Last week, we went to the MFA for our first visit and we had a whirlwind trip through the history of Western art. We didn't get to discuss "relations of looking," so we'll do that in class this week, especially focusing on the turn to modernism. Here we have Mary Cassatt's In the Loge (1878), Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), Georges Braque's
Violin and Candlestick (1910), and marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912). How do these paintings express relations of looking?
RELATIONS OF LOOKING: Who is looking at whom (or what)?
1) The gaze in the image (painting, photograph, frame): Who is looking at whom? What does it mean? Does the image look back at you directly in any way? Is there an audience in the image?
2) The viewer's gaze: (looking at the frame): How are you positioned as the viewer? What can you see? What is hidden? What is your relationship to the image?
3) The artist's gaze: From what point of view does the maker of the image work?
2 comments:
in class, i couldn't discern the "nude descending a staircase." perhaps because it was the first time we looked at a truly "modern" piece in class...however, as i just pulled it up onto the computer screen now...i immediately saw the image in motion. if some of you had this problem, you should definetely take a look at the image now in a scaled down version than that in class...i think that hindered my interpretation. its about 5ft by 3ft in the philadelphia museum of art but the space to view it is large enough that your vision isnt limited. definetely check it out again in a smaller format, the motion that is captured is pretty insane.
I agree with Alex, In class i couldn't decifer the image. It's quite a overwhelming image in it's actual size, but scaled down, it doesn't seem as extreme. It seems as if to really see something, you need to not see it. I guess in this visual culture you need to step outside what you're "used to". Does this make any sense?
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