MM110 Visual Communication | Week 2 | Friday 9-11-09
Jon Measures jonmeasures@earthlink.net
www.jonmeasures.com
WHAT WE WILL COVER
Quiz
Collect projects from students
Group Exercise
Practical Project due in 2 weeks or week 4
PRACTICAL PROJECT
–
you will make a piece of digital art based on the artwork you discussed today in class. So for instance if you were part of the group discussing Jan Van Eyck "Arlofini Double Portrait" you could created an updated wedding image, use symbolism similar to Van Eyck. It should be clear to someone who knows the original artwork that your image is based on the original. Use a similar composition and color system.
GROUP EXERCISE:
The class will be divided into groups and each group will receive an artwork to discuss the 4 definitions we will be examining today (Form, Content,
Iconography, and Context).
INSTRUCTIONS:
Students wilil be assigned to a group and each group will conduct a brief online background search to determine the particulars of the artwork they will be presenting for their discussion (view list of artworks). This part of the exercise should take no longer than 15 minutes.
After collecting the pertinent information (Artist, Title, Date, Medium, and Style) group members will examine the artwork and prepare a discussion that addresses how their example communicates meaning based on Form, Content,
Iconography and Content.
Group members will decide who discusses which term and it is the ultimately the responsibility of the group to ensure accurate information is being presented.
Each group will have 15 minutes max for their presentation - use your time wisely.
Keep in mind that the goal of this Group Discussion is to critically examine how an artist can communicate meaning in his/her artwork via Form, Content,
Iconography and Context.
HERE ARE THE DEFINITIONS (today we are adding Iconography and Context to your list from last week):

FORM In its widest sense, total structure; a synthesis of all the visible aspects of that structure and of the manner in which they are united to create its distinctive character. The form of a work is what enables us to perceive it. It is the way that art looks. When we discuss the size, shape, material, color and composition of a work of art, we are discussing its FORM.
CONTENT What a work of art is about; its subject matter. Content should not be confused with form (a work's physical characteristics) or context (a work's environment — time, place, audience, etc.), although each of these effect each other, and a work's total significance. If you are discussing the objects or events that the work depicts you are referring to the subject matter and this is what the work is about - the CONTENT.
ICONOGRAPHY Iconography is the pictorial representation of a subject, or the collected images (or icons) illustrating a subject
— pictures, diagrams, etc.
Iconography can mean the study of subject matter and symbolism in the visual arts, as in collections of pictures constituting a complete visual record of a subject, or a visual dictionary. The signs and symbols in an artist's work are referred to as the iconograpy. The icons or iconography involve identifying, describing, and interpreting the subject matter. The iconography helps us to recognize the subject matter.
CONTEXT - Refers to its time (when the work of art was made) - and every work of art grows out of the context in which it lives. Context examines varied circumstances in which a work of art is (or was) produced and interpreted. There are three arenas to these circumstances, each of them highly complex. The first pertains to the artist: attitudes, beliefs, interests, values, intentions and purposes, education and training, and biography (including psychology). The second is the setting in which the work was produced: the apparent function of the work (to adorn, beautify, express, illustrate, mediate, persuade, record, redefine reality, or redefine art), religious and philosophical convictions, sociopolitical and economic structures, and even climate and geography. Third is the field of the work's reception and interpretation: the traditions it is intended to serve, the mind-set it adheres to (ritualistic, perceptual, rational, and emotive), and, perhaps most importantly, the color of the lenses through which the work is being scrutinized
— i.e., the interpretive mode (artistic biography, psychological approaches, political criticism, feminism, cultural history, intellectual history, formalism, structuralism, semiotics, hermeneutics, post-structuralism and deconstruction, reception theory, concepts of periodicity [stylistic pendulum swinging], and other chronological and contextual considerations. Context is much more than the matter of the artist's circumstances alone.
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ARTWORKS FOR THIS DISCUSSION - WebMuseum, Paris

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/
Kandinsky & Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle) - http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/ - or - Composition IX
Jan Van Eyck & Arnolfini Double Portrait - http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/eyck/
Henry Matisse & The Music Lesson - http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/matisse/ -or- Piano Lesson
Eugene Delacroix & The Death of the Sardanapal - http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/delacroix/ -or- Liberty Leading the People
Raphael & Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals - http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/raphael/
David Hockney & A Bigger Splash - http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hockney/