Terry Barrett

Description in Professional Art Criticism.

This study is a metacritical examination of published essays by three professional critics of Richard Avedons exhibition, “In the American West.” Its purpose is to determine if, how, and for what ...

A Theoretical Construct for Interpreting Photographs.

A theoretical construct of a category system for interpreting photographs is presented as a means to add specific considerations about the unique medium of photography to existing instructional art criticism formats, and to current research in art criticism questioning strategies. Past categorizations of photographs are critiqued and a new category system is offered which asks viewers to consider photographs as if they were analogous to various types of language statements: descriptive, explanatory, interpretive, ethically evaluative, aesthetically evaluative, and theoretical.

TEACHING TOWARD APPRECIATION IN THE VISUAL ARTS

The topic of art appreciation is vast: An internet search of art appreciation yielded about 3,540,000 results. The complexity of the concept of art appreciation is its overlap with related concepts of aesthetic response, art history, art criticism, art education, aesthetic education, and art museum education. Appreciation is also affected by understandings of concepts of perception, sensibility, interpretation, taste, preference, and evaluation or judgment. Appreciation is meshed with beauty and beauty to aesthetic experience. In aesthetic philosophy as well as in daily living, concepts of beauty and appreciation are applied to nature, works of art, and a wide range of artifacts. Art appreciation is generally assumed and often explicitly claimed to be the desired outcome of art education. This chapter attempts to map philosophical terrains of “art appreciation,” exemplify acts of appreciation in the visual arts, briefly explore the history of teaching for art appreciation in the United States, and sample some educational strategies for appreciation. The purpose of the chapter is to expand notions of the concept of art appreciation, to devalue “disinterested” appreciation in favor of engaged appreciation, to broaden the candidates for appreciation, including an appreciation of the “interpreting-self ” and the “interpreting-other,” and to motivate empirical investigations of appreciation.

Critics on Criticism

This article presents the thoughts of several contemporary professional publishing critics concerning what they do when they criticize art. Their thoughts are especially offered to art teachers to add to their knowledge base about art criticism, a discipline that engenders strongly held beliefs and sometimes unfounded biases. Some of the critics disagree with each other, but despite occasional differences of opinion, critics generally agree about what it is they do when they criticize art. Their thoughts may be corrective to some notions of art criticism and are presented in this spirit. Implications for teaching art criticism are offered at the conclusion of the article.

The Future: Hopes and Dreams, Obstacles and Solutions

The voices of 19 colleagues speak out about the possible future of the field, as well as the obstacles and the actions necessary to achieve new dreams.