Art Criticism Research Articles

Integrating Art Analysis And Appreciation Into Subjects Areas And Disciplines Through Art Criticism And Interdisciplinary Learning

The quest for teaching aids and multi-media resources for teaching, and learning and the overriding interest in creating meaning in all disciplines is the motivation for this study. This all important drive for creating meaning through a multi-strategy of interdisciplinary nature in the context of this study identified as Art Criticism, calls forthe inquiry into interdisciplinary learning due to its numerous benefits. The art has been seen by many as a subject area or discipline that has little or no relevance to other fields of study. In view of these preconceived notions, this study proposes that integrating art analysis and appreciation into teaching and learning will not only correct this notion but also create a more rewarding and all inclusive interdisciplinary method of teaching and learning. Therefore, this research highlights the relevance of arts in interdisciplinary learning and explores the ways that art criticism and learning could be used to integrate art analysis and appreciation into other subjects as an interdisciplinary enterprise. This research adopts Richard Mayer's Multimedia Cognitive Learning Theory to explain the effectiveness of integrated teaching and learning, using art and multimedia in multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach. The methodology adopted for this research is basically qualitative research method with historical and deductive approaches used.This is achieved through documentary observation and textual references in the analysis and as means to advance the argument of the study. The study concludes that the evidence that sufficed the fact that the integration of art criticism and interdisciplinary learning has the potential to promote students' engagement in interdisciplinary understanding. This research recommendsthat art criticismis a means through which teaching and learning experience across disciplines is enhanced.

Research on the Development form of Chinese Contemporary Oil Painting in Recent 30 Years

This paper analyzes and discusses the development form of Chinese contemporary oil painting in the past 30 years, and thinks that in the past 30 years, after the baptism of Western cultural thoughts, postmodern thoughts have been deeply rooted in the hearts of Chinese people. Under this background, Western modern culture has brought rich topics to Chinese oil painting, and Chinese oil painting language is also transforming under the impact of Western artistic thoughts. This paper also summarizes the two aspects of Chinese contemporary art criticism during the period of 1990-2020. This paper holds that only by accurately grasping the characteristics of The Times and starting from the simple life can contemporary Chinese oil painting see the truth, goodness and beauty of art from life, and only by returning to the real "contemporary" can it absorb the essence from it and have enduring vitality.

RUSSIAN PAINTING OF THE 19TH - EARLY 20TH CENTURY AS A REFLECTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY (REVIEW OF A MONOGRAPH BY KOPTSEVA N.P., KOLESNIK M.A., LESHCHINSKAYA N.M., SAMARINA D.N. “RUSSIAN CULTURAL IDENTITY IN THE FINE ARTS OF THE 19TH - EARLY 20TH CENTURIES.

The article is a review of the collective monograph authored by the Siberian Federal University scholars — Koptseva N.P., Kolesnik M.A., Leshchinskaya N.M., Samarina D.N. “Russian cultural identity in the Fine Arts of the 19th — early 20th century”. The researchers examined the features of Russian cultural identity construction in the works by V.G. Perov, I.Ya. Bilibin, M.V. Nesterov and B.M. Kustodiev. The relevance of the book lies in the fact that it is the first of its kind in the series of scientific art criticism and cultural literature “Russian Culture”. The scientific novelty of the monograph consists in the philosophical and art criticism analysis of religious philosophy as a source of cultural identity, in the substantiation of new theoretical concepts such as area-critical and area-romantic styles. The results of the presented work contribute to the study of the process of constructing Russian cultural identity from the standpoint of God-seeking in works of fine art of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. The practical value of the book lies in the systematization of the basic content of Russian cultural identity and the establishment of a connection with the key concepts of Russian religious philosophy, including the ideas of Russian Orthodoxy, Slavophilism, the concept of Sophia — the Wisdom of God in the interpretation of V.S. Solovyov, the application of the sociology of imagination in the study of mythology, symbolism, semiotics of signs, visual perception of painting. The results of the research outlined in the book can be used in teaching courses on the history and theory of Russian culture as well as in the creation of special courses and programmes based on the relationship between culture, philosophy, Religious Studies and literature.

The total picture: Activist artist Virginia Jackson Kiah and the Black house museum beyond the frame

AbstractThis article presents artist activist Virginia Jackson Kiah as a key figure in the phenomenon of the African American house museum. Readers will benefit from this layer of Kiah scholarship and its contributions to the field of anthropology by looking at a talented artist fueled by her status as a Black woman denied civil, civic, and human rights. Therefore, Virginia Jackson Kiah recreated herself as an artist activist who led a cultural resistance to racism in the arts prior to desegregation and the civil rights movement. As a scholar outside the realm of anthropology, art criticism, and analysis, I approach this project from the stance of a storyteller applying cultural studies methodology and content analysis. I posit that more attention should be given to the total artist—not just the person that had a grasp of brush, paint, pencil, and canvas. Besides her gifts as a painter, little has been written about Virginia Jackson Kiah, the interdisciplinary artist activist who examined culture and history as a musician, composer, singer, pianist, and arts educator. This recovery project fills several voids using archived materials and interviews which recast a total picture of Virginia Jackson Kiah as an artist and activist.

Художествената критика в капан: кризата на субективизма през 20-те години на XXI век

Art criticism has the privilege of being part of all the transformations in the history of Bulgarian art, with its role in the avant-garde situation in the 1990s being particularly significant, which left a lasting impression of its usefulness and necessity for the world of contemporary art. Over the past ten years, critical writing has progressively declined until the last dedicated portal for criticism has disappeared, and this circumstance has given rise to disturbing articles and questions in the public domain such as Where is criticism today?. Numerous attempts have been made to revive it, and the results have shown that not every generation is privileged to participate in a revolution, and not every decade gives rise to the writing of heroic criticism. For this reason, its temporary attenuation is not necessarily a cause for alarm—on the contrary. The self-serving writing and artificial motivation of criticism in recent years have left a more troubling sense of unprofessionalism, naivety, and illegitimate subjectivism in an age that rejects rigid norms and rules about good art. On the one hand, this ultra-democratic nature provoked dissatisfaction from connoisseurs of critical thought, but on the other hand, it placed the artist in the most liberal regional artistic situation of the last hundred years. The text analyzes the typology of contemporary art criticism, the factors contributing to its decline, and the possibilities for its legitimate emergence.

Changing the Aesthetic Taste in Two Modern Kurdish Songs

Human being always looking for changes and experiencing new things. Since the art directly connected to the social and psychological phenomena, the meaning of aesthetics keeps changing. Therefore, it is common to see that the individual constantly looks for new styles, abandoning the old music and songs. This study, Changing Aesthetic in Two Modern Kurdish Song, is analyzing the differences between the two selected songs within the last twenty years regarding text, melody, rhythm, and song. It highlights that to what extent the songs are connected to the aesthetic feeling of their times. The importance of this research is that it clarifying the aesthetic feeling in the Kurdish modern music and song, revealing that it is a principal issue that never should be neglected in any art criticism. Therefore, the study is about aesthetic in art in general and modern music and song in particular. In addition to the introduction, and abstract, the research is composed of three chapters. The first chapter is about the general structure of the research including the problem and the importance of the research, the goal of the research, the tools and the limits of the research, and the terminology. In the second chapter, the structure of the research divided into different subjects such as aesthetic feeling, Aesthetic types, change in the aesthetic feeling, and the introduction to the historical changes in the Kurdish song. The third part is devoted to the implementation if the outcomes of the research which is composed of illustration and analyzing the case studies, analyzing the text, and practical music. The research ends with the result and the list of resources.

The meaning of autonomy: How artists justify career paths

While autonomy is a crucial concept in the sociology of culture, most scholars treat it as an objective feature of the cultural field or creative work. This article argues that autonomy is a subjective construct with ambiguous meanings that enable creative workers to flexibly justify their career paths. I draw on a case of Chinese visual artists in the postsocialist era (since 1979), where the institutional context of dual career path highlights the ambiguity of autonomy. Using interview data with two groups of Chinese artists in different institutional positions—state-affiliated artists employed by the official system and independent artists without official affiliation—I show that the two groups offer conflicting narratives of autonomy. State-affiliated artists claim freedom from market and art criticism, whereas independent artists assert autonomy from state and organizational duties. Both groups emphasize the kind of autonomy they have and downplay the kind they lack to justify their career over the alternative position. Based on these findings, I suggest a more interpretive analysis of autonomy in cultural fields, one that illuminates how workers use ambiguous meanings to justify career choices.

What Misfitting Makes

Weaving together personal experience, disability studies scholarship, and art criticism, this paper explores the relationship between embodied experience of the world and the demands placed on us to conform to it. Misfitting forces us to recognize the fundamental distinction between flesh and world, and with it both the limits and possibilities of the human capacity to act and to be. The fundamental misfit all humans share is that we emerge from the sheltering womb into a material world that is indifferent to our individual existence. That is to say, mortality is the fundamental misfit of the human condition. It is in this sense that flesh emplaced in world is always a relationship of misfitting. The existential and social repair that misfitting calls for is attentive care and love, an attitude of welcome and openness to all body-minds, whether expected or unexpected, whether fit or misfit.

On the question of the periodization of the history of Western art criticism

The subject of the study is the Western historiography of the history of art from the middle of the XIX century to the present, the patterns that determined the nature of its development, general cultural and general scientific factors that determined the paradigm shift in art criticism. The time frame of the study is determined, on the one hand, by the emergence of scientific art studies, on the other hand, by the assertion of a postmodern worldview that denies the possibility of scientific study of any texts, including artistic ones. The paper examines the characteristics of each of the highlighted stages, as well as their relationship with the general trends in the development of humanitarian knowledge at each stage. Thus, the history of art is placed in a broad context of general scientific and general cultural processes, which makes it possible to identify and study the driving forces that determine the course of its development. The main method of research is the method of periodization, the criterion for which is the predominance of a particular methodology at a particular historical stage of the development of art studies. The paper proposes the following periodization of the history of art studies: 1. Pre-scientific art criticism (before XIX century). 2. The cultural and historical stage (XIX century). 3. Formal and stylistic stage (XX century). 4. The iconological stage (XX century). 5. Post-scientific art criticism (beginning of the XXI century). This classification allows us to present the history of scientific art studies as a natural and consistent process of changing dominant methodologies, starting with the formation of a scientific approach to the study of art and up to the present time, when the very possibility of its application was questioned by the postmodern worldview. The main factor determining the change of stages in the development of art criticism is a change in the general cultural situation, as well as a change in the prevailing paradigms in art knowledge.

A process-relational sociology of art critics: Clement Greenberg’s Modernist theory and practice

A central theme of this article is the developing tension between art specialists and non-specialists as a function of complex, differentiated figurations. Bourdieu’s sociology of symbolic revolutions is allied to Elias’s model of the relative autonomy of the artistic figurations within lengthening relations of interdependencies and shifting cognitive-emotional tension balances of feeling and reasoning and spontaneity and self-restraint. Within the sociology of art, the field positionings, power, interdependencies, language and habitus of art critics remain a relatively underdeveloped area of enquiry. Art critics function as ‘professional explicators’ in Bourdieu’s terms or ‘specialists in verbalisation’ in Elias’s to communicate standard-setting models of value and taste of specialists to non-specialists. Clement Greenberg emerged as a socially mobile oblate from a position of artworld outsider to hegemonic dominance as the leading notable of Modernist art criticism. The article examines the social conditions of possibility for Greenberg’s standard-setting codes as they came to be established and sustained by particular figurations of people (a self-conscious avant-garde) at particular times (late 1930s–1970s) and places (New York).

Richard O. Hertz’s Art Criticism and Patronage During His Stay(1956-1960) in South Korea

Richard O. Hertz’s Art Criticism and Patronage During His Stay(1956-1960) in South Korea

The Aesthetics of Arabic Calligraphic and Islamic Formations in the Curtain of the Door of Kaaba: A Critical Artistic Study

The Kaaba's covering carries inherited aesthetics with an ancient historical and cultural character. The curtain for thedoor of the Holy Kaaba is an integral part of the design of the Kiswa of the Holy Kaaba, as it covers the door of the HolyKaaba. The door curtain of the Holy Kaaba is considered an immortal and unique Islamic artistic painting in terms ofthe uniqueness of its design. Therefore, this study aims to apply the Western theory of art criticism (Feldman) to Arabiccalligraphy and the calligraphic formations embodied in the curtain of the door of the Holy Kaaba to demonstrateaesthetic and artistic design values. The approach followed in this study is Feldman's approach to art criticism.Feldman's methodology is considered a systematic and integrated critical methodology for describing and analyzingartworks. In addition, this methodology enhances the aesthetic experience to understand art, its dimensions andvalue. The tool used in the study is observation. The study population consists of linear and decorative units withmultiple styles. The study concluded that the curtain of the door of the Holy Kaaba is characterized by an abundanceof calligraphic formations and compositions and Islamic decorative plant units.

Искусствоведческий дискурс в языковом пространстве: когнитивные структуры сознания А.Ш. Пашаева

The article analyzes the features of the art criticism discourse of the Honored Artist of the Che-chen Republic A. Sh. Pashayev. The goal is to reveal the specifics of the cognitive-semantic struc-tures of the linguistic consciousness of the artist, presenting the national ethnoculture with the help of surreal symbols. The study reveals the features of self-awareness, worldview and the sys-tem of relationships between a creative personality and the outside world, broadcasting in the Chechen artistic space a new direction for the North Caucasus socio-cultural space - surrealism. It should be emphasized that the ethnocultural consciousness of the artist presents the objectively existing linguistic and creative specificity of the Chechen linguistic culture through surreal sym-bols, conveying the axiology of the ethnic group, which increases interest in national semiotics and deep value messages. The work is carried out at the intersection of linguophilosophy, socio-cognitive science, linguoculturology and intercultural communication. As a research task, the au-thors identified an attempt to analyze the social role of the artist in creative activity, determining the aesthetic meaning and significance of art historical practices.

FROM DAVID HARVEY’S PERSPECTIVE: EXAMINATION OF ART, CITY AND CAPITALISM

Examining the transformations experienced in urban spaces in contemporary works of art leads to the conclusion that architectural productions are the subject of sharp criticism of art, beyond the moderate criticism of daily life and artists. Lately, artists have been critically bringing up the effects of projects that have been implemented in different understandings and scales on the inhabitants of the city, and the physical and socio-economic changes of cities. In this study, the structuring processes of cities and the changes until today have been examined through the works on the subject of the city, which have been exhibited in the Istanbul biennials since 2000. These examined works were analyzed through David Harvey’s definitions of the concept of capitalism. It aimed to directly readability of the relations between the concepts of the analyzed works about the city in a pragmatic manner. In this context, it can be said that together with the inclusion of cities in the production area of contemporary art, interferes with the cultural and physical body of the city. When the capitatalism crises are viewed critically from the social scale pointed out by contemporary art, it has been revealed that the crises can be read through art.

El don de la siesta by Miguel Ángel Hernández: Private Resistance in the Age of Transparency

Agamben’s idea that the clandestine dimension of private life is the significant political element of individual life pairs with Miguel Ángel Hernández’s thesis expressed in El don de la siesta. According to him, in the era of transparency and hyper-visibility, siesta should be a subversive act. Hernández argues that siesta challenges the culture of productivity and constant exposure, offering a refuge for privacy and opening a pause in ordinary time. Through a multidisciplinary approach encompassing art, literature, and social criticism, the author advocates for a conscious type of siesta to reclaim time, body, and private space in an increasingly surveilled world. He sees this habit as an opportunity to redefine the relationship between public and private life, finding moments of evasion and disconnection amidst the frenetic contemporary life.

The Effectiveness Of The Ryan Model Development Of Complex Thinking Among Students Of The Faculty Of Fine Arts In The Subject Of Appreciation And Art Criticism

تهدف هذه الدراسة الى : -1 التعرف على فاعيلة أنموذج ريان في التحصيل لدى طلبة كلية الفنون الجميلة بمادة التذوق والنقد الفني . -2 التعرف على مهارات التفكير المركب الواجب تنميته لدى طلبة كلية الفنون الجميلة . 3- قياس حجم فاعلية تصميم المقررات الخاصة بالتفكير المركب وفقاً الانموذج ريان. استعملت الباحثة المنهج التجريبي لتحقيق اهداف البحث وفرضياته ولمناسبته ظروف البحث واحتياجاته ، تم اختيار العينة بشكل قصدي لطلبة المرحلة الرابعة ، كلية الفنون الجميلة – جامعة بابل ، وكان عدد العينة (60) طالبا وطالبة، قامت الباحثة بتوزيع عينة البحث عشوائياً الى مجموعتين (ضابطة – تجريبية ) عن طريق القرعة وكان عدد العينة لكل مجموعة (30) . حرصت الباحثة على تكافؤ العينة بالمتغيرات الاتية ( العمر الزمني للطلاب _ الخبرة السابقة _ الذكاء _ اختبار التفكير المركب قبليا – التحصيل الدراسي للوالدين ) تم معالجة البيانات الاحصائية من خلال ( الحقيبة الاحصائية spss). واظهرت النتائج الاتية : تفوق طلبة المجموعة التجريبية الذين طبق عليهم محتوى الخطط التدريسية التي تم اعدادها وفقاً إنموذج ريان ، في الاختبار التحصيلي البعدي على اقرانهم طلبة المجموعة الضابطة ، وهذا يعود الى طبيعة الخبرات التعليمية التي تضمنتها هذه الخطط التدريسية والى مميزات انموذج ريان من ناحية سهولة ايصال المعلومة ومنح المتعلم امكانية التفسير والتحليل والاستنتاج ، فقد لاحظت الباحثة وجود تفاعل من قبل المتعلمين اثناء تلقيهم للمعلومات وهذا يعطي مؤشر ايجابي في اكتساب وتنمية الخبرات في مادة التذوق والنقد الفني ومهارات التفكير المركب . تفوق افراد المجموعة التجريبة في الاختبار البعدي في اكتساب مهارات التفكير المركب البعدي على اقرانهم في المجموعة الضابطة وهذا يعود الى طبيعة خطوات الدرس ومميزات الانموذج التي تركز على تعلم المفاهيم واكتساب الخبرات والمعلومات الجديدة . يتضح من الجدول (20) ان انموذج ريان له فاعلية في تنمية التذوق والنقد الفني في الاختبار البعدي لأفراد المجموعة التجريبية فبعد تطبيق خطوات هذا الانموذج بحسب الخطط الدراسية التي تم اعتمادها فقد لاحظة الباحثة وجود فروق ذات دلالة معنوية في تطور الجانب المعرفي لدى افراد العينة التجريبية قياساً بالاختبار القبلي للعينة نفسها مما يعني وجود فاعلية لهذا الانموذج في مادة التذوق والنقد الفني .

Нагота в изобразительном искусстве Австро-Венгрии рубежа XIX-XX вв. Идеализация, натурализм и эротизм

The study aims to identify the main directions that the fine art of Austria-Hungary at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries followed in the field of portraying the nude human body. To do so, a number of works by Austro-Hungarian masters (G. Klimt, K. Moser, O. Kokoschka, F. von Bayros, M. Liebermann, etc.) who worked during the specified period were analyzed on the basis of the collections of museums in Vienna, as well as electronic collections and catalogs of other foreign museums. The analysis helped to identify three main trends in nudity depiction: idealization, characteristic of conservative art; opposed to idealization, naturalism, found in the works by more progressive artists; and eroticism, which represents a balance between the two aforementioned extremes, in other case the work loses its erotic charge. Although depictions of nudity are often the subject of art criticism, the three-part classification developed for this study seems to be a new and productive form of examining the topic.

Рец. на кн.: Marina Balina, Sergei Oushakine (eds.). The Pedagogy of Images: Depicting Communism for Children. Toronto; Buffalo, NY; L.: University of Toronto Press, 2021. XX+548 p.

The reviewed book The Pedagogy of Images: Depicting Communism for Children, edited by Marina Balina and Sergei Oushakine, is dedicated to Soviet children’s book illustrations of the 1920s–1930s, which had an ideological function. The introduction and sixteen chapters written by different authors demonstrate a variegated picture in which there is a place for avant-garde artistic experiments, educational projects and discussions about children’s books. Illustrations for books that were not related to politics did not come into the focus of attention of the authors of the collection, but nevertheless the coverage of the material is very wide. Different chapters examine how paper, nature, electricity, vezdekhodnost (goeverywhereness), time, the death of Lenin, the Red Army, the proletariat, and “Americanism” were represented in children’s illustrations. Due to involvement of many researchers, the book presents different approaches and methods of visual analysis borrowed from visual studies, art criticism, and history. Not all the authors are convincing in their analysis, but the publication of this collection is undoubtedly an important event in this field of study, even though illustrations for children of the 1920s and 1930s are well-studied.

Проект «Апофатика» Гора Чахала. Религиозная тема в искусстве российских новых медиа 2010-х годов

The article is devoted to the consideration and art criticism of the Apophatica multimedia art project (2016), the author of which is the Moscow artist Gor Chakhal. For several decades, he has been addressing religious topics in contemporary art, defining his work as Christ‐centered. This trend has long been of deep interest in world and Russian art, but its comprehension, place in the artistic process, and functional significance have not yet been definitively determined and differ in Russia and other countries. In this article, the Apophatica project is considered from the point of view of some traditions of Eastern Christian art, such as hierotopy. Additionally, an attempt is made to integrate the project into the innovative world context of art that addresses Christian themes, which is not easy with the difference in terminology. Many foreign researchers prefer the term ‘spirituality’. Apophatica is an example of a modern statement by a Russian artist on the theme of the eternal dialogue between man and God in the language of fine arts.

Transformation of the artistic form and ideological content of the memorial complex in memory of the Sino-Japanese War in Beijing

The article is devoted to the problem of transformation of the imagery of the monumental sculpture ensemble created in memory of the Sino-Japanese War in Beijing. The construction of the memorial took place in two stages: the Memorial of the Chinese People's War of Resistance to Japanese Aggression was erected in the late 1980s, and a decade later the Sculpture Garden of the Memorial of the Chinese People against the Japanese War was laid. These elements of a single ensemble represent different options for using figurative-meaningful, compositional-spatial, artistic-stylistic and plastic features of monumental sculpture and interpreting its semantic role in such structures. Using the example of these memorials, it is possible to identify and trace the development strategy of memorials and their sculptural design, especially the dynamics of changes in the creation of an artistic image of sculptural groups. The author uses the method of art criticism to describe the visual and expressive features and the ideological content of the monumental sculpture of the memorial plan on the example of an analysis of the aesthetic qualities of two different elements of the ensemble in Beijing. This requires an analysis of the artistic structure and forms through which the authors express their ideological messages, as well as a comprehensive study of visual and expressive means. The object of attention in the article is the role and place of monumental sculpture in the development of historical memory and culture of China, and the subject is the options for the development of figurative and stylistic features of the art of sculpture in the context of the expansion and transformation of memorial complexes. Sculpture is considered as a reflection of the ideological and creative pursuits of Chinese sculptors of the late XX and early XXI centuries. The research material is a monumental sculpture as the most important artistic element of the memorial ensemble in memory of the Sino–Japanese War in Beijing, which allows for artistic comparisons, including with similar monuments on the territory of modern Russia. The article provides an opportunity to reveal the nuances of artistic, spatial and semantic interaction between the memorial and the sculpture garden.