Impressionistic Criticism…
Sam presented her Impressionistic Criticism project today. She did very well considering EVERY single member of her group left her and she ended up doing most of the project by herself. Go Sam!
I am just posting the few notes I managed to take while she was presenting.
Impressionistic Criticism
- A kind of criticism that tries to convey what the critic subjectively feels and thinks about a work of art- Commonly found in theatre
- People criticising work using feeling
- The difference between reality/what you think – Objective (look at that blue painting)/subjective (It is beautiful)
Certain things that arent looked at so much when analysing
(although I believe that once you do have your opinions about a work, that you can use some of these aspects as aesthetics to back up your opinion -ex: this shade of blue makes me think that… / But I might be wrong!)
- Balance
- Proportion
- Variety-emphasis
- Harmony and Unity
- Colour
- Texture
* Just read a poem/ look at a painting etc. and describe what you think about it/how it makes you feel not what you know. There isn’t really a wrong answer- but you should be able to use certain characteristics of the painting/examples from the text to support your opinion. Pretty simple!
Oscar Wilde
- Playwright/poet
- Wrote two big works about impressionistic criticism 1. The decay of lying, 2. The critic as an artist: A piece of work that not have meaning until it is given meaning from an observer/reader/listener- therefore the critic IS and artist
- He went to jail for “Gross indecency” – did hard labour for two years. ( was accused of being a sodomite, decided to being the accuser to court, defended himself – lost because everyone knew that he was a homosexual -need I say more- and the court found reasons to charge him with gross indecency)
Walter Pater
- Led a group of British intellects reacting against excessive weight of moral criteria prevalent in critical judgments on the fine arts by “stressing the diversity of artistic experience and the need for flexibility in judgments
- Wrote about impressionistic criticism
- Criticized the Mona Lisa
