The focus of this essay will be on an analysis on Damien Hirst’s sculpture, from the ‘Freeze’ exhibition, entitled ‘This little piggy went to market, this little piggy went home’. This analysis will make use of Barnard’s definition of denotative meaning and how the formal elements contribute to the connotative function of the work.
Barnard (intext) defines denotation as the literal nature and explanation of what the image contains. In this case, Damien Hirst’s sculpture (figure 1) constitutes of two sides of a pig, severed in half and positioned in a translucent glass tank of formaldehyde. With closer inspection it becomes evident that the sculpture piece is further detailed with a painted stainless steel white frame and a motorized painted steel base. In contrast, however, connotation is the second order of signification or meaning. Barnard (intext) describes connotative meaning as the way an image makes someone feel or think, it may also be the associations the viewer places with that image
Damien Hirst makes use of the formal elements in order to contribute to this connotative function of the sculptural piece. He does so by using the formal elements to highlight the main subject matter of the installation, this being the pig, enhancing the sculptures shock value and using it as a catalyst for public controversy and form of social commentary.
This function is evident in the sculpture’s perfect, uniform, geometric lines, which are created by the linear arrangement of the inorganic shaped tank. This structural and repetitive use of lining is apparent in the scientific, clean dimensions of the tank and the white frame surrounding it. In contrast, however, the lining of the pig itself is very natural, and is emphasized by the j...
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...nocent child’s rhyme as a title to such a harsh installation piece, only further enhances the works shock value and highlights the fact that humans have actually become incapable of dealing with death.
To further support this argument the transparent glass casing creates a literal divide between the viewer and the carcass, further demonstrating how humans have become distanced from death. This is evident in the distance commercial pleasantries such as packaged meat has placed between our lives and the realities of the slaughtering of animals in slaughterhouses.
Therefore this short analysis on Damien Hirst’s sculpture, from the ‘Freeze’ exhibition, entitled ‘This little piggy went to market, this little piggy went home’. Made use of Barnard’s definition of denotative meaning and how the formal elements contribute to the connotative function of the work.
The colors used in this painting are a combination of bright and dark, giving a sense of professionalism and unconventional feel to the ambassadors and their backdrop. Their clothing is brittle and complete. The composition of this painting is mainly “stuffed” into the center column of the image with the ambassadors substituting walls marking the end of the items in the composition as well as forming an area that our eyes are tensed
For the Formal Analysis Essay, the following artist and work of art to discuss is: Artemisia Gentileschi (Italian 1593-1653), Judith and Maidservant with the Head of the Holofernes, c. 1625, oil on canvas, approx. height: 72 1/2 x 55 3/4 inches. Detroit Institute of Arts. The following will mention the subject of the artwork, elements of design including: line, shape, and color. In addition, the principles of design will be discussed in termed of movement, emphasis, and balance.
The utilization of texture in the hair creates an appearance of braided wavy hair. The intricacy of the wavy design creates a decorative appearance. The use of lines shows clothing on the Peplos Kore by allowing the viewer to differentiate between the different layers on the sculpture. The lines show the type of clothing draped on the sculpture and the type of clothing on the Peplos Kore allows historians to identify who the sculpture represents. The prevalence of marble comes from the fact that the marble makes up the art. The durability of marble allowed the art piece to remain in good condition despite the time difference between now and the original creation of the art piece. The use of marble also allowed the difficulty of completing the artwork to decrease due to marble having a softer quality to it when newly
Art is trapped in the cage of society, constantly being judged and interpreted regardless of the artist’s intent. There is no escaping it, however, there are ways to manage and manipulate the cage. Two such examples are Kandinsky 's Little Pleasures, and Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. Both pieces were very controversial and judged for being so different in their time, but they also had very specific ways of handling the criticism and even used it to their advantage. We will be looking at the motivations for each artwork, what made the art so outrageous, and the public’s reaction to the pieces.
People’s perception is both under the influence of the funtion of the object and the experience people feel. In Goodman’s Language of Art, This notion is carried out to be denotation which is to use symbols to convey meanings and experiences. Stein’s book” Tender Buttion” is a great application of the Goodman’s theory. Merleau-Ponty, on the other hand, describes people’s percetual experience. In the passage, he was suggesting interaction of one’s mind and body which leads to one’s unique perception. Both writers emphasizes the overall feeling of ideas spirtually.
In order to understand the meaning of an artwork, besides the overall aesthetics of an artwork, it requires the viewer to have knowledge on the context in which a work of art is produced. With this knowledge, the viewer employs a holistic approach towards an artwork. For example, Pete Fecteau’s “Dream Big” is a mosaic is made of 4,242 officially licensed Rubik’s Cubes, as shown in the image below. When looked as the whole, the icon, Martin Luther King Jr. is seen. A historical icon that embodies freedom and hope, for people who are aware of his social and cultural influence, at that time. The simple components in this case would be the image of Martin Luther king Jr. and 4,242 well-arranged Rubik’s
In existential thought it is often questioned who decides what is right and what is wrong. Our everyday beliefs based on the assumption that not everything we are told may be true. This questioning has given light to the subjective perspective. This means that there is a lack of a singular view that is entirely devoid of predetermined values. These predetermined values are instilled upon society by various sources such as family to the media. On a societal level this has given rise to the philosophy of social hype. The idea of hype lies in society as the valuation of something purely off someone or some group of people valuing it. Hype has become one of the main driving forces behind what society considers to be good art and how successful artists can become while being the main component that leads to a wide spread belief, followed by its integration into subjective views. Its presence in the art world propagates trends, fads, and limits what we find to be good art. Our subjective outlook on art is powered by society’s feedback upon itself. The art world, high and low, is exploited by this social construction. Even when objective critique is the goal subjective remnants can still seep through and influence an opinion. Subjective thought in the art world has been self perpetuated through regulated museums, idolization of the author, and general social construction because of hype.
Tony Smith’s artwork, in which he titled “Die”, displayed outside of the Orange County Museum of Art is a reproducible large cube made of corten steel that has shown rusting through its orange tint and obvious oxidation. The piece is unusually large and also elevated so that a person of average height cannot see the top face of the cube; it has six faces that all look different due to the different effects of weathering since it stands outside of the museum. It was created in 1967 which was during the period of minimalistic and conceptual art work. “Die” by Tony Smith tries to enhance the viewer’s experience of the piece through its connections to minimalism, its emphasized physical appearance, and subjective representation.
10. Porter, M. I. (1977) Semanticist pretextual theory in the works of Mapplethorpe. University of North Carolina
Bishop’s use of imagism in “One Art” helps the reader to comprehend the ability of the speaker to move on from lost items such as a mother’s watch or loved houses.
Theo and the young Narrator similarly discover the revelatory capacity of art through a single pivotal painting and author respectively, both which become significant motifs in either text. Tartt utilizes an existent painting ‘The Goldfinch’ as a fixed point of reference, which, for both Theo and the reader provides a sense of reality and constancy ‘rais[ing him] above the surface’ of an otherwise tumultuous childhood. Whereas Proust uses a fictional author, ‘Bergotte’, to communicate the universality of art, and invite the reader, through the vivid immediacy with which the Narrator’s early reading experiences are described, to participate in his epiphanic discovery that art can translate ‘imperceptible truths which would never have [otherwise] been revealed to us’ (97). Artistic imagery becomes a motif in Proust’s descriptions of scenes of domesticity and nature. In a scene recounting Francoise ‘masterful’ preparation of a family meal the Narrator describes asparagus in the technical language of painting as ‘finely stippled’ provoking an association between his observations of asparagus and the creation of a painting. By forming this improbable link he elevates unremarkable asparagus to the ‘precious’ status of art in the eyes of the reader. Proust’s presentation of his Narrator’s ‘fascination’ and pleasure at their ‘rainbow-loveliness’, forces the reader to consider asparagus with unfamiliar and attentive appreciation, conveying the idea that art can uncover the overlooked beauty of the mundane. Though Theo reveals a far more cynical view of ordinary life as a ‘sinkhole of hospital beds, coffins and broken hearts’ Tartt conveys the similar belief in art’s capacity to create a ‘rainbow-edge’ of beauty between our perceptions and the harshness of reality. In the most
Donald Judd was an American artist central in the development of a movement beginning in 1963 labeled Minimalism, a term and concept, he profusely detested and rejected. His contribution to the progress of art as a whole through challenging European artistic conventions was immense, as a result he revolutionised practices and attitudes surrounding art making and the exhibition of art. After his abandonment of painting in the 1960’s, he progressed to working three-dimensionally producing simple, often repeated forms, with an intrinsic focus on the use of space. In his eyes, he was reducing painting and sculpture to its basic elements through the use of simple forms, industrial materials, solid colour on flat surfaces, and natural light. However he refused for his work to be classed as sculpture, insisting on the term ‘specific objects’, highlighting its distance from previous notions of art-making in sculpture. These were "specific" due to their carefully orchestrated shape, scale, proportions, and materiality. And they were "objects" because rather than being sculpted, they were fabricated by the artist.
Just as other works that reflect art, pieces in the category of fine arts serve the important message of passing certain messages or portraying a special feeling towards a particular person, function or activity. At times due to the nature of a particular work, it can become so valuable that its viewers cannot place a price on it. It is not the nature or texture of an art that qualifies it, but the appreciation by those who look at it (Lewis & Lewis, 2008).
Interpreting works of art is not an easy task and everyone may interpret the pieces differently. The author or artist may have created their artwork with one intention for it to interpret one meaning and intentionalists would agree that their intention is the only way it should be interpreted. Then there are anti-intentionalists, who believe that the meaning and intention of the art is in the text or piece itself and there are hypothetical intentionalists, who think the meaning is a mix between what is extracted from the text and what the author intended. Hick mostly explains the interpretations of literary works but the same could be applied to many other forms of art such as music performances, movies, plays, and many others.
Conceptual art is an avant-garde art form which began in the mid-1960s and was stimulated by Marcel Duchamp’s DADA movement and the minimalist movement. It focuses more specifically towards the concept behind the artwork rather than the aesthetics and physical product whilst embodying the notion that art can exist as an idea even with the absence of a physical object to represent its’ concept. It initially instigated when artists pushed the limits to minimalism and questioned the next reduction to art – would it be no art at all, or as it turned out to be, art which exists as an idea. Duchamp’s idea was that the art process and the emotional output was far more important than the final product, influenced the development of Conceptual art and allowed artists to document their works as an input to the final outcome. As Conceptual art is rarely linked to an object, it is associated with the acknowledgement of human actions and the effects, responses and consequences. Through the close study of Robert Smithson’s ‘Spiral Jetty,’ George Segal’s ‘Walk, Don’t Walk,’ and Kenneth Dewey’s ‘Museum Piece,’ reveal the ideas of Duchamp’s DADA art in their respective forms of Conceptual art.