When I look at a piece of art I don't know what I'm supposed to think

[spacedonkey]

Is this normal?

I'm sure the thoughts I do have are banal.

Any guidance from art appreciating culture vultures?

I am going to heavily fail my degree unless i get into the spirit of passionately discussing Art.
Bores me senseless, feel like a wanko student.

what do you think of it ff?

sorry, she wasn't undoubtedly beautiful but almost certainly had a sexual side to her which is never portrayed.

Lol ff!!!

If I discuss art then I always sound like a tit. I'm the same discussing music, and I have a music degree

I don't think you are "supposed" to think anything. You are supposed to enjoy it and form your own opinions and ideas. Whenever I speak to artists, they are delighted if I see meanings in their work that was perhaps not intended.

Much is one of my favourites and I love the way he paints women in different stages of their lives. I don't see Madonna as anything religious. I think it is erotic and a very powerful woman. I remember a lecture a once went to which where they said it was about fertility and conception. She is painted at the moment of conception if I remember correctly.

Munch I mean.....

wow, that's wonderful....another take on my favourite painting

i'm so curious as to what sd will think of it....

This is my favourite Munch. It's just symbolic. When I first fell for the painting I was the woman in whote and now I guess I am in red, but I don't want to get to black. This painting hangs in my living-room (not the original...he he...I haven't got the Madonna either....)

Link -

www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.dance-life.jpg

I really like that fm, I think that you can see so much in it. I like painting with 'movement' in them and I also like to imagine that I have seen a 'snapshot' of a moment and there is a story going on behind it.

I'm the woman in red too , in fact that could be me in my wedding dress.

I'm to admit that I havn't seen any Munch apart from The Scream.

sophable, that painting is a depiction of a woman at orgasm, its perfectly obvious.

Giving is the Madonna title is just a way to present it in the mainstream. You can believe that Munch was exploring the unexplained sexual side of the Madonna if you like. I personally think he was exploring his own sexual fantasies.

it is a very beautiful and striking painting, still porn.

tee hee I think you've all conclusively proved my point that the way you see an artwork is coloured by your own personal experiences....

between you, you've used:

• something you were told in a lecture
• viewing page 3 of the Sun
• experience of looking at family snapshots
• personal views of the madonna in religion
• feminist perceptions of how women are depicted
• background knowledge of Munch's personal life
• knowledge about what titles of art were respectable at the time of the painting
• knowing what you or another woman looks like at point of orgasm

to relate to Munch's Madonna. The really interesting thing is that almost all of those things you wouldn't have known if you'd seen it when he painted it. Several of those things he wouldn't have known himself.

But all of those perspectives are valid, because they lead from your own valid experiences. This is what makes art really interesting for me. The thing I dislike is when a critic suggests that only their view is the valid one.

Agree with kama 's perspective in that understanding the context and history and politics of works of art thrills me as much as the art itself.

This takes us on to Phillapat's point where art is the international language - it can be understood and appreciated by everyone no matter what your native tongue or background.

That's why art is so important.

what an interesting discussion. going to galleries with my bf and having frank and noisy disagreements about the art works is the thing I miss most from my old life. I could still do it when dd was in pushchair, but galleries + toddler = mayhem.
maybe we should have a weekly art appreciation thread.
we take turns to post a link, then everyone posts comments on what they think of it?

great idea harpsichord carrier

philippa, what about the viewpoint that the artist's interpretation is the correct one? (of course s/he might be lying for other reasons, eg for acceptance by mainstream society)

If I said something, and someone told me "of course, you dont really mean what you just said. You really mean something else" I would get pretty annoyed. (dx used to do it all the time) But when I say it in paint, everybody thinks theyre entitled to have a field day telling me what I meant.
I regard this as my failure to make the painting explain itself well enough.

Art historians always wind me up when they postulate complicated theories and ignore obvious things like Tits Sell Art, or That composition demanded an object of a particular size or colour in a particular place. These things influence artists a lot, but critics just ignore them!
rant rant...

this is really interesting

My feeling when I go to a gallery is rather like listening to a hundred symphonies, one after the other and slightly overlapping. I find it overwhelming. I think that's why I enjoyed the Caravaggio exhibition so much - there were only a few paintings, all by one artist from one period of his life.

That's why I like exhibitions which are mono-thematic by different artists (eg. the Royal Academy's "American Art in the 20th Century of many years ago)

or comparing 2 or 3 artists who influenced each other (eg. the fabulous Matisse/Picasso exhibition of a couple of years ago)

So it's perhaps a good idea to go to a gallery with a theme in mind then? I mean, I'd get more out of it and avoid the symphonies effect.

or if you do a crash course in Western Art over the last 500 years, say, and get the main periods and styles sorted out and in the right order in your head, then it would all fall into place!

I would be interested to do a course, or at least some reading on art history. Book recommendations?

Sd, have a look at this, not suggesting that you do it, but there are recommended books at the bottom

But if you wnat to do it I would welcome your company in January!!

here

That looks interesting lilibet, but I'm already enrolled on 90 points-worth of OU courses - don't think I could cope with another one! Will check out the set books. I wouldn't mind doing that next year though ...

Sophable, your Munch picture allows me to illustrate the mental paralysis I get when someone points out a work of art to me.

Before I even look at it I immediately get stressed at the thought that I'll have to think of something, preferably something reasonably intelligent and as un-banal as possible, to say about it.

With jittering teeth and beads of sweat on top lip I take a first look. My head is immediately filled with banalities (e.g. "looks like Ali McGraw" "looks like a poster for Hair the musical" etc etc).

The good news is that if I ignore the beads of sweat and ridiculous thoughts and carry on looking at it, I can eventually calm down and look properly (or as properly as my untutored eye is able).

It is also much, much easier to come up with a response if you hear someone else's response first. Then I can look at the picture with the other person's response in mind and see if I agree or disagree with it and what other responses come up as a result. It's as if I need something, anything, to hook onto to start looking at the thing.

Only rarely do I have a spontaneous personal response to a piece of art without this performance. It does my head in

spacedonkey,
reading your first impressions made me remember some of mine to some of the paintings that I saw last week in the Pinakothek:

"Blimey Van Gogh is under-rated!"
"Trust Cezanne to spot an interesting railway cutting"
"Fab colour composition but whats that weird thing on the right hand side?" (a Munch - never did figure it out)
"Hmm - is there an inverse relationship between the size of a painting and its artistic worth?"
"Reminds me of something my grandmother would have liked"
"omg - what an amazing sensation of calm"
"Klimt, what a poser"
"yuck what murky colours, wonder if the pigment has gone off in the last hundred years or so"