Standing on the shoulders of the giants-- Michael Baxandall and Henrich Wolffln

It's not easy to understand giants, moreover to stand on their shoulders and apply it to our research methodology!! Let me give a try. Messy thoughts, but have to start somewhere.

Our two giants for the SEA 40 minutes Oral Presentation
Michael Baxandall: Patterns of intention
Heinrich Wolfflin: Principles of art history

METHODOLOGIES OF

BAXANDALL AND WOLFFLIN

"We do not explain pictures; we explain remarks about pictures"

"what one offers in a description is a representation of thinking about a picture more than a representation of a picture."

"the more powerful terms in the description will be a little indirect, in that they refer first not to the physical picture itself but to the effect the picture has on us, [...] or to inferred causes of an object that would have such an effect onus as the picture does"

-Reading Baxandall to me, is similar to listening to a teacher's concerns and things that us as a writer, an art critic should prevent from doing. In this first point, it is about the possible way of writing a description. We can try to write the reaction/emotion that struck us when we first view a work of art. The description is not about the art itself, but about how the viewer feel/sense when viewing the art.

"Baxandall's triangle of reenactment"
"description"<->"terms of problem"<->"culture"

"Inferential Criticism"
"focuses on artifacts that are of "visual interest"-a tack taken by art historians rather than general historians who study actions, not artifacts(or visual deposits of thought)

-Let me try. The work of art is the solution. What we as an art critic should do is-> through the description, that explains about the remarks of the picture->we see and identify the “terms of problem”-> with an understanding of the culture basis.

"Perception: "Participant" "Observer""
"Observer with a lack of Participant's tack and fluid sense may result the use of perspective that "bars him from the native's internal stance""

-“Participant” is the Artist. “Observer” in Baxandall’s writing, refers to the Art Critics

To me, the following keypoints point to 1 idea that Baxandall will like art historians and critics not to fall into the trap of.

It is the over reading of irrelevant social context and culture. Not all will have impacted the way the artists painted the artwork or define how the observer understand an artwork. It should be used with care.

Culture. Context.

Eg. 18th Century Chardin’s painting Lady Taking Tea

-Vulgur Lockerism & vision

-Distinctness of Vision

Mere affinity and Reflectionism

If during specific era, the society has great medical advancement. Yes definitely one can argue that medical advancement has an impact on the overall social advancement, hence there is a focus on anatomy, perspective etc. But if we really break down and understand, “medical advancement” do not have direct connection to how the society view a piece of artwork. It can become a baggage. Trying to see from that context actually create another lens that prevents the real understanding of artwork

"Influence: X influenced Y"

“X inFluenced Y it does seem that one is saying that X did something to Y rather than that Y did something to X.”

-Use the word "influence" with care. Maybe "align oneself with", "draw on", makes a better description.



Heinrich Wolffin

Linear/Painterly?

Planar/Recessional?

Close/Open Form?

Multiplicity/Unity?

Clearness/Unclearness?

In his conclusion, Wolfflin reminds us that “not forget that our categories are only forms—forms of apprehension and representation—and that they can therefore have no expressional content in themselves.”

He also mentioned that if the “apprehensional form” is “tectonic in type”– the nature of the artwork got to do with volume, earth or structure, eg figures of Michaelangelo, then this will be ”by no means sufficient”

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I think through the study of this module, Looking at SEA Art, my motivation and goal changes and I evolved within this short span of 13 weeks semester(technically we are still at week 11 now).
I will like to be the Artist/Painter, who uses Colour Theory as the finger tips, armed and equipped with knowledge of an art historian, to write about work of Art. Stand up and write for things that struck me and I find 'unreasonable' or unaddressed.