- My classes, of course,
are art history classes.
And sometimes, much to
my students' content
or discontent, the emphasis is on history
as much as it is on art.
Just looking at an artwork
without understanding
it's socio-cultural context
can be very limiting.
You understand only part of it,
but you do not understand,
obviously, it's broad
implications within the
socio-cultural context.
I very often encourage my students
to think of what I call the five C's.
And I have to tell you, one of our majors,
who has gone on to graduate
school, wrote to me
recently, and she said,
oh my gosh, my graduate
teacher used a parallel
version of the five C's.
And the five C's are intended to help them
understand socio-cultural context,
but also arranging their notes.
So, the five C's refer to
content, context, commission,
these are part of the
socio-cultural analysis.
And then, the last two
of them refer to what
we identify as formal
or stylistic analysis.
And those are composition and color.
So, for each one of the art works,
whether it's a painting,
sculpture or a building,
or a textile for that matter, or a coin,
whatever the artifact is, I literally
cover these five C's.
Of course, in some cases,
we will not know who,
who commissioned the work of art.
So there are limitations,
but whenever we know,
I always cover these five C's.
And students find them
very very useful because
first of all, they know
that they have to have
those five C's in their notes.
It helps them arrange
their notes, it helps them
recall these five C's
for testing purposes,
and it becomes almost a game.
For example, a work of all
students and anyone knows
of it actually, even if they've
never taken art history, the Mona Lisa.
Students know it.
It's one of the most
used and abused images
in art history, right?
It has been commodified,
it has been commercialized,
so students are very familiar with it.
And they have some sort of preconceptions
as what the work is all about.
So, we will talk about,
obviously, it's content.
Who is the figure represented?
Context, why is Mona Lisa
portrayed in the way she is?
In most cases, students
will have a reading
that talks about the gender limitations,
and gender expectations as applied to
the portrayal of women in the Renaissance.
They might have read Leonardo Da Vinci's
prescriptions as to how women should be
represented, so it's part of a context.
And then who commissioned it, to bring
a very simple example.
And then, of course,
we are going to analyze
how the figure is depicted,
what is the meaning
of the portrayal, what is the
meaning of the background?
That will be part of the compositional
arrangement, the structure.
If color is relevant, we're
going to discuss that as well.
Unless one knows, what the
expectations of the time were,
as to the portrayal of women,
the work is poor
in its ability to convey that.
Art works, or our
understanding, I should say
of an artwork, or a
building for that matter,
or a sculpture is limited
unless we understand context.
And that might be counter, in some ways,
to the ways that students understand art.
Because, particularly in non-figurative,
non-representational art,
art that is abstract,
very often we project our understanding
of it, and this is absolutely fine.
This is something that we
practice in art history.
But, it is equally
significant to understand
that stimuli that brought
about a particular artwork.
Develops the kind of skills that
are applicable outside of art history.
Observation, I mean,
observing what you see
and trying to analyze it.
A thing is a builds, it's
a skill building activity
that you can transfer to other situations.
And I mentioned earlier on, the
fact that police departments
and medical schools use
art history as the means
to develop observation skills.
Because, obviously,
images convey information
that is not necessarily
evident when we're just
crossing in front of it for six seconds.
But rather, when we concentrate
and analyze it in multiple ways.
- You've obviously taken notes on it.
It's just something that you have to
go over again and again, you know?
So, when you look at an
impressionist painting,
like if you look at a
Monet, you have to think
why were they painting outside?
Why were they taking trains
to go to the countryside?
Why were they doing that?
Why did they change their style from
more traditional to this
abstract form of art?
It all revolves around the
movement and what was happening.
So, like with that, you look at
oh, with trains, they
could go to the countryside
and take smaller canvasses and
go and paint anything
they wanted, instead of
having to paint cities, or make up ideas,
which is what a lot of
traditional artists did
because they didn't have access
to go out and paint nature.
So, it's just that kind of stuff
that you have to think about.
And, almost always, the
professors go over that
in class, with every
painting, every sculpture.
They say this is why this happened.
If you're learning about this period,
they say up front, this is
why they painted like this,
this is why they sculpted like this.
- The teacher always put
on a couple main points
about the socio-cultural
in Dr. Terrono's class.
She'll usually give you a
slide right at the front
of the Power Point with the big
socio-cultural events on it.
And then, usually in the
notes, we'll write down
things like that, they'll be some of the
bullet points I have.
I wrote why this piece was
important in this stage,
like maybe it was the
first one of this kind,
or maybe it illustrated
some stance or something
that was revolutionary in
that time period, you know?
Connecting it to the historical sense.
- It may not necessarily come as easily
to some people, but once
you get a hang of it
and being able to identify
the socio-political
aspects of art, it comes quicker.
