1. Exploring Art:A Global,Thematic
Approach
Chapter 4
Deriving Meaning

2. Deriving Meaning
• Formal Analysis
• Content: subject matter, iconography, written
materials and cultural background
• Criticism: formalist criticism, ideological criticism,
structuralist-based criticism, psychoanalytic and
feminist criticism
• Writings on visual culture
• Personal interpretation
• Context
• Ways we encounter art

3. • Formal Elements:
– Line
– Light and value
– Color
– Texture and
pattern
– Shape and Volume
– Space
– Time and motion
– Chance,
improvisation, and
spontaneity
– Engaging all the
senses
Formal analysis;
integrated study of
the elements and
principles of art
and the way they are
used in a specific
artwork.
The arrangement of
elements and
principles in an
artwork are called
its composition.

4. U.S. Capitol Building, begun 1793, exterior renovated 1960.
Washington, D.C. Consider the complex iconography in the
architecture that links the United States to the idea of democracy
(Greece) and power (Roman Empire).
Large, symmetrical, dome (focal point)

5. U. S. Capitol Building formal analysis
• Very wide—compared to height
• Symmetrical—central vertical axis
• Horizontally—divided into 5 parts—three
stand out and have vertical columns
• Central section—most emphasized—dome
is focal point
• Color—white
• Balanced and aesthetically satisfying

6. OLOWE OF ISE.
Palace Sculpture from Ikere.
Wood and pigment, 60x13".
Yoruba. Nigeria, 1910–1914.
Formal qualities:
frontal
symmetrical
vertical form dominates
hierarchical scale

7. Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936
• Formal analysis:
• Woman’s face focal pt.
• Dramatically lit
• Verticality—arm leads to
face
• Symmetry—children act
as wings
• Verticality and symmetry
recall religious art
• We read—worry, rear,
family devotion, poverty

9. Content Analysis
• Content is an artwork’s theme or message
• Content
– subject matter,
– iconography
– written materials related to the cultural
background
• Iconography is the symbolism or ‘hidden’
meaning behind what is seen

10. Subject Matter
• Substance of a work of art, in contrast to its
form.
• Some are obvious and others must be
learned.
• All works of art have subject matter, even
abstract works—sometimes the materials
themselves
• Subtext—underlying ideas or messages

11. Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936
• What is the subject
matter?
• What does her body
language say?
• What does the title
tell us?
• How significant is the
date?

12. OLOWE OF ISE.
Palace Sculpture from Ikere.
What we can guess:
king and queen
What we may learn through
research:

13. OLOWE OF ISE.
Palace Sculpture from Ikere.
What we can guess:
king and queen
What we may learn through
research:
King—ceremonially enthroned
Senior wife—behind him (revered
due to procreative power)
According to local custom senior
wife crowns king
Iconography:
bird—Yoruba symbol of
reproductive power

14. Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942

15. Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942
Subject—customers in a corner diner, late at night
Subtext—loneliness of city life

16. Jackson Pollock, Lucifer, 1947 3’5”x8’9”
All works of art have subject matter.
What is the subject matter?
What is the subtext (underlying theme or message)?
What is the style?

17. • What is the subject matter?
– Paint (oil, aluminum and enamel) and how it is applied—
dripped and splattered
• What is the subtext (underlying theme or
message)?
– Energy of artist
– Lucifer—predominance of black--underworld
• What is the style?
– Abstract Expressionism—Action Painting

18. Iconography (visual metaphor)
icono = image
graphy = to write
Lucifer—splashes of paint can also be visual
metaphors for artistic energy
Palace Sculpture—king’s crown is topped by a
bird—Yoruba symbol for mothers and female
reproductive power

19. Iconography is a system of symbols that allow
artists to refer to complex ideas.
Metaphor—image or element that is
descriptive of something else
Symbol—image or element that stand for or
represents some other entity or concept.
Symbols are culturally determined and must
be taught.
i.e. dove is a symbol of peace (in our culture)

20. • A visual metaphor uses an image
rather than words to make the
comparison.

21. • One common example of a metaphor in art
is the use of a cross or crucifix. This symbol
is usually used to represent Christianity or
certain aspects of the faith, such as peace,
hope, salvation, judgment, or condemnation.
The exact meaning behind a visual
metaphor in art will depend on the frame of
mind and feelings of the artist who created
the work. For instance, a Christian painter
may view the cross as a metaphor for hope,
while someone has felt judged or ridiculed
by the church may view it as symbolizing
oppression or damnation.

22. Iconography can be embedded in architecture. This design
reflects Greek and Roman architecture, to visually connect the
government of the United States to the ideas of democracy
(Greece) and power (Roman Empire).
Two wings—two houses of Congress
Dome—symbolizes unity

23. Context—historical, political, religious and social—
external conditions that surround a work
• Interrelated social and political conditions
– Historical events
– Economic trends
– Contemporary cultural developments
– Religious attitudes…etc.

24. Rembrandt, The Company of Captain Frans
Banning Cocq (Night Watch), 1642
• How does this painting represent its time and
place?

25. Shirin Neshat, Speechless from Women of Allah series, 1996 pen ad ink over
GSP

26. Shirin Neshat, Speechless from Women of Allah series,
1996
pen ad ink over GSP
Weapon and poetry
Ambiguity…words but unable
to open her mouth
Poem…is of a woman crying
out to be socially active
and not be left at home
The context…is
political and social
climate in
fundamentalist
Islamic cultures and
Western reactions to

27. Physical
Surroundings
• Location affects meaning:
• “Bent Propeller” was 25 feet
tall, steel forged into elegant
curves painted red by its
sculptor, famed modernist
Alexander Calder. It arrived
at the World Trade Center
in 1971, part of a Port
Authority plan to humanize
the space around the
immense Twin Towers with
public art.

28. afur Eliasson, NYC Waterfalls, 2008 Installation along the East Rive

29. Art writings help us understand the full meaning of
artworks.
• Art critics—describe art and
evaluate their significance
• Art historians—research art
of the past
• Curators—write catalog
essays, wall labels,
educational material for
museum and gallery
exhibitions

30. Writings about Art
• Modernist Criticisms:
• Formalist
• Ideological
• Psychoanalytic
• Postmodern Philosophical Positions:
• Post-structuralism (deconstruction)
• Feminist

31. Formalist Criticism
• Examines the formal qualities of the art
– Line, shape, space, color are all formal
qualities
–The design principles are also formal
qualities
– Media, ground, materials are also
considered

32. Jackson Pollock, Lucifer, 1947 3’5”x8’9”
Clement Greenberg—pure painting because it was abstract and because
it emphasized paint quality and the flatness of the painting surface.
Formal qualities were most important, while representational elements,
such as recognizable imagery, symbolism, or narrative, were considered
detrimental distractions. Painting was the medium that most thoroughly
represented the ideas of FORMALIST CRITICS .

33. Ideological Criticism
• Rooted in writings of Karl Marx:
– Deals with the political implications of art.
– Accordingly all art supports some particular political
agenda, cultural structure, or economic/class hierarchy.
– Lucifer—after WWII the U.S.A. was engaged in the cold
war against Communist countries.
– U.S.A. land of democracy and freedom—Lucifer represents
artistic freedom and individual expression.

34. Psychoanalytic criticism
• …holds that art should be studied as a
product of the individual…shaped by ones
past…unconscious urges…social histories.
• Freud wrote the first psychoanalytic
criticism when he examined Leonardo’s
work in light of his presumed
homosexuality.

35. Psychoanalytic Criticism
• most appropriate when
applied to works dealing
with strong emotional
content, dream imagery,
or fantasy
– Surrealism
– Assigns meaning to
imagery
Miro’s work alludes to
hallucination, fantasy or
dream
Joan Miro, The Beautiful Bird Revealing the
Unknown to a Pair of Lovers, 1941

36. Postmodern Philosophical Positions
• Postmodernism questions Modernism.
• Modernist philosophies stated
certainties
• Postmodernism deals with subjectivity,
nuances and ambiguity.

37. Post-structuralism
• The painting is the result of his
fascination with a terrorist group in
Germany that tried to draw attention
to their grievances about capitalist
society by means of armed robberies
and bomb attacks.
• The title of the series, October 18,
1977, refers to the date on which
three were found dead in their cells in
Stuttgart-Stammheim prison. Richter
…“The deaths of the terrorists, and
the related events both before and
after, stand for a horror that
distressed me and has haunted me as
unfinished business ever since, despite
all my efforts to suppress it”.
Gerhard Richter, October 18, 1977

38. Deconstruction holds
that:
• From the inside, any system
looks natural and coherent,
but that it is in fact filled
with unseen contradictions,
myths or stereotypes.

39. Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film
Still # 35, 1979.
Stereotypes
It fits with the Postmodern idea
that there is no original, no
“real”, only copies.
In contrast, Formalist critics
placed great importance on the
unique art object.
Post-structuralist-based artists often focused on the medium of photography.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1980s

40. • Cindy Sherman’s work reveals how the
subject can be mediated in this capitalist,
consumer culture and postmodern world.
The question of the identity of the subject has
been a modernist question, with the split
between the subject-object and the private-
public spheres creating a sense of the
subjective individual and sense of self.
• Her images have characteristics that subvert
these modern notions of the subject creating
a postmodern subject or an absence of the
subject.

41. • Sherman’s work can tell us two main things
about the mediation of subjectivity in
postmodern culture.
• Firstly that the subject has become simply an
image that lacks any depth, and can mediate
between interior and exterior spaces breaking
down the subject-object boundary.
• Secondly the subject is fragmented and has
become hybrid in its gender and material
makeup, being in transition between man and
woman and between ‘fake’ plastic mannequins,
and ‘real’ bodies.

43. Feminist criticism:
• Concerned with the oppression of groups…
especially women…in a given society.
• Feminists question works made for the male
gaze.
• Feminists have broken down the barriers
encountered by women’s artwork.
• Feminists have researched and publicized women
artists who have been ignore in the past.

44. – Representation of gender in art
• Can support male-dominated social structures
• Borrows from structuralism, deconstruction, and psychoanalytic
approaches to criticism
– The Guerilla Girls use artwork as feminist criticism

45. Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Holofernes, 1612

46. Jacques-Louis David. Oath of the Horatii, 1784.
Oil on canvas, 10’10” X 14”. Louvre, Paris, France.
Describe how -- and why -- two writers describe this painting differently.
Feminist criticism, Personal, Formal etc.

47. Meaning is not fixed and permanent
• Some say O’Keeffe’s flower paintings
represent female sexuality…a notion that
she rejected
• Others see her work as feminist
• Most art writers base their writings on a
particular philosophical position

48. Georgia O’Keeffe, Yellow Calla, 1926

49. Georgia O’Keeffe, Yellow Calla, 1926
What are the complex messages
associated with O’Keeffe’s flower
images?

50. • Modernist criticism—formalist criticism,
emphasizing formal analysis
• Ideological criticism—rooted in Marx, deals
with political underpinnings of art
• Psychoanalytic criticism—art studied as the
product of individuals who are shaped by their
pasts/unconscious urges/social histories
• Deconstruction criticism
• Feminist criticism

51. Cildo Meireles, Insertions into Idological Circuits: Coca-Cola project, 1970
• “Yankee go home.”
• Protesting US
economic ventures in
Brazil.

64. René Magritte, Personal Values. 1952