Power & Imagination Art Museum Observation Journals * Trimble/Kudray

Due: (parts 1 & 2) May 10

(turn in both your handwritten journal notes and typed final responses to each part)

Dr. Cornel Pewewardy of the Indigenous Nations Program concluded his talk about Native activism
and decolonization last week with a statement that art and scholarship are crucial ways of changing how
people think. This thought connects to John Berger Bergers claim about art in Ways of Seeing: The way
we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe (8). As we learned about perception fall
term (especially about the brain filtering/focusing/filling in the gaps), the way we think about art and the
world, and the way we think about power, shape our process of interpreting visual images.

At the end of this term, you will be creating an artwork (in a medium of your choice) that help viewers
dialog with the institutionalized thinking around your choice of an ethical issue from the novel The
Dispossessed (which well start reading soon). Your final work of art and artist statement will be part of our
in-class art salon the last day of class.

To help prepare a thoughtful work intended to stir up thinking in others, you will first examine the ways
institutionalize thinking exists in the world and in ourselves, consciously and unconsciously, and this is
where Feldmans method of Slow Looking can help.

Assignment: Use Feldmans first three stepsDescription, Analysis, and Interpretation (see attached
page)--to unpack the symbolism, imagery, and framing of power in two famous art traditions and think
about the institutionalized beliefs they embody. Youll complete two observation journals over two
visits to the Portland Art Museum:

Part 1: Analyzing symbols of status and power in the Western portrait tradition of oil painting
(17th-19th centuries): Observation journal and written response

Part 2 (to be handed out May 3): Analyzing contemporary indigenous art as a means to dialog with
perceptions of Native peoples in Edward Curtiss famous portraits (19th and 20th centuries) :
Dialogic journal and written response

You will turn in both your handwritten journal notes and typed final responses for Parts 1 and 2.

Slow Looking E.G. Feldmans Four Steps

1.

Description
Describe only what you are reasonably sure of, making a complete and neutral inventory of
subjects, shapes, colors, spaces, volumes. Be as specific and thorough as you can. Imagine that you
are describing the work of art to someone who cannot see.

2.

Analysis
Take one step further. Try to describe the relationships among the things that you see. In this stage
you want to find out what the forms do to each other; the way forms are located, size relationships,
shape relationships, color, textural and surface relationships, space and volume relationships. This
could include describing its placement in the gallery, or its size in relationship to your body.

3.

Interpretation
This stage of art criticism is the most difficult, the most creative, and the most rewarding. It is the
stage when you have to decide what all you earlier observations mean. An interpretation would be
one that (a) makes sense out of the largest body of visual evidence drawn from a work of art and (b)
makes the most meaningful connections between that work of art and the lives of the people who art
looking at it.

4.

Judgment
Deciding about the value of an art object. For many of us, deciding whether a work of art is worth
serious attention is one of the most important problems of art criticism. The reasons for judging a
work have to be based on a philosophy of art, not on someones personal authority. If you are
resourceful, you can develop your own philosophy of art as a basis for judging the merit of any
artwork that interests you. Justifying your opinion about a work of art is important.

From Edmund Burke Feldman, Becoming Human Through Art, Chapter 12, Mastering Techniques of Art
Criticism, 1970.

Part 1: Observation Journal: Status and Power in the Western Tradition of Portraiture
This journal assignment asks you to pay attention to how your mind moves from personal sensory
perception (description) to relationships and symbols (analysis) to meaning about status and power
(interpretation).
Well do our work in the American and European galleries. Take a look at the paintings that are on
the list (next page), then settle on two paintings to do a deeper analysis, building on the observation journal
process from fall term. (Choose paintings that you found the most intriguing, interesting, or otherwise captured
your attention most.) After you complete your journals, youll write a response.

Observation Journal instructions:

1. List the proper attribution: the title, date of creation, and the painters name for every piece to which
you refer. Also include the gallery its located in.
2. Write detailed notes for each painting, broken into categories using Feldmans first three phases:
Describe: Write a detailed, neutral description of each piece. Avoid the temptation to skip over something
you may think is insignificant, and also avoid interpreting meaning at this stage. If you catch
yourself interpreting the meaning, move your note to the appropriate category.
Analyze: use Feldmans explanation of this state as a guide, and remember how our in-class exercise we
focused on relationships between different parts of the paintinge.g. what is most prominent, what
stands out over other elements, what is subordinated, and what creates that different dynamic. (Does
color make something pop out, or fade from our immediate notice? What makes something
prominent? How does it shape our gaze? Upon further examination and consideration, do you see
anything in the painting that you didnt notice the first time, or upon second notice, seems more
important or interesting?)
Interpret: Remember Feldmans definition: decide what all you earlier observations mean. I suggest
focusing on his first point on interpretation: what makes sense out of the largest body of visual
evidence drawn from a work of art. Here is where you express what you think is the meaning of the
painting, both personally and as it connects to our class theme. What is your response to the painting
aesthetically? Emotionally? How does this painting reflect your expectations and beliefs as a viewer
about status and power? What values do you see reflected in the piece? How do relationships do you
see between the people in the piece and their surroundings shape the meaning?
3. As part of the interpretation step, also respond to the first question and at least one additional question
of your choice from the list below (you may do this part after class time, if you need):
a. How does the symbolism in the painting reflect points Berger makes in the video? (Consider things,
poses, the literal and metaphoric framing of the art work.) Be specific about which of Bergers
points you chose to reference, and how you see it reflected in the work. (More questions on reverse)

b. Berger writes, Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected
by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: Beauty, Truth, Genius,
Civilization, Form, Status, Taste, etc. (11). What assumptions about one or more of these concepts
do you find in the painting? (Choose one or two to analyze.) Why do you think so? How do they
relate to power?
c. [T]he art of the past is being mystified because a privileged minority is striving to invent a history
which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling classes, and such a justification can no longer
made sense in modern terms (Berger 11). What justification about power do you see in this
painting? For whom do you think the painting was created? Who was the intended viewer? (And
why might that matter?) Does the artwork display any sense of categorizing, including or separating
the viewer from the status of what is being portrayed? Why do you think so?
(Feldmens fourth judgment phase well skip over. If you really want to try, we dont recommend unless
you complete some outside research.)

Response instructions: After you have analyzed both paintings, write an approximately 3-4 page response
summarizing your interpretations (the meaning of power) for each painting, including the analysis that led to
your interpretations, and how power is imagined and institutionalized in the paintings you chose. If you do
any research, compare your findings to your personal interpretation based on your observations and analysis.
(Cite your sources)

Choose one painting from each group for your observation

Group 1
1. Revel, Portrait of a Sculptor
2. Girolamo da Treviso the elder, Madonna and Child
3. Bugiardini, Portrait of a Patrician
4. Bourcher, Portrait of a Lady
5. Loir, Portrait of a Man Seated at a Desk
6. Blackburn, The Hnorable Wiliam Greenleaf
7. Blackburn, Portrait of Pricilla Brown Greenleaf
Group 2
1. Strozzi, St. Lawrence Giving the Treasures of the Church to the Poor
2. Jean Michelin, A peasant family
3. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The drunken cobbler
4. Bouys, A Woman Knitting
5. Troyan, Portrait of a Mule
6. Kalf, Still Life
7. Weir, Flower Piece
Extra! Paul Georges, The Georges Family: How might this portrait be in keeping with the classical tradition? Be
specific.