THIS IS A PEER RESPONSE DISCUSSION POST. I will give you a peer’s response and you are to respond to the peer.

I will show directions that were given to us and include the peers post. You must respond to two peers.

Directions for students

Refer to the assigned reading from the textbook and required videos as examples of how to interpret works of art. Also, reflect on your reading assignments for Week 1.

Review the “Questions Art Historians Use” section in the Introduction of the textbook. Select two of the five questions. Explain what art historians are trying to gain by asking each question and how they might go about finding an answer.

Next, select a work of art of your choice from Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective, one of the assigned virtual reality video tours, or a website listed on the Art101 Museum and Images Websites document located in your classroom. Apply the two questions you have selected to the work of art. Explain the process you used to find the answers to the questions and what you ultimately found those answers to be.

STUDENTS DISCUSSION POST

Two questions that art historians ask when analyzing works of art are how old the work of art is as well as what the subject of the art is. The main thing that art historians are trying to determine when asking how old a work of art is would be to determine the historical context. This can be determined by physical evidence, documentary evidence, internal evidence and stylistic evidence. By determining the age of a work of art it allows for art historians to place it in a particular time-frame and possibly even region in an effort to understand how art has evolved over time. Art historians also seek to understand the subject of the art which involves understanding the story or narrative being told in the piece, how the scene is presented as well as the time, place and environment being depicted as well as individuals involved. All these factors combine to allow art historians to separate art work into categories such as religions, mythological, landscape, still life, etc.

While art historians need years of education and experience to determine these questions and others when a new work of art is discovered we, on the other hand, have it a little easier thanks to their hard work and dedication. The work of art that I chose was The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Durer (ca. 1498). On first glance it appears to be quite old and thanks to the work or art historians and a quick internet search I was able to confirm that theory by finding out that it is believed to have been created in 1498. As for what the subject is as someone who was raised with a Christian background it was easy to determine that the subject being depicted was from the Book of Revelations which details a prophetic vision of the end of the world. Within that vision the end is heralded by the four horsemen of the apocalypse each bearing a terrible gift for mankind. Due to this I would say that is is very safe to assume that the subject of the artwork is religious.

References

Durer, A., (ca. 1498). The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. [woodcut]. Retrieved from https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/19.73.209/ (Links to an external site.)

Kleiner, F.S. (2017). Gardner’s art through the ages: The western perspective ( 15th ed., Vol.11). Retrieved from https://ashford.intructure.com (Links to an external site.)

END OF FIRST PEER. PLEASE RESPOND TO PEER

2nd Peer Below

The two questions I chose from the “Questions Art Historians Use” section are “Who made it?” and “How old is it?”

Knowing who created a piece of art could help an art historian understand the artist’s motivation behind his work. An art historian could figure who made the work by either looking for a signature or a personal style that could lead to attribution to a known artist.

Art historians asks how old a painting is to better understand the history behind it. They can figure out how old a piece of art is by looking at the techniques and materials used and the style of the painting.

The painting I chose to assess is Homage to the Square: “Ascending” by Josef Albers. A historian would be able to tell who created this piece because this artist has made multiple paintings with the same composition but with different hues, saturation, and value. (Kleiner, 2014) The painting was made in 1953 and you can tell that it is a modern piece of art by the composition of it.

References

Reference: Kleiner, (2014). Gardner’s Art Through the Ages (14th ed.). Boston,MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Retrieved from https://ng.cengage.com/static/nb/ui/evo/index.html?deploymentId=5560682321539428840681977962&eISBN=9781305665835&id=643604689&snapshotId=1467988&

END OF 2nd Peer.

MAKE SURE TO LOOK FOR THEIR ART WORK AND TAKE LOOK FOR YOURSELF.

Cite any sources including theirs in APA format.

TURNITIN Score must be below 20%