Visual Literacy Reflections

I love art. I love to be visually engaged. But liking what I am looking at is simply not enough. I want to be able to draw meaning from a piece, to be able to walk away with a greater understanding of the world through what I've seen.

The knowledge I've acquired from Chapter 2 will definitely help me to gain insight into the art I love to view. Being able to draw my own conclusions and form my own interpretations of a piece has always been a challenge full of frustration for me. But as I slowly read and learn to develop my skils of observation, I am finding so much more joy in observing the world as a whole.

I had no idea of just how much the form of a work can play into the work's content. Sure you can see a picture of a man alone in a dark room and think that the artist is trying to explore emotions of isolation or lonliness, but there are other aspects of the work's form to consider. What is hte man holding? Wearing? What expression does he have on his face? If there is a window, what time of day is it and in what season? All of these individual factors(and more) come together to give the viewer an interpretation of the piece. Perhaps it's what the artist intended and perhaps not. That's the beauty of art. It is all up for interpretation and is meant to inspire different ideas and emotions. We just need the tools to figure out what.