Summary and Response to “The Imagined Spectator” In his book An Introduction to Art’s “The Imagined Spectator” section, Charles Harrison discusses about the imagined viewer we usually identify ourselves with when looking at a painting, which is one of the crucial factors to consider if one wants to better understand the painting’s content, purpose, etc. He uses the ‘imagined identity’ or narrator that novelists and writers create in their works as an analogy to explain the imagined spectator in paintings. Professor Harrison claims that by using this imagined identity or spectator, the scope of a painting or a writing remains narrow and stays focused on specific and delimited contents. He says another important thing to keep in mind is
Basically what artists do is they create images or pictures that help us remember past memories and be able to relive them, especially if they were short lived or rare occasions. The painting in the book is done by Manohar and is called Jahangir Recieves a Cup from Khusrau. Jahangir is a ruler of the Mughal dynasty in India, and was being passed the exquisite present of a golden cup by his son Khusrau. This painting falls under this category because it commemorates a time of reconciliation between father and son, who had a violent falling out. The moment didn’t last.
Even though these characters like Jay Gatsby, Victor Frankenstein, Holden Caulfield, Daisy Buchannan and Janie Peace carry themselves in an eccentric manner, These writers of these novels (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mary Shelley J.D. Salinger and Zora Neale Hurston) have gone against the stereotype of what classifies someone as being mad because the persons in the novel were aware of their actions, these characters have experienced some kind of trauma that forced them to react the way they do and all of these individuals from the novel seem to be misunderstood. These writers have made it very clear that their characters have been aware of their actions the entire duration of the novel. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing what he did. This was an extremely clear indication that he could be classified as a person with sanity. One can infer that the only time
Do not wait until you have the popular opinion, for it will not help you in the long run. One should want to claim their opinion as their own, not as another’s. This is his first attempt to make his readers self-reliant—or at least make them want to take the first step. Emerson then says that “a man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best” to let the reader know how it would feel if they put their all into something that was important to them—whether original or not. Ideally, an individual would feel quite happy after starting and finishing their own work, just like the “eminent painter” Emerson mentions in the first line of his essay.
Theodore Gericault, also known as Jean-Louis-Andre-Theodore Gericault was born on September 26, 1791. He was a painter who exerted a seminal influence on the development of romantic art in France. As a student Gericault learned the traditions of English sorting art from the French painter Carle Vernet, and he developed a remarkable facility for capturing animal movement. (“Theodore Gericault”, The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica) He also mastered classicist figure construction and composition under the academician Pierre Guerin.
Creativity defiantly has its influence on these forms of art. Art is just an extension of a person’s fashion. If one considers body art, families considering stories as art, and some consider feeling and passion with poems and song as art. Not only is making art difficult, but it requires time and effort that not everyone is willing do. So, when someone does put in that effort and time, it become very evident that this person has a creative mind, and is brave enough to express their feelings, and the passion to do so, it takes strength.
For example, Protagoras said “Man is the measure of all things.” By creating exceptionally fine art, artists and philosophers found a way to detail the feature of human beings themselves. For instance, Michelangelo’s sculpture, David, was a mastepiece difficult to imitate even today, showing surprising details of a sturdy man. Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, still leaving mysteries, today, particularly highlights the characteristics of people of different emotions.
Throughout the study of Western Art, the artist has always positioned their work in terms of their audience, hardly ever deviating from the message their patrons wish to send. However, as art developed from the Rococo through Neo-classicism to the Romanticism, and the audience changed from aristocracy to an ever-growing middle class, the functions of art evolves to defy previous works. This calls into question some of the basic assumptions audiences had of an artists’ status at the time, and alludes to their growing distinction as intellects helping shape sociopolitical opinion of the just and unjust. Unlike Louis XIV who led France victorious with absolute power and unchallenged autocracy, the new king, Louis XV was heavily influenced by
The late nineteenth century gave rise to a new literary movement called realism. Realism is the attempt to create an accurate portrayal of life in literature without filter. The movement aims to portray the life of people from all walks of life, but especially of the working class and the poor. Two of the most acclaimed writers from this movement are Leo Tolstoy from Russia, and Guy de Maupassant from France. Their works, “How Much Land Does a Man Need,” and “The Jewels,” respectively, portray the life of two characters from different lifestyles.
Modern art takes the best of artists and their art work and adapts it, adding new techniques and personal styles of each. When one carefully analyzes different pieces of art with openness to emotional impression and introspection it allows appreciation and pleasure towards other artists as well as their works. This paper will provide information on the artist Paul Cézanne and his work The Large Bathers, look into Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre (Joy of Life) and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. It will also discuss the influence Paul Cézanne had on the aforementioned artists upon producing their masterpieces. Paul Cézanne, The Large Bathers, 1906, oil on canvas, 210 x 250.8 cm (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
“Le Chat” by Charles Baudelaire is from the fascinating collection “Les Fleurs du Mal”, published in 1857. “Le Chat” is an erotic poem, which portrays the image of the cat in a complimentary manner. The cat is an ambivalent figure and is compared to a treasured woman. The poem contains two quatrains and two tercets but cannot be called a sonnet due to the alternation between decasyllable and octosyllable lines and not Alexandrian. Baudelaire does not adhere to the traditional rhyming scheme, which therefore makes it irregular.
Through the use of color, Matisse shows the viewer his mental mindset, his emotions, while creating this painting which adds a subjective lens to his interpretation of the subjects. The intense colors illustrate a “feeling” that would not otherwise come through if the colors were directly representational of the real natural world. The bright colors seem to evoke a sense of happiness and pleasure. There is a sense that everything occurring in the picture is alright and everybody is enjoying themselves.
Goya attributed to the modern in many ways, but especially by challenging the rhetoric of the time period. During the 18th century, modernism became classified as art that did not just simply record a picture, but one that created its own detailed perception of the world. Goya’s work is an ideal example of the modern. Though he was selected as the “first painter to the king” for King Charles III and served for generations of royalty, Goya was still drawn to the downfalls of humanity and society of the time period.
Everyone has their own criteria set when it comes to art. But art is subjective and the artist shows you their views and interpretations. Art is limitless. Our body, mind, and soul is the creation of art.
It provides a condensed history of the evolution of critical theories and discriminates between them with the aid of a simple diagram. The essay begins with the definition of modern criticism which is to exhibit “the relation of art to the artist, rather than to external nature, or to the audience, or to the internal requirements of the work itself”. This one and a half century old theory of art competed against innumerable theories such as the mimetic theory, the pragmatic theory, etc., all of which have been thoroughly discussed in the essay. Abrams quotes theorists such as Santayana and D.W. Prall to show the unreal and chaotic nature of these alternate theories.
