“Recent accounts have stressed a paradox: paintings organized by the conventions of perspective take the fixed gaze of the individual spectator as the organizing locus. But at the same time, the system of perspective displaces the seeing individual with a mechanical device that approximates the human gaze” (156).
“Cubism was a style that deliberately challenged the dominant model of perspective through an analytic system that broke up the perspective space of the conventional painterly style” (166).
“It is important to note that the cubists were interested in creating not fantasy worlds but new ways of looking at the real. John Berget has written, ‘Cubism changed the nature of the relationship between the painted image and reality, and by so doing it expressed a new relationship between man and reality.’” (167). This information has enriched my experience at the museums because I now have a deeper understanding of all of the Picasso that I observed. This shows that Cubism is expressing so much more than distortion. Prior to learning this I once thought ‘Is this how Picasso sees people?’
“The purpose of abstraction is to make obvious the historical and contextual making of perspective by that emphasizing it is not a universal principle” (169). I had no idea, wow.
“Action painting drew from the surrealist interest in automatism, a technique of writing, drawing, and painting in which the producer marks the surface with spontaneous gestures, giving little or no attention to the aesthetic form that results. The guiding concept was that this technique would result in a more direct, uncensored release of the inner feelings of the artist and that the marks on the canvas would express these feelings without direct pictorial symbolism. The spectator, in turn, could feel the energy and emotion of the artist in contemplating the turbulent lines and shapes that serve as a record of the painter’s spontaneous activity” (170). Now I can understand why Jackson Pollock has received such hype, even if his work looks like something that anyone could possibly accomplish. (Here, I am not judging, I am just stating that his work does not seem as difficult to do as other works that are just as popular.)
I am currently reading about videogames in Practices of Looking…Until now, for some reason, I disregarded them as a part of Visual Culture.
“Emile Zola…wrote’ we cannot claim to have really seen anything before having photographed it” (185). In modern terms ‘pics or it didn’t happen.’
“The acceptance of the photograph in the fine art market, in which the concept of the original continues to reign, was neither easy nor fast in part because of the form’s association was production by machine,” (192). I love reading about how much the invention of the photograph changed things.
“The photograph is a realist form not simply because of its verisimilitude (likeness with the subject) but because of its guarantee of having been physically copresent with the person, object, or scene” (193). This is one of the things that I find most special about photography. I feel as if I the person’s presence is visible, it resonates through the photo to me.
“The impact of computers and digital media on visual culture has often been compared to the impact of perspective during the Renaissance” (198). What a comparison!
So for about 4 page the reproducibility of the image of Che Guevara was shown and discussed. I’ve seen the image more than I’ve heard about the history of it.
