How the Hell Do You Look at a Painting?

Have you ever gone into a museum, looked at an installation piece of some strings hanging from the ceiling and thought, "What in the hell is this supposed to mean?" Well, I can't explain the strings, but I can explain how to look at art in general so you can form a better understanding on what the hell all these paintings, sculptures, and drawings mean. It's true that art is generally subjective, but depending on the period, art served a very particular function for educating, controlling, and influencing the masses.

Let's look at the work by Jacques Louis David, one of the most famous French painters in history. He's well known for The Oath of the Horatii, The Death of Marat, Lictors Bearing to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, and lots of paintings of Napoleon. When you look at his paintings, they reference myths, legends, the neoclassics—everything deemed to be "worthy" of artistic expression at the time. His work showed real or mythologized people painted as close to reality as possible, with every muscle, contour of light on their face, and glisten in their eyes. The detail in his work is extraordinary, and the subjects were, too. His work shows the preference amongst the art masters and critics of the world for the sublime; the unattainable; the god-like; wars and battles of grandeur. It was all about the legends of history; not quotidian acts. David would have never painted the common people has his main subject, that wasn't to come until more than 100 years after his death.

When you look at Impressionist painting and compare it to work like David's, the subject matter could not be more different. You see fields; mountainsides; people lunching on the grass; farmers; a party along the river; bathers; the average person going about daily life. The brushstrokes changed too; they were no longer invisible, you could see the artist's hand present throughout the entire painting. Thick, sequential brushstrokes formed daisies by Van Gogh; Manet painted a prostitute as his subject; Monet painted bridges and lilly pads—art critics were laughing and poking fun at these sad attempts at art. To them, paintings like those by David were art—not splotchy images of fields and commoners. But this was a major turning point in art history; it was no longer the sublime that interested these artists—it was the ordinary.

From there, you have Picasso who was painting not only like David at the age of 14, but drawing geometric and tribal-like figures with ears on their throats and one eye glaring at the viewer. You have jackholes like Duchamp putting a toilet as his installation piece; Dalí painting melting clocks and grotesque elephants echoing the subconscious; Hopper painting American diners, hotels, and offices—Impressionism was the kick starter to branching outside of the neoclassics and diving into a variety of subjects artists could pursue. The artist was no longer limited to classic Greek mythology and heroic wars of Europe's past; he could paint the world in its entirety, including the average people who inhabit it.

When you walk around a museum, pay attention to what's being painted and how. Are you looking at something with people as the main subject, perhaps Christ, and the brushstrokes are practically invisible? You're likely looking at something in the early-19th century going back; this is when the religious, mythological, and classics were adored and admired. The standards were high, and people like you and me weren't important in the mind of the artist. But if you come across a painting of a field; some hay stacks; men scrubbing wood floors—you're likely towards the end of the 19th century moving onward; this is when we do matter, when the worker, the mother, the farmer, and so on, were seen as worthy subjects of representation.

As you get closer to the mid-to-late 20th century, you'll see the emergence of Pop art referencing its namesake of pop culture. Marilyn Monroe and fellow movie stars were inspiration, as well as the new and exciting world of television; advances in home appliances; advertisements and beauty products—they were all heightened, branded, and colored beyond recognition to comment on commercialism and the new-age of grandeur. Video art begins to make its appearance, as well as performance art—both pushing the boundaries on what we typically define as "art."

The artists within all these groups of art movements all had a similar idea in mind, and it's usually to reject the norms of the time. The Impressionists disliked the norm of neoclassics, so they moved against it and branched to its polar opposite. Magritte disliked conventional images of what the eyes see and decided to paint what the mind sees. Warhol didn't really seem to care and just did what he wanted, and it worked.

Art is a wide and varying field with what seems to be no rhyme or reason. If you look more closely and see what these artworks are placed against (like what other artworks are displayed next to them in the room, or in the same exhibition), you begin to see the similar qualities that form a cohesive movement or purpose. All art is influenced by other art. Once you habituate yourself to this knowledge, walking around a museum will become less overwhelming and more exciting. You'll make connections between the inspirations between several artists, and see how they influenced each other's work in their subject matter, colors, and forms. It's all connected, and it's all fascinating.

I hope this helps you on your quest to become a more aware museum-goer, and it always helps to take pamphlets and audio guides along to help inform you. Even with my two art history degrees, I'm still learning and making new observations constantly. We always have something new to learn.