The story it tells

“Meaning can never be finite or stable”

What a relief to hear that! Trying to interpret an artist’s work has always frustrated me. I always feel that if I interpret a piece different from others, them my interpretation is wrong. I guess not.

Signification. I always wondered what exactly that meant when concerning a piece of work. Once again I am reminded that the way a piece is displayed is CRITICAL! That is just something that I would have never even considered putting much thought into before.

Denotation vs. Connotation. I liked the example they used in trying to explain the differences. Before, I would have never associated these two words with artwork. One is visual, the other, interpreted. “Subject matter is denotative (visual) and content is connotative (interpretive). That really helps me understand the difference. I wasn’t aware of the difference to be honest.
I can relate to the loaded message. Generally, in my experiences with critiques, everyone feels that they must nice to the person being critiqued, that they should say only positive comments, talk about the good and ignore the flaws. Often, if a piece of work was bad, I noticed students (including myself) making up things they like about the piece. I personally don’t feel like it’s my place to negate someone’s artwork. It’s alright when the professor gives negative comments though because they are meant to be critical and help the student improve.

Often times during critiques, when I first see the finished piece and I generally don’t think it’s that great but then after hearing the person talk about it and their interpretation of their work I begin to like it more. I always enjoy artwork more after knowing what and how much it means to the artist. That personal quality makes it much more enjoyable for me. Also, I do agree that some artwork is just so visually stimulating and overwhelming that we are too concerned with the visuals to even care about the meaning behind it. However, in some cases, artwork has no meaning, it’s just meant to be visually pleasing. That’s why I get so confused when looking at artwork sometimes. It’s so hard to tell, especially now-a-days when art is just so open and one could do anything!

It was also something else to consider when thinking about the meaning changing depending on who tells the story. These are all just things that I have never considered. Artwork is so open and vast! Neat example between the power and powerless.

NUDITY! So many questions go into nudity, so many different meanings and interpretations. Hell, that’s the way it is with all artwork. I, personally, have never drawn a nude figure or done a nude scene of any kind. Haha. But, I would like to do model drawings. I remember studying art history and the persistence of nudity and its affiliation with beauty. However, in ancient times, it was the nude male body that exemplified perfection and beauty. It wasn’t until recent that female nudity began to become more common.