a mysterious form of communication. What did so-and-so mean to convey when he or she carved a stone into a fat fertility goddess or a fractured geometric shape? In this chapter, I help you demystify the visual language that we call art.
Focusing on the Artist’s Purpose
Why do artists make art? To celebrate god, glorify the state, overthrow governments, make people laugh or think, or win fame and fortune? Or do they make art because, for them, creating is like breathing — they have to do it?
Artists create for all these reasons and more. Above all, great artists want to express something deeper than ordinary forms of communication — like talking or writing — can convey. They strive to suggest meanings that are beyond the reach of everyday vocabularies. So they invent visual vocabularies for people to interpret. Each person can “read” this picture language — which doesn’t come with a dictionary — differently.
This difference in the way each person “reads” a piece of art is especially true of art made in the past 500 years. Ancient as well as medieval art (art made before 1400) often had a communal purpose and a common language of symbols that was widely understood; often that communal purpose was linked to religion, ritual, or mythology.
Recording religion, ritual, and mythology
The earliest works of art — prehistoric cave paintings from 30,000 BC to 10,000 BC (see Chapter 4) — were likely to have been a key part of a shamanistic ritual (a priest acting as a medium enters the spirit world during a trance). In many prehistoric cultures, people thought religion and ritual helped them to prepare for an afterlife or control their environment. For example, fertility rituals were linked to a god or goddess of crops and were designed to guarantee a successful harvest. Art (and often dance and music) frequently had a role in these religious rituals.
During the Roman period (476 BC–AD 500), religious art was less common than secular art (art about humankind’s life on earth). But religious art dominated the Middle Ages (500–1400), lost some ground during the humanistic Renaissance (1400–1520) and Mannerist periods (1520–1600), and made a comeback in the Baroque period (1600–1700) during the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants.
Promoting politics and propaganda
The U.S. Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. But in many earlier civilizations, religion and politics were two sides of the same coin. Egyptian art was both religious and political. Egyptian pharaohs, for example, viewed themselves as the gods’ divine representatives on earth. The notion of the divine right of kings, in which kings were supposedly appointed by God to rule on earth (and which continued up to the French and American revolutions in the late 1700s), is analogous to these Ancient Egyptian beliefs.
Here are examples of how art expresses power politics:
Art immortalizing achievement: In Ancient Greece, Pericles (the leader of Athens at its cultural and political peak) ordered and paid for the building of the Parthenon and other monuments (using money permanently borrowed from Athens’s allies) to memorialize Athenian power and prestige. “These works will live forever as a testament to our greatness,” he said. This art was meant to glorify the state.
Art celebrating victory and power: Similarly, the Romans erected columns, such as Trajan’s Column (see Chapter 8), and triumphal arches, like the Arch of Constantine, to celebrate Roman victories and assert Roman power.
Art inciting activism: In the early 19th century, the French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix fired up people to fight for democracy with his painting Liberty Leading the People (see Chapter 17). In the 1960s, artists like Jaspar Johns and Carolee Schneemann created protest art to stop the war in Vietnam.
When I say jump: Art made for patrons
A lot of art was commissioned by rich and powerful patrons to serve the patrons’ purposes. Some of them commissioned religious works showing themselves kneeling beside a saint, perhaps to demonstrate their religious devotion and earn brownie points from God. Others commissioned works to celebrate themselves or their families — for example, Philip IV of Spain paid Spanish painter Diego Velázquez to immortalize Phil’s family during the Baroque period.
Some patrons merely wanted to fatten their art collections and enhance their prestige — like Pieter van Ruijven, who commissioned works from Johannes Vermeer in 17th-century Holland. Van Ruijven (1624–1674) was one of the richest men in Delft and Vermeer’s primary patron.
Following a personal vision
No one paid Vincent van Gogh to paint. In fact, he only sold one painting during his lifetime. Van Gogh was the classic starving artist — but he kept painting, driven by a personal vision that his public didn’t share or understand.
Many modern artists are also driven by a personal vision, a vision that offers the public a new way of looking at life. Typically, these artists have to struggle to communicate their vision and find an accepting public. Until they find that acceptance, many of them must eat and sleep in Van Gogh’s shoes.
Detecting Design
Design is the arrangement of visual elements in a work of art. In this section, I show you how to recognize and interpret design elements in the art you see.
Perceiving pattern
Pattern is as important in visual art as it is in music or dance. A song is a pattern of notes; a dance is a pattern of movements; and a painting is a pattern of colors, lines, shapes, lights, and shadows. Patterns give consistency and unity to works of art. Mixing a pretty floral pattern with a checkerboard design would be as inconsistent as pasting two types of wallpaper together. The key to pattern is consistency. That said, an artist may choose to intermingle several patterns to create contrast (see “Looking for contrast,” later in this chapter).
Sometimes patterns in art are as easy to recognize as the designs in wallpaper, but more often the patterns are complex, like musical motifs in a Beethoven symphony or the intricate designs in a Persian carpet or a rose window (see Chapter 10). Patterns may also be subtle, like the distribution of colors in Jacopo Pontormo’s Descent from the Cross (see Chapter 13).
Rolling with the rhythm
Visual art also has rhythm, like music. Although you can’t tap your feet to it,
