horizontal and vertical lines used, which triggers a sense of peace, and harmony. Which brings me to a possible step

5. Is this work expressive or passive? To which I might answer, both. As I mentioned the contrast in the colors as well as the contrast between the brightness and wild choice of color combination with the peace and rest of the mostly horizontal composition of the elements, makes me think of a really psychotic person that is polite and shy, but angry and depressed. Let me explain, we all know those quiet people that seem to take bad treatment without a fight, but sometimes when they're around, you feel a tremendously uneasy tension, which if gone untreated, might end up in a tragedy. My interpretation might be a bit extreme, but I just wanted to make the clear point of the dichotomy of this work as I see it. Finally, I come to number

6. How do I think this work measures up? Like, against other works I see, or have seen, and perhaps against my own expectations of what should be considered good art. Well, as you might have guessed, I really enjoy looking at this work of art. It has a timeless pushing of boundaries that I think is characteristic of our time in the arts, but still has a classical feel of, understanding color and what to do with oil paint to get the most out of color, like another of my favorite artists in a whole other genre, Jan Vermeer, a Dutch painter from the 1600s did. They both used many thin layers of color to achieve a more richer deeper hue than just mixing and applying one color. Only, Vermeer has a totally figurative and very clearly wanting to make his figures look 3-D. That's it for now, but I hope it is enough to at least get you thinking more about what you see the next time you walk into an art gallery, or an art museum. I'll be looking forward to talking to you some more about how to look at art. Feel free to leave your comments.