A Systematic Approach to Learning Art Appreciation
A Beginner's Guide
“Beauty will save the world” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
In my previous article, I urged readers to find what they value in art.
But what if you didn’t get art? That was me a while ago. I did not understand the hype around art. I would see many paintings and walk away unimpressed. Sure, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers is beautiful. So what? There are so many beautiful paintings of flowers in the world. The paintings that my friend posts on Instagram are also very, very beautiful. Why such hype around the Sunflowers?? Or even the Mona Lisa - what is that great about the Mona Lisa? I never got it.
I still am very much a fledgling when it comes to appreciating art. But, I have made progress. This picture is proof of that.
I look like I just recovered from a bout of heavy sobbing and am about to break into another one any moment. The reason is not that I was sad. It is because I was deeply moved. It is, by far, the most profound experience I have had in my life. A few months ago, I would have walked past this sculpture after spending maybe 5 minutes. But I spent more than an hour in the presence of this sculpture and had goosebumps for 20 minutes straight.
Art can be intimidating because of how elitist and highbrow it seems. You fear being labeled as uncultured and unsophisticated if you didn’t get it. But it does not have to be that way. If you are a beginner in the art world like I was, the below can help. They helped me.
Map Of Art
📝Note: If you want practical advice, skip this section and go to “Practical Advice” section below.
As I argued in my previous article, art is much more than aesthetics. A lot of the perceived value of art is thanks to its context.
💡Did you know?
The most famous paintings are famous because they were stolen at some point in the past? The news of their theft would find its way into newspapers which led to more people reading about them which then made the paintings popular.
The key to getting art is to first understand the context. You probably already know some famous artworks: Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and Michaelangelo’s David. But each of these exists as individual, unrelated points in a nebulous cloud inside your head. Like this:
You know that they are popular and you kind of think they are really beautiful but can’t put your finger on exactly what makes them so popular.
The culprit here is the lack of context about these artworks. Just like how you can’t appreciate how tiny this adorable doggo is without the banana for scale:
So the first thing you need to do is to get lots of bananas for scale i.e build a map of the art world for yourself. Your objective is to get to something like this:
Chronology helps here. Understanding the history and evolution of art - the different art movements through time (refer to pic below), the dominant styles of these art movements, the breakthrough methods employed by the artists in each of these movements, how one differs from the other - all of these give you a lot of points on your canvas that can then act as a reference for appreciating any art that you see.
You might be intimidated by how vast art history is. Don’t be. You do not have to know all of it before you begin to get art. You just need to know some of it. For example, I am only familiar with the Italian Renaissance movement (thanks to my trip to Italy) well enough, and a tiny bit of Gothic and Baroque. That is enough to begin with.
Let us look at some examples that illustrate how knowing art history can be useful.
Example #1: Linear Perspective
If you understand how until the 15th century, we struggled to showcase depth in paintings, you can understand the significance of the advent of linear perspective.
In the below 13th-century painting, you see how they just painted the larger subject over the smaller figures to convey foreground vs background.
Then in the 15th century, linear perspective was born and painting would change forever. Below is one of the earliest paintings that used linear perspective.
Once you understand the significance of linear perspective, you can then appreciate the radical nature of Cezanne’s works, like the Still Life with Cherub (pictured below) where the artist deliberately throws out linear perspective to achieve something disorienting and surreal.
💡Did you know?
Cezanne is referred to as the father of modern art for how he encouraged breaking artistic conventions to explore color, light and space. He showed how art could really be free.
Example #2: Halos
If you know how halo rings were in 2D in the Gothic era, you can appreciate the 3D halos in the art that succeeded the Gothic era.
In the Gothic era (between the 12th to 17th centuries), no matter which angle the head of a figure was in, the halo would be a flat two-dimensional disc. Like in the below picture:
It wasn’t until a wave of realism swept the artists that they started painting realistic halos (among other things). This wave of realism came to be known as the Renaissance movement.
Example #3: Departure From Theology
If you understand how most paintings and sculptures were about theological subjects like Greek gods or Christian subject matter, you can appreciate how Caravvagio’s Basket of Fruits broke that convention and normalized the depiction of the mundane.
If you looked at this painting without any context, it seems like just another normal painting of a fruit basket. Sure, there is a lot of skill in there - the colors, the realism in the perishing leaves, the light and shadow, the shine on the apple. This much is easy to get.
But if you saw a group of people crowding around this painting in an art gallery, you would wonder what was so great about it. “I don’t see anything that special about this fruit basket painting” you would mutter to yourself as you walk away. What was great was Caravaggio’s choice of the subject of the painting. It was unprecedented during the time to paint something so simple as a basket of fruits.
As you get more exposure, you keep adding more points to the canvas. Every time you add a new point, you add it in reference to the existing points in the canvas.
Entry Points
So how can you add that first set of bananas to the canvas? As Tyler Cowen says - find an “entry point”.
For example, some of Tokyo’s entry points would be housing regulations, work culture, and demographics. Just reading those 3 articles can tell you a lot about the culture of Tokyo (and by extension, of Japan).
For art, an entry point I would highly recommend (and one that worked for me personally), is the Renaissance movement - arguably, the most influential art movement in history.
It was right about this time that Gutenberg invented the movable printing press which led to the Printing Revolution. This helped spread the word about artworks like never before. People from different parts of Europe would hear about an artwork and would travel to see it, get inspired, and take some ideas back home. This movement’s popularity was turbocharged by the fact that some of the most popular artists belonged to this period: Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Brunelleschi, and Caravaggio amongst others.
The Renaissance movement is a great entry point simply because of the number of resources available online that walk you through the works of this period. I highly recommend the Rebuilding The Renaissance podcast should you choose this entry point.
Practical Advice
In terms of actually doing something, what should you do?
As I said, pick and explore an entry point. Again, I recommend starting with the Renaissance movement and the Rebuilding The Renaissance podcast.
Visit art galleries. They are either free or cheap. Do a bit of preparation before your visit: what are the famous artworks in that gallery? Prioritize them. What is it about those pieces that make them famous? Podcasts, YouTube videos, and blogs are helpful here. Listen/read/watch them before you visit the gallery. Then listen/watch/read while you have the artwork in front of you. You can see a dozen pictures of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus online. But nothing beats the visceral experience of seeing it physically.
Read books that teach you how to appreciate art. Popular ones are The Story of Art and Ways of Seeing. Read bloggers who either write directly about art (The Cultural Tutor) or use art to convey their point (Senthil Veeraraghavan).
Take art history courses on Coursera.
Watch videos on art on YouTube. My favorite channels are this, this, and this. Khan Academy has a great playlist on the basics of art history.
Buy art. It does not have to be a Rembrandt. Just buy from a local artist, hang it in your house, and see how it adds to your atmosphere. Go back to it regularly. Maybe, after a while, your taste evolves and you realize it is not that great of an art piece. Don’t see it as a mistake; on the contrary, see it as a sign of progress! The moment you start forming opinions on whether a piece of art is good or not, you have learned art appreciation.
Make art. I envy artists because I know they can appreciate art at a level I cannot. A product manager can appreciate a product better than a consumer. A photographer can appreciate a good photo better than an admirer. Having skin in the game gives you a new lens through which you can appreciate art.
Curiosity & Persistence
Learning to appreciate art takes time. There is a lot of catching up to do. On top of that, new art movements keep emerging (generative AI art being the latest addition).
Even after spending 2 years learning about art, you will encounter an artwork that might escape your understanding. Don’t sulk. Approach it with curiosity. Google it, read blogs about it, watch YouTube explainer videos about it, and go see the artwork in person. Be persistent and intentional in your pursuit of understanding art.
In case you are thinking this is all a lot of work, you are right. It is work. But, it is enjoyable work. Learning to appreciate art is, in its own way, every bit as fun as appreciating art. Besides, don’t you want to find out what you value in art?
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A much needed article. Very well written like always, Raghul :)