Doing so, we begin to Foreground-to bring to the front of our attention-the formal elementsof art. We could look at color and shape and design as values in themselves. We could turn our attention away from its representational agency and pay attention to the Medium: the canvas, the paint, and the brushstrokes.
![impact of a medium in an artifact meaning impact of a medium in an artifact meaning](http://image.slidesharecdn.com/bloodspatters-140327234445-phpapp02/95/blood-spatters-analysis-32-638.jpg)
People see beauty in such compositions without asking, what is it? Do we critique a paisley shirt if we can’t tell what its designs depict?Ĭlearly, something besides representation is at play in art. We’ve looked at geometrical designs on ancient pottery, arabesques, and architecture with linear designs. Paradoxically, we admire the brushwork and pigmentation because they vanish in a rich emulation of the object.īut not all art is representational. When we focus on the subject, textures of the medium recede. In this model, viewers’ attention often focuses on the visual subject: what is it? How realistically is the “real thing” depicted? Often, viewers experience impatience or annoyance when they can’t tell what the subject “is supposed to be” or if they feel the technique is awkward or inaccurate. The artifact of the painting produces an image of a visual subject: Let’s take a step back and think about the dimensions of this model of painting. How much do we see and how much do we embellish?
![impact of a medium in an artifact meaning impact of a medium in an artifact meaning](https://miro.medium.com/max/777/1*ycU9fPtZDRmdrO7kXnKgeA.jpeg)
The title invites us to think about the ambiguity of all human perceptions of the world around them. Is the tree actually in the landscape or did the painter add it from imagination? The painting raises questions about paintings, and also about The Human Condition. The representational technique appears to be straightforward. The image doubles a selected rectangle of the “natural” landscape, just as paintings are supposed to do. Centered in the pane is a canvas with an apparently, transparent canvas. He paints a window looking out on a landscape. Oil on canvas.Īlmost 300 years later, René Magritte toys with this notion of the painting as a window on the world. (1660), The Painter and his Model as Klio.
![impact of a medium in an artifact meaning impact of a medium in an artifact meaning](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/artifacts-141118083503-conversion-gate02/95/contrast-based-artifacts-10-638.jpg)
The distance separating us from the painter invites us to reflect on the artist’s viewpoint, his tools and media, his composition, and our own perception. We illustrated this model with Vermeer’s The Painter and His Model as Klio: the painter at his easel composing his image of a model, all nested within curtained framework of the painting we are viewing. Last week, we explored the Renaissance model of the painting as a window on the world.