Art and Observation

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Art and Observation
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Observing Is Experiencing

• Seeing comes before
• words. The child looks
• and recognizes before
• it can speak.
• John Berger
• Ways of Seeing

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Ways Of Observing
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Use Your Senses
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Touch
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Describe everything you could sense by touch,
both by touching the sculpture and by imagining
being part of the sculpture, in the following
slide.
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Smell
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Describe every smell you might encounter if you
had to live in the photograph coming up next.
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Hear
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Describe every sound you might hear in the next
painting by Pablo Picasso. Why might the people
and animals be making these sounds, and are there
other sounds around them we might hear?
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See
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Describe what makes the strongest visual impact
first in the next painting by van Gogh.
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Taste
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Describe the taste you think of in the next slide
as originally and personally as possible, not
just as a can of soup.
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For the next slide, think and write about
observing in another way. Look for what is not
there. Why may that be as interesting and
important as what is there?
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Observe What Is Absent
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For the following slide, describe what may have
happened to the subject of the painting before
van Gogh created the picture.
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Observe Change
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For the photograph by Cindy Sherman, write about
who this person may be and what is happening in
the scene.
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Observe Images
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Next, not only describe the action that draws
your attention most, but also describe how the
action makes you feel or what memories the action
may draw out from you.
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Observe Actions
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Next, list all the details that catch the eye
right away. Then describe what feelings or
meanings the details create when you put them
together.
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Observe Details
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For the next painting, by Degas, describe not
only who these people are but also the
relationships you might see among them,
personally and professionally.
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Observe People
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Are you in a real or imaginary place in the next
painting by Paul Gauguin? Describe what is real
and what is imaginative. Could the scene be both
real and imagined at the same time?
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Observe Places
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For the next picture, describe how words make you
see or hear it. Do words change your feeling
about the art. What other kinds of art also use
words?
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Observe With Words
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For the last slide, a print by Albrecht Durer,
write a quick story you see happening there.
Think of character, setting, action and meaning.
Your story may be what you see on your own or one
from previous knowledge.
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Observe The Story
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Look Around You

• We never look at just
• one thing we are
• always looking at the
• relation between things
• and ourselves.
• John Berger
• Ways of Seeing

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Art Web Sources

• www.moma.org
• www.ima-art.org
• www.artic.edu
• www.paris.org/musees
• www.metmuseum.org
• www.cincinnatiartmuseum.com
• www.graffiti.org