Read anything you can by Philip Kennicott, art critic for The Washington Post. Here he writes about how one might visit an art museum…and really get something out of it!
Philip Kennicott, “The ‘learn one thing’ rule.” Washington Post, 2/4/18, E13.
The series of short articles is about “getting the most” out of your visits to a museum, theatre, dance performance, even a movie. They are all worth reading. If you just want to read Kennicott, scroll down to the Mondrian glasses.
This is an interesting concept. I’ll admit I’ve been to a lot of museums where I am just floating around, not retaining much information, either because the art is not cohesive or the plaques are non-informative. This is a really good way to develop your understanding of art, or, at the very least, get something for your money spent on a ticket!
What i like about this is that the basic advice that is given by the authors is to use more than one of your senses when you listen to music, watch a play, dance or movie, and when you visit a museum. It a little had to do, but it will help you understanding what you are witnessing. i think that the ‘learn one thing’ rule for exhibitions in museums is really smart and something that i subconsciously what to do every time i see an exhibit and is something that i will keep in mind down the road.
The article was very informative because I can understand when I go to a museum sometimes and just left looking at images and not going into greater depth of what the art is expressing . When going to museums I look to understand concepts of artist and what they’re trying to express to the viewer . With the strategies of using our sciences I feel this will be very useful for being able to look more into artwork presented .
This article was very informative with describing the different ways you can analyze a play, musical, artwork, film, and etc. I figured out that analyzing different material was one of my many talents but this article assisted me with tips thats going to help me become a better critic towards my work. It also helped me find a deeper meaning when being an audience to different forms of visual representations.
This is a great differing way to appreciate art! Allowing movies to “wash over me”. This article has given me perspective to analyze forms of art in differing ways in years to come.
While the article in it’s entirety provided interesting points on many forms of critiquing critics should consider while experiencing certain forms of art, visuals and auditory, I focused mainly on the museum category, as it gave me something to look forward to doing the next time I go. I had never truly considered the idea that the substance of learning was lost by the way some curators decide to display galleries in art museums. Thinking back, I have gone to museums where oftentimes theres only a little two sentence blurb about the piece’s background, which would prompt me to lose interest if the more interesting information was not provided to snag my attention. I have gravitated towards artists I know well, ones that I’ve been learning about since elementary school and I fear now after having read this article, that I’ve been sorely missing out on works I could actually enjoy if I took the time to really consider it. I believe an interesting take away from this portion of the article is the idea of purposefully making the effort to hold onto a fact you’ve learned about the piece, and I plan on doing so the next time I enter a museum.
This is defiantly something I will try to do in the future. I agree with his assertion that a good exhibition is one that has a clear thesis and teaches you something, although not all museums do that. I think that it also takes a certain amount of effort from the viewer to try learn something, and that is something that we should all try to put more effort into.
I was definitely called out when he talked about be draw to the familiar. I was recently lucky enough to visit the Louvre and instead of exploring with the limited amount of time there, I sought out the paintings and statues that I’d seen or studied before. However, one of the people that I was there with wanted to view the section on Middle Eastern art. I probably would not have gone to that section if it weren’t for her but I probably learned more there than I did looking at all of the pieces that I was already familiar with.