At the end of last semester, my department chair approached me to teach Art Appreciation this Spring semester. AA is a half studio and half lecture class required for non art majors as part of their General Education courses. Thus, because it is a 100 level class, it is usually taken by freshmen and maybe sophomores.
Like any semester class, AA will be taught in the span of 16 weeks give or take. The first week is more of an introductory week to go over policies, textbook, syllabus, and getting to know each other. The last week is the week of finals and that will be to either submit the last project or take a final exam. Not to mention Spring break. In reality then, we only have 13 weeks of solid meeting times.
Length of time aside, I should mention—unless you figured it out—that this is the first time I will teach this class. And if you are wondering, yes, I am a little nervous about teaching it. The textbook and its resources are deeply comprehensive. In fact, so much so, that I am not sure where and how to start. Every time I have a plan, it goes puff! Because every time I make a decision, there is a discriminatory effect. In short, the big question is how do I teach a group of freshmen and sophomores to appreciate art? Do I simply teach it chronologically? Do I teach the elements and principles of art and design as a way to develop a common vocabulary to discuss art? Do I teach the most commonly taught topics and leave others out? How do I teach them to look at art while trying to learn to look at art? The fact is that 13 weeks, give or take, is not enough to teach it all while simultaneously it being a good chunk of time to at least introduce their young minds to art.
I remember taking Music Appreciation in college. There was no textbook. We meet twice a week and we would listen to compositions. The professor would stop the music every so often to clue us into a particular aspect of the music or the performance and we’d listen again. I became familiar with the opera Carmen by George Bizet and the work of Joseph Haydn, the Austrian composer of the classical period. Each class I would sit in the front and I tried to listen to what the professor would teach us to listen to. Thinking back about the class, I guess that it taught me to listen.
If I take a cue from my Music Appreciation class, I could infer that my goal would be to teach my students how to look, how to really look at artwork, any artwork. Some years ago, a good friend of mine asked me to go to the Mobile Museum of Art with her. She expressed a desire to learn to how look at artwork but not knowing where to start. I happily agreed and we met there. Instead of telling her what to look at, we walked around and stopped when she felt she wanted to talk about a piece. I did not care if she liked or did not like an artwork. It simply had to call her attention. Then, we’d talk about it.
One common theme I have found when talking to people about art is that they do not know how to understand it. This is especially true for abstract works of art. The main questions usually are: “What am I supposed to get out of this? How do I look at this work? What do I look at? What is going on here?” Of course, it is easier in many ways to understand realistic art. You look, you read, you get it. The shapes are recognizable. We feel at ease because we understand a narrative.
“What am I supposed to get out of this? How do I look at this work? What do I look at? What is going on here?”
On the other hand, abstract work does not have defined shapes. It can be seen as messy, disorganized, child like, and confusing. There is no narrative to speak of because there are no defined shapes to rest the eyes on. We want clarity in a way that the work which seems chaotic does not afford. Yet, abstract artwork has indeed a lot to offer to us, to our emotions, to our soul, and yes, even to our cognition.
My friend and I stopped at one artwork that was composed of lines. I can’t remember the title or the artist. I do remember the lines and the colors. It was the type of work that some would say, “anyone can do that!” Yet, I took my time in leading her eyes to see the movement in each line and take in the color of each. I mentioned to observe how the lines appear to offer a sense of directional movement and stopped to wonder what she thought of it. She did not like the piece and that was okay. But I do remember her saying to me: “you talk about the piece without judgement even if you don’t like it.” That was the highest compliment someone could offer me that day.
It is in the looking and observing without judgement, where the appreciating takes place. We do not have to like a piece to appreciate the art in it. An artwork does not have to be our favorite to appreciate the use of line, color, shape, texture, size, format, and the artist’s technique. Learning to look, much like learning to listen, takes a lot of practice. But it also takes a vocabulary to establish a dialogue with the piece. If I am lucky this semester, I will have those moments where the students will engage themselves in a dialogue with the artwork they observe and their ideas about it.
In the study abroad to Italy this last summer, I had the opportunity to see how the students reacted to different artworks. One had tears coming out of his eyes while standing in the middle of the Pantheon. He was overcome with awe. Another student spent his free time admiring every single church in his path and out of his path. He’d go on walks by himself to find churches due to his profound admiration of both the Catholic faith and church architecture. I felt so blessed to be part of their awe in a small way. In Venice there was a show featuring the abstract work of Williem de Kooning. One of the students and I spent a considerable amount of time discussing de Kooning’s work. He did not understand it and did not know how to look at it. We talked about what to look, what to see, and how to see it. At the end, he remained unmoved by the work of de Kooning and that was okay. But, he walked away with a better vocabulary to articulate his reaction and appreciation of the work.
Art appreciation is about learning to look, indeed. But it is more than that. It is about learning to see the world around us, to really observe it, to articulate it, and to engage in dialogue with it—albeit many times internally. It is about learning to see the world the way the artist saw it. That does not mean one agrees with the artist, but it does mean one can empathize with him or her. In short, appreciating art helps us in becoming participants of the world we share.
I could spend the day, all day looking at artwork. The time I spent in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence was glorious. I did not get to see it all but there were key pieces that blew me away completely both because I had studied them in textbooks but also because of their immensity and attention to detail. There is of course, much distance between those art pieces and myself. Yet, there is an undeniable connection to them I carry with me. Without the artworks I interacted with, I could not have that window to the artist’s history, to their mind, to their point of view, to their skills. Their work reaches out to communicate with me in a way that transcends time and space. We need art in our lives. We need work that expresses thoughts in all forms, true. But artworks offer us a window to their soul.
In conclusion, I think my job is to teach my students how to look, right?
Love,
Alma