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Reading The Image
Reading The Image
1.) The first is that art has its specificity: that is, its particular language or vocabulary has something to
do with the mediums, techniques, and visual elements of art that constitute it as a distinct area of human
2.) The other aspect is that art, while it has its specificity, is at the same time historically situated and
Both these aspects need to be taken into account so as to be able to fully understand and appreciate art.
For a study of the formal elements alone will not lead to a full understanding of the work, in the same way
that the exclusive study of the social determinants risks collapsing the artistic into the sociological.
Meaning in art is a complex of intellectual, emotional, and sensory significations which the work conveys
and to which the viewer responds, bringing in the breadth of his or her cultural background, artistic
exposure and training, and human experience in a dialogic relationship with the art work.
The analytic study of how the various elements and material features of the work produce meaning
should lead to a more stable and consensual field of meaning, away from erratic, whimsical,