How do you 'view' paintings?

Such as this one Allira? 😊
They are immediately recognisable aren’t they?

Ditto Vermeer (for me), Vettriano and others.

kittylester

Following on from other threads about art - how do you 'see' art.

Does something 'speak' to you straight away or do you look for the deeper meaning?

I feel I must be very superficial as I either like or dislike something on sight but we have friends who will look at a a piece of work for ages working out what it is all about.

Am I not being discerning enough?

I like to feel as if I'm there.

That is why I'm not keen on portraits. They can be beautiful, skilful, I can admire them but I wouldn't buy one to put on the wall.

However, as I mentioned on the other thread, the Beryl Cooke paintings are great fun!

Greyduster

I tend these days to look at technique rather than the subject matter these days. I love the nuances and effects that can be produced with water colour paints and if well executed these can add to the enjoyment of a picture even if the subject is rather dull. I like to be to be able to see something different in a picture each time I look at it, even if that difference is only slight.

Great point. Technique is a very good identifier.

The uestion then arises, which is the work of art, the explanation or the artistic work? DD raised this uestion when we chanced on an exhibition at the Tate Gallery that seemed to consist of acrylic bookshelves in many shapes and sizes

I don’t understand your question. Of course the explanation is not a work of art any more than a review is a play or a book.
The clue is in the word ‘explanation’ although I don’t think art needs ‘explaining’ .

I love some works of art at first sight, others grow on me. A friend once had a coffee table book filled with Caravaggio paintings, I was smitten immediately and saw an exhibition of his work a couple of years later in Genoa. His work just makes me have butterflies, I feel it on a visceral level. The Dutch masters I also love. But was a little while flirting with Turner before I fell for his works pretty hard.
The same with Manet and Van Gogh.

I tend these days to look at technique rather than the subject matter these days. I love the nuances and effects that can be produced with water colour paints and if well executed these can add to the enjoyment of a picture even if the subject is rather dull. I like to be to be able to see something different in a picture each time I look at it, even if that difference is only slight.

I like sensually curved lines . and understated colours.

RosiesMawagain

Theres no great mystique or indeed skill/education/ understanding involved.
By all means read about the artist- there’s usually a helpful text on the wall or better still use the large print booklets which give you all the information you might need.
But so many people are ‘intimidated’ by art as they feel they have to understand it and there’s no shortage of pundits to drone on and on.
But look at a painting or sculpture at your leisure if possible and if you like it, look some more and if you don’t, move on!

The uestion then arises, which is the work of art, the explanation or the artistic work? DD raised this uestion when we chanced on an exhibition at the Tate Gallery that seemed to consist of acrylic bookshelves in many shapes and sizes. Not tthsat the explanation was very enlightening.

I am also fine art trained and have a degree in Art History. I know how to view a painting, but it must ‘call’ to me.

I like a painting that tells a story, like the Vermeer ones. (What is in that letter?)
The Pre-Raphaelite Arthurian images, some children's book illustrations, old town maps, historical portraits...love the costume detail.

I like works of art that evoke feelings or thoughts. Sometimes it's instant, sometimes it takes a bit of work to engage with them.

Some installations are such you have to wander amongst them and ponder, "what does this evoke? And quiet all other concerns.

Or a video (say the wonderful work of Bill Viola) these re samples of his work)

www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bill+viola+video+on+mother+dying+excerpt

I am Fine Art trained and one of the things I learnt early is that it takes two people to 'make' a work of art: the artist, and the viewer, because no two people "see" with the same eyes nor say with music hear with the same ears - we all bring conscious or subconscious experience and knowledge.
I love - or appreciate - or dislike - lots of different stuff, whether it be a high level of craft type skill or not.

If you think, "why, I could do that! How can that be art...my 5 year old can do better than that" Then it does preclude some work that might really "speak" to someone else.

Look at Alfred Wallis's work (the Cornish fisherman) - whose work was very "naive and childlike" - he not only became famous and work ££££ but other artists now work "in the style".

Sometimes of course I think rubbish you have to joking when encountering not naivety but pretension!

As a musician, I can analyse a piece of music in this way and it helps me to understand and appreciate it more (or not appreciate it as the case may be!). Most people will tell me that they “know what they like,” or variations on a theme. This is how I am with art. I can look at a beautiful painting and appreciate the talent and work involved but this is as far as I am able to go. For example, I love the stained glass window at Buckfast Abbey - my favourite venue when on holiday in Devon - especially when the sun is shining through it; it makes me feel both peaceful and ecstatic at the same time but I do not know why. All l know is that it is beautiful.

I tend to be drawn to a piece, but don’t spend ages deliberating on any deeper meaning it might or might not have. If I like it, I like it. If I don’t, I don’t.
Some pieces just grab my attention, others leave me cold. I’m certainly no expert and just buy pieces I like, which I imagine is true of most of us.

Frames not games…

I generally like abstract pictures , I was given a couple of drawings (prints) of apart of France by Charles Rennie MacIntosh and I like them they live in the dining space in my kitchen ,
I have several games that hold album covers and I just change the albums when I get bored with them.
Currently there’s an album by Haevn with a large orange moon against the hill underneath is a Manchester Orchestra album with a A turquoise moon the bleeds into orange and blow that there’s the Dark Side of the Moon cover,no moon it it seemed to fit my theme this week .
I put what I like o the walls what others think doesn,t interest me.
The three prints on the longest wall in my living room have been moved around the room but have been here for over 20 years.

I'm glad some other people feel the same as me.

One of our artist friends was horrified that I was quite taken by a picture that was partly AI generated but it was really colourful and vibrant.

RosiesMawagain

Theres no great mystique or indeed skill/education/ understanding involved.
By all means read about the artist- there’s usually a helpful text on the wall or better still use the large print booklets which give you all the information you might need.
But so many people are ‘intimidated’ by art as they feel they have to understand it and there’s no shortage of pundits to drone on and on.
But look at a painting or sculpture at your leisure if possible and if you like it, look some more and if you don’t, move on!

Good sensible advice.
There’s a lot of emperors new clothes around the art world.

I have been fortunate to see some beautiful portraits. It amazes me how the artists were able to capture such details as the fold of a skirt and give a three-dimensional look to it, in a two-dimensional medium.

I construct entire narratives around paintings, I like to imagine what the people in them were thinking about and what they were doing, or where they were going.

Theres no great mystique or indeed skill/education/ understanding involved.
By all means read about the artist- there’s usually a helpful text on the wall or better still use the large print booklets which give you all the information you might need.
But so many people are ‘intimidated’ by art as they feel they have to understand it and there’s no shortage of pundits to drone on and on.
But look at a painting or sculpture at your leisure if possible and if you like it, look some more and if you don’t, move on!

The Open University teaches (as a free resource) an approach called the Study Diamond. It invites you to consider, and reconsider, four aspects of what you’re looking at :
effects
techniques
context
meaning.
There’s a worked example using a poem but it helps with visual art too.
www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=18906§ion=4
I have found it really helpful eg when I got through Tate Modern in half an hour, I started again and used this way of looking and got much more out of the experience

Magenta8 I too grew up with the laughing Cavalier, I still have the print my grandmother had on our wall.

About 5 years ago, towards the end of COVID there was a wonderful Hals Exhbition at the Wallace Collection. They had 40 or so of his pictures and I could have spent a week there, just looking at the faces, how they reflected character and humanity.

'The Laughing Cavalier' was everywhere when I was growing up. A print on my grandmother's wall, in books and magazines, even on chocolate boxes. A bit of a cliche in other words.

When I was a teenager I finally saw the original. I was bowled over, the delicacy of the skin tones and the way Frans Hals had conveyed the transient nature of the laugh. You half expected the expression to have changed if you turned away even for a moment. None of the above was evident from the numerous prints I had seen and it was a complete revelation.

When I worked in central London I was close enough to be able to visit The Wallace Collection nearly every day and I had the luxury of only viewing one or two pictures at a time instead of having to skim my way round several rooms full of paintings.

Art is such a vast subject, sometimes I almost feel slightly intimidated to give my opinion.

All art is subjective, when I mentioned my favourite painting on the other thread, Dali's "Christ of St John of the Cross" I didn't say then that I had such an immediate, almost opened mouth reaction on first seeing it. Gratifying to know therefore I wasn't alone in that reaction though as others felt the same. That was probably my first feeling of being totally moved by a piece of art, there have been other works since but never quite the same in having such an instantaneous emotion.

On the other hand, as a child we visited Malta to see extended family as that's where my paternal grandfather came from. Caravaggio lived in Malta for a while and we went to the cathedral to see his painting "The Beheading of St John" my gut reaction to that aged 11, it made me feel sick Now I can appreciate Caravaggio's work as an adult, not necessarily that one though

I have a friend who loves Rothko's reds, and tells me she can stand in front of them and after a while becomes completely mesmerized..I'm afraid the philistine in me doesn't get that, just red canvasses Still we're all different I guess.

Oh, dear, with pure ignorance! I come from a very arty family but can't draw or paint myself. I love atmospheric stuff (Turner), the Pre-Raphaelites, E.H. Shepherd, Arthur Rackham, Alfred Bestall - anything that captures fairy tales, Romance, or late Victorian/early Edwardian children's stories, Lady Bird book art. My tastes are simple yet defined.