Module 1 - Understanding Art Learning Outcomes Upon successful completion of Module One, you will have:

Identified the key terms, people, artwork, and places related to this module. Discussed the four basic roles that visual artists fulfill. Traced the creative process and explained how the processes of seeing, imagining, and making work together. Discussed the role of the visual arts as a distinct language for communicating ideas. Analyzed the subject and content of a work and their relationship to its form.

Lecture Notes You have more art in your life than you know! No matter where you live, an artist has designed almost everything in your environment. From the clothes you wear, the buildings in which you live and work to the posters, photographs or paintings on your walls - all were products of an artist in a specialized field. The impulse to create art goes back to the earliest days of civilization. These impulses raise many questions about why we create art and what is the purpose of this art? The first reading assignment is to thoroughly read Chapter 1, an introduction to A World of Art . It illustrates that all cultures produce art and describes the similar roles that all artists have historically shared. A World of Art begins with a discussion of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates, a fascinating and monumental work that was built in Central Park in New York City. Please click to go to the site: The Artwork of Christo and Jeanne-Claude . "I like art, I sometimes just don't understand it." Chapter One provides a solid foundation for understanding the roles that artists play universally, which will aid in your understanding of the works they create. The traditional roles of artists are to:

record the world give visible or tangible form to ideas, philosophies, or feelings reveal hidden or universal truths help us see the worl in a new or innovative way

Perhaps the most important things to consider in this chapter are how an artist employs the creative process and the value of forming your own opinions about art. What you appreciate or admire, and why?

"I just don't know how to express myself about what I see in an artwork." With the proliferation of magazines, videos and the Internet, we have become visually dependent but not necessarily visually literate. Learning these terms, concepts, and expressions will assist you as you further develop your "visual literacy." Words And Images In the West, we sometimes confuse words with the things they represent. This is not true in other cultures. In Muslim culture, the separation of word from what it represents is seen as a virtue. To create a representative image of the human figure suggests the creation of the human, and hence the artist's arrogance (hubris) at entering into competition with the Creator himself. For that reason, calligraphy is the chief form of Islamic art. Study Guide As you read the chapters in A World of Art, you should begin to understand how the language of art helps us to describe what we see and how we feel when we view a work of art. Developing Visual Literacy, will introduce you to some of the basic terms of the language of art - subject, content, and form. Please use the following as guidelines for your note taking while reading, studying in this module, and answering the questions and defining the terms in your notes: 1. State and explain the four roles that visual artists fulfill. 2. Explain how the creative process of seeing, imagining, and making is both a physical and a psychological process, tempered by our fears, prejudices, customs and beliefs. 3. List works of art containing the same subject matter, but different meanings. 4. Analyze the subject and content of a work and their relationship to its form. 5. Recognize and distinguish between representational, abstract, nonobjective, formal, symbolic, expressive, and fantasy. 6. Define the key terms for this module in your notes including:
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aesthetic earthwork sublime reception extraction inference subject matter

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representational naturalistic illusionistic abstract nonobjective content formal expressive symbolic fantasy convention iconography objective subjective form

7. Identify the artists and art people from this module and write a brief description of their work in your notebook.
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Ahearn Bierstadt Escobar Chicago Christo Hassam Howling Wolf Johns Leonardo da Vinci Magritte

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Malevich Mendieta Monet Ringgold Simpson Smithson Taylor Torres van Eyck Vermeer Warhol

8. Kane Kwei's coffins uniquely suited to their "inhabitants." Each coffin resembles an object or idea associated with the diseased. The single event that caused Kane Kwei's coffins to become viewed as works of art was that a San Francisco gallery owner began showing them as art. What functional objects in your life could be exhibited as art?