Ways of Seeing by
"The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled" -- so opens John Berger's revolutionary million-copy bestseller on how to look at art. Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has. from publisher (1990)
Visual Culture by
How to think about what it means to look and see- a guide for navigating the complexities of visual culture The visual surrounds us, some of it invited, most of it not. In this visual environment, everything we see-color, the moon, a skyscraper, a stop sign, a political poster, rising sea levels, a photograph of Kim Kardashian West-somehow becomes legible, normalized, accessible. How does this happen? How do we live and move in our visual environments? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a guide for navigating the complexities of visual culture, outlining strategies for thinking about what it means to look and see-and what is at stake in doing so. Visual culture has always been inscribed by the dominant and by domination. This book suggests how we might weaponize the visual for positive, unifying change. Drawing on both historical and contemporary examples-from Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and Beyonce and Jay-Z at the Louvre to the first images of a black hole-Alexis Boylan considers how we engage with and are manipulated by what we see. She begins with what- what is visual culture, and what questions, ideas, and quandaries animate our approach to the visual? She continues with where- where are we allowed to see it, and where do we stand when we look? Then, who- whose bodies have been present or absent from visual culture, and who is allowed to see it? And, finally, when- is the visual detached from time? When do we see what we need to see?
Visual Literacy: Writing About Art by
Acquaints readers with the critical issues that shape the discipline of art. This book seeks to teach how to write about art from a variety of scholarly and rhetorical perspectives. Responding to art: visual literacy and the practice of writing -- "Intelligent seeing": description and analysis of form -- On site: art and architecture in social contexts -- Museum as context: display and representation -- Planning and developing an essay -- Structuring an essay -- Revising an essay -- Editing an essay: grammar, punctuation, usage -- Researching and documenting an essay -- Critical perspectives: on Women of Algiers in their apartment by Eugène Delacroix.
If you're researching a work of art or object you saw at a museum, you can usually look it up on the museum website. In preparation for your research, while you are looking at the art, write down or photograph all the information you can about the work:
There are some well known challenges with "art history" research (compared with contemporary art). There are untitled works, works with similar titles, and works made by artists who made work on behalf of another artist. Librarians at Pace and at NYC museums can work with you to help you find articles and books about a specific work of art.
A popular assignment at Pace is researching a work of art in a museum, often The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met provides useful information on its website, so we recommend you click here and then type in the name of the art work or the artist and keywords (in this case, Manet and Mademoiselle works). Here is the page about this painting.
Art scholarship, criticism and reviews are essential for understanding the significance of works of art, artists, and art movements. Scholarship is found in peer-reviewed academic journals, and art criticism and exhibition reviews are found in journals as well as magazines, web sites, social media, and newspapers. Books are essential sources of academic or scholarly writing about art, especially those published by universities or museums. Click on the Books & Background Sources or Articles & Databases tabs on the left menu for suggested resources to locate scholarly material about art subjects.
