Freedman Chapters 3&4
I found chapter three of the Freedman text to be the most difficult of the book so far. It focused a lot on the role of art history in the teaching of art. I found myself gravitating to a small section beginning on page 49 about the viewing contexts of art (where and how artworks are seen). The text sums this up best in a quote from Arnheim by stating, 'Every visual experience is embedded in a context of space and time. Just as the appearance of objects is influenced by that of neighboring objects in space, so also it is influenced by sights that preceded it in time (50).' In other words, every image that you see and decode cannot be seen subjectively. That objects location and all of the viewer's past experiences all come into play when viewing art (see my post day 1). I got really interested in the notion that time and space effects art a bit earlier this year, and it caused me to write a paper on the semiotics of the museum space. At the time, I was fascinated that things like labels in museums, wall color, and proximity to other artworks could all affect the way that work was seen. I keep contemplating how much this has altered my personal perceptions of artwork in the past without my conscious knowledge. Freedman says, "Contexts provide the conceptual connections that make images and objects worthy of study and is as much a part of a work of art as its form, function, or symbolic meaning (51)."
Chapter four of the Freedman text focuses on the ways which humans process visual imagery as well as stages of development for that specific skill set. What stood out to me the most were the passages on the importance of visual culture. Freedman says, "When viewers do not have a critical understanding of visual culture, looking at, for example, rock videos or minimalist paintings (both of which can be interpreted as having great meaning) can seem a waste of time because they may not be connected to the viewer's previous, complex knowledge of it (65)." After reading this, my thoughts keep bouncing back to the iKid, whose skills in decoding complex images are much more advanced than in the past. I am curious if children and adolescents who are more accustomed to deriving meaning from everyday images will be more advanced in their analyses of art. Let me know what you think.
A few other quotes that stood out to me were:
"Great works of art are often considered great because they go beyond expectations (65)."
"Art that challenges them to consider their own relationship to it, and promotes a response of intellectual surprise, creates new expectations, illustrating the connection between emotion and cognition (65)."
Sadara, I am not sure that I think that kids are decoding more complicated images, but they are certainly decoding more images which I think will lead to more sophisticated analyses. They have a larger store of images to work from. For example, in the early 1900's someone who lives on a farm in the midwest and hasn't traveled would likely read images of something they have never seen, such as New York, very differently than todays kids, who have a greater bank of visuals would see these image.
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