History of Art: The Non-Patronizing Understanding of Modern Art

History of Art Society Member Anwen Hails discusses how she personally understands complex artworks with seemingly endless possibilities.

Anwen Hails History of Art Society Member

“I could have done that!” is a comment that populates modern art exhibitions in the twenty-first century. It is a statement that I often find hard to refute when staring at a blank canvas or seemingly random object placed upon a plinth, despite the fact I have studied History of Art for over 2 years. I find myself often repeating the infuriatingly vague phrase “but you didn’t” because while I don’t deny the fact you could have turned a urinal upside down and signed it (Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917) Duchamp did it first. As I have been told many times, with rolling eyes, this explanation explains nothing to those who haven’t studied art. Therefore, I set myself to task to explain in more eloquent terms how you can go about understanding artworks like Duchamp’s Fountain when they appear meaningless. I shall not pretend that my short article can in anyway deduce every modern artwork ever produced, for I don’t believe I could even cover that in my dissertation. Rather I intend to shed light on how I personally approach/understand artworks with seemingly endless possibilities and mean- ings when they look like Tony from down the road could have created them. creation then why is it one of the most famous artworks in the world? He was the first to physically interact with the canvas in this way, the first to create nonrepresentational artwork of this kind with this technique. He had the first original idea which is why it is so famous and esteemed. No one had thought of approaching art like this before.

Context

Personal Reaction

Originality

Often artworks are so esteemed because they are the first of their kind, for example Jackson Pollock’s artwork Number 1 (Lavender Mist) (1950). Pollock is credited with creating the art movement called Abstract Expressionism, which is the category this artwork falls under. There’s no denying the artwork appears simple in creation, with drizzled multicoloured paint splattered over the canvas randomly, but if it is so simple in

A second approach to understanding artworks without obvious meaning is understanding the context. Many artworks’ context is what makes them so poignant, most artworks do no juts exist without meaning attached, they reflect the movements and time periods they were created in. For example, Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup (1968) can be understood as reflecting the consumerism culture of 1960s America. The artwork is a screen print, meaning it can be printed many times over, reflecting mass production of products that was happening at the time. It also reflects consumerism through its use of bright, bold colours that would have been used in advertising. All of this and the fact it is a branded product shows Warhol’s commentary on consumerism at the time.

The final, and arguably most simple approach to looking at these types of works of art is to just ask yourself how you feel about them. Art does not have definitive meanings and often the subject of art history itself, is scholars own personal feelings and emotions towards particular works of art. How you feel and respond to artworks is a perfectly justified way of applying meaning, an artwork makes you feel sad, then why? Why do you feel like that? What is it in the artwork that creates these emotions? How do you relate to the artwork? These are all questions that help us to connect and understand artworks when they have no definitive explanation.

Hopefully this article has explained some of the ways to understand modern art without sounding to pretentious. The main take away is that art is all about interpretation, how you view art is unique to you, hence why artworks often have so many possible explanations. If you are interested in the concept of being able to understand modern art further, I would suggest Susie Hodge’s book Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That, which answers it’s very own title.