In our fast paced world people are confronted by a barrage of images daily. Individuals, trapped in the constant flow of life, frequently fail to pause and take time to contemplate the quality of artistic representations. In teaching art, it is important not just to broaden students' horizons by introducing them to a wide array of artistic works, but also to teach them methods of critique which allow them a framework in which to develop an opinion about the pieces of art that they encounter.
Instructions
1. Present diverse art examples to students. Before students can start to judge art, they need to be exposed to a variety of artistic pieces in different forms. Start teaching students about art by immersing them in an ocean of artwork. Don't worry about teaching them about artistic periods or techniques at first, just present art to them and allow them to inspect the work and determine which pieces they find effective and which fail to speak to them.
2. Explore student preferences. After students have inspected the art examples, discuss their preferences. As a group, talk about which pieces they liked and which they didn't. Force them give solid reasons for their opinion. Frequently students will struggle with coming up with concrete reasons for their opinion. They will frequently fall back on catch all answers and insist that they just didn't like it, or that it is ugly. Since many students rarely take time to truly consider why they feel the way they feel, these superficial responses are quite common. However, by forcing students to quantify their feelings, you will be helping them prepare for the critiquing they will do as they continue studying art.
3. Define critique. Discuss the concept of a critique with students. Explain to students that critiques are judgments in which the author gives reasons to support their stance. Make the students aware that the most important element of a critique is the reasoning. There is no right or wrong answer when students critique. Whether a piece of art is strong or weak is all in the eye of the person doing the critique. The only way to be incorrect in critiquing art is to fail to give reasons to support your assertion.
4. Discuss descriptive methods. Explain to students that the first element in a critique is a description. Before an individual can discuss the merits of a piece of work, he needs to describe it so that people who are not viewing the art can visualize the piece and understand your basis for your later arguments. Encourage students to stay away from words like "ugly" and "beautiful" as these words are shallow representations of a piece of art and do not really carry meaning. Tell students that descriptions should include the title and artist, any relevant historical information about a piece of art, a description of the content of the art and an exploration of the technical qualities and artistic elements presented in the piece.
5. Explore analysis. In the analysis section of a critique, students need to make more critical observations of the artwork. Have students look at the characters present in the artwork and explore the relationships between them. Identify dominant figures or scenic features within the work of art. Explore how the art conveys movement and how the artist uses color. All of these elements can be used as a basis for the judgment that the individual critiquing the work will later present.
6. Practice interpretation. To complete an interpretation, students need to make inferences about the elements present in the artwork. It is important to remind students that everyone will interpret art differently as everyone brings different life experiences to the table. When interpreting art, encourage students to consider how the art speaks to them as a unique individual. Perhaps the sad emotion conveyed by the dark setting reminds them of when their grandparent died. Or maybe the lush natural surroundings make them think of the rapidly depleting rainforest. Remind students that part of the beauty of artwork is that it can be interpreted in the context of their experience. Encourage them to draw from the artwork images, emotions and ideas that are germane to their life.
7. Make an evaluation. The last step of critique is evaluation. It is vital that students complete this step after all the others. Often, students attempt to jump immediately to evaluation. However, when students do this their evaluation is less valid. In order to produce a valid evaluation, students need to analyze and interpret the art. Without analyzation and interpretation, evaluations are cursory and shallow. Once students have truly studied the piece of art, considered the images shown, and related it to their life, they can make a make a judgment of its quality. Be sure to remind them to give strong supports for their evaluation so that people reading the evaluation can understand the reasons behind their evaluation. By looking critically at artwork, students have the opportunity to draw from images created years in the past lessons that they can apply to their life.
