It's been over three months since I took a step back and asked myself what I'm really doing here, but I thought now would be a good time to do exactly that. I've given over fifty master works individualized time, attention and space in my mind after pausing my historic studies at the collapse of the western Roman empire. I have to admit to myself that I do take formal design and fine art pretty seriously. Many of my summaries of various works sound similar, which would lead most to think of this as a waste of time. I don't feel that it is; there are a handful of things I'm attempting to accomplish with this daily effort.
First, I want to make basic formal analysis something of a reflex in my mind. With each work, there's a laundry list of elements, strategies and concepts I check off to see where I am. Second, I'm attempting to integrate more complicated and sometimes specialized knowledge into the model of formal analysis I've developed so far. Next, I do enjoy knowing some detail of the master works and their creators that have carried visual communication and artistic expression to where it is now. It helps me to put into context, both historically and stylistically, my own efforts, in addition to paying basic respect to those who have come before me and deserve it. Last, even though this can feel like work, and sometimes it's hard for me to explain what I think is going on, I do have fun, or at least draw satisfaction from this project.
The greatest challenge for me is identifying content. Even now I don't think I'm reliable at formal analysis, which is simpler than deciphering an artist's message. I'm comfortable never getting to a point where I can respectably untangle a compositions elements and energy, but I'll never stop trying. Even beyond that, I do sort of dream that some day I'll be able to view a work I've never seen before and be able to make a reasonably solid guess at what the artist intended to say, or the emotion she or he is attempting to inspire. Because content can be a "code to crack", an impression, an emotion, a simple reflection of optical reality, something literal, something with no identifiable connection to the initial inspiration, or even nothing at all, this requires daily, life-long effort, with no guarantee of any measure of success.
In any event, I have probably a week's worth of pieces still to integrate, and then I'll consider myself half way done. At the half way point, my initial analysis will be more risky and I'm sure the follow-up paragraphs in each essay will push me to improve my formal and content analysis skills. Of course, my analysis is just that. I know I'm often way off-base, and I welcome any discussion or criticism.
One final note: It's very important that I point out that all of the master works images and many of the formal details in my analysis share their basis in one of my textbooks from an introductory art class I took a few years ago. While the germ of one or two important details about each work come from this text, all of the essays I've posted in this blog are carefully considered and in my own words.
Ocvirk, Stinson, Wigg, Bone & Cayton, D. L. (2008). Art Fundamentals | Theory and Practice (11th ed.). McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
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