How to write about a work of art when you don’t know how to begin

academics art history High School

Writing about art, especially abstract work, can be intimidating! However, at some point in your life as a student, you will probably have to analyze a painting, a sculpture, an installation, or even a creation that you don’t  know how to categorize.  

The fastest way to get started is by simply describing what you are looking at.  You may find that if you begin by writing down your observations, you will begin to “get” what the piece is about.

Here are three questions you can ask yourself that will get you thinking deeply, and that may help you enjoy yourself more the next time you go to a museum or a gallery.   

1. What is it?  

A museum or gallery almost always provides details about what a work of art is and what it’s made out of by providing the piece’s Medium. If you’re looking at a painting, what kind of painting is it?  Is it an oil painting, a watercolor, an acrylic painting, mixed media (which usually means that the artist used more than one type of material on the same surface, or even that they used something that isn’t usually considered an art material on the piece).  

There is often a lot you can think about by simply learning what a work of art is made out of. For example, Robert Rauchenberg  actually included a pillow and a blanket when he made his painting Bed (1955). Why would he be interested in including the actual parts of a bed instead of rendering it with paint? We connect with an artist in a very different way when we see the things that he touched or possibly lived with instead of a series of marks made by his hand meant to represent those objects.  

After you think about the medium, you can ask yourself...  

2. How was the object made?  


 The Ghanaian artist El Anatsui made wall hangings out of small pieces of metal, sometimes bottle caps, which are attached one by one with copper wire. Even without doing any research, we already know, just through observation,  that his work indicates a specific process.  While you’re looking, imagine the object being made. Attaching many tiny pieces of metal together one by one tells us that the object had to be touched many times, and possibly by more than one pair of hands. The effect is very different from, for example,  the effect created by Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog sculptures, which were made by casting stainless steel in a mold, which is a manufacturing process. The first implies the work of hands, and in the second we can imagine the work done in a factory.  

And finally…  

3. What is the subject?  

The subject of a work of art refers to its content–just like the subject of a book or a film. Sometimes, the subject is clear. Alice Neel painted portraits of her neighbors in New York City, her family members and her friends. We can get a sense of who she saw in her daily life when we look at an exhibit of her paintings.  

However, the subject of a piece of art can be a complicated or subtle aspect of the work. Some works of art need context to be understood. On Kawara made paintings of dates, called the Today paintings, written out in white letters on a solid colored background. Without knowing anything else, it isn’t easy to glean the subject matter or concerns of his paintings. However, when we learn that he completed every Today painting by midnight on the date he painted on their surface, we get a sense of the way the artist’s life and experience of time was a part of his work.  

In Conclusion… 

Doing research will definitely help you when you are writing about art, but looking at the piece and writing about what you are looking at will get you further because you will be interacting with the art itself, which is what the art was meant to do in the first place–connect with a viewer. Think of your engagement with the piece the way you would a “primary” source when you’re writing a history or research paper–it’s more valuable information.  And don’t forget that your observations are yours–not everyone notices the same exact aspects of a work of art, and not everyone describes them in the same way. By simply paying close attention and describing your impressions, you may be surprised by how much you understand! And if you’re ever stuck and you need help with a formal analysis or an art history paper, I would be happy to help you out.  

Sarah graduated from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design with a dual degree in Comparative Literature and Painting. After earning her MFA in Painting at Yale, she went on to teach first grade at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn.

Comments

topicTopics
academics study skills medical school admissions MCAT SAT college admissions expository writing strategy English MD/PhD admissions writing LSAT physics GMAT GRE chemistry graduate admissions biology academic advice math law school admissions ACT interview prep language learning test anxiety personal statements premed career advice MBA admissions AP exams homework help test prep creative writing MD study schedules Common Application computer science mathematics summer activities history secondary applications philosophy organic chemistry research economics supplements 1L grammar statistics & probability PSAT admissions coaching dental admissions psychology law legal studies ESL CARS PhD admissions SSAT covid-19 logic games reading comprehension calculus engineering USMLE medical school mentorship Latin Spanish parents AMCAS admissions advice biochemistry case coaching verbal reasoning DAT English literature STEM excel political science skills French Linguistics MBA coursework Tutoring Approaches academic integrity astrophysics chinese classics dental school gap year genetics letters of recommendation mechanical engineering units Anki DO Social Advocacy algebra art history artificial intelligence business careers cell biology data science diversity statement first generation student freewriting geometry graphing kinematics linear algebra mental health presentations quantitative reasoning study abroad tech industry technical interviews time management work and activities 2L AAMC DMD IB exams ISEE MD/PhD programs MMI Sentence Correction adjusting to college algorithms amino acids analysis essay athletics business skills cold emails executive function fellowships finance functions genomics information sessions international students internships logic networking office hours poetry pre-dental proofs resume revising scholarships science social sciences software engineering trigonometry writer's block 3L Academic Interest EMT FlexMed Fourier Series Greek Health Professional Shortage Area Italian JD/MBA admissions Lagrange multipliers London MD vs PhD Montessori National Health Service Corps Pythagorean Theorem Python Shakespeare Step 2 TMDSAS Taylor Series Truss Analysis Zoom acids and bases active learning architecture argumentative writing art art and design schools art portfolios bacteriology bibliographies biomedicine brain teaser burnout campus visits cantonese capacitors capital markets central limit theorem centrifugal force chem/phys chemical engineering chess chromatography class participation climate change clinical experience community service constitutional law consulting cover letters curriculum dementia demonstrated interest dimensional analysis distance learning econometrics electric engineering electricity and magnetism entropy escape velocity evolution extracurriculars fundraising harmonics health policy history of medicine history of science hybrid vehicles hydrophobic effect ideal gas law immunology induction infinite institutional actions integrated reasoning intermolecular forces intern investing investment banking lab reports letter of continued interest linear maps mandarin chinese matrices mba