Introduction to My First Online Lesson Series
- Jessica Cox
- Sep 18, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 15, 2021
“Art can be thought of as a symbol of what it means to be human, manifested in physical form for others to see and interpret. It can serve as a symbol for something that is tangible, or for a thought, an emotion, a feeling, or a concept. Through peaceful means, it can convey the full spectrum of the human experience. Perhaps that is why it is so important.” From ThoughtCo.:Ways of Defining Art By Lisa Marder Updated July 26, 2019
Art is a process of symbol-making, be it in an abstract, traditional, or personal form. It documents the identity of the individual artist and the society and the culture they inhabit, and the meaning the artist wishes to convey about these facets of their identity. Art is a powerful, flexible, and extremely important utilization of imagery that people ought to be educated about because art is everywhere, from film, to dioramas, to advertising, to diagrams, to architecture, to the way words are laid out on a page. As humans, we experience things every day through our senses, and it is precisely through our processing of this sensory information that we ascribe meaning to the world around us.
In the first online lesson series, I want to look at art throughout history and discuss how one might go about “reading” visual images. I think many people feel discouraged trying to unpack a work of art because they don’t know where to begin, let alone feel adequately equipped to derive any meaning from the piece. But the truth is, all anyone needs is their own intuition and a lasting curiosity. This blog will be a mix of art history, social studies, and visual reading. I hope you will be reading along with me.
If you feel like commenting please hit "comment(s)" below and it should give you a space to type in. Thank you.
Hi Jess. I'm curious to hear more about your inquiry topic. If I'm understanding correctly, you are going to explore the practice of reading images and how we do that. This will be a helpful practice not only as an art teacher but also for all of us who navigate the visual-based culture of online media.
While you may already know a lot about Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), I think the approach has been very helpful to come at images from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
https://vtshome.org/
Similar to VTS, yet focusing more on interpretation is the Perceive Protocol
https://wam.umn.edu/education/artful-writing/perceive/
These may or may not be on target with your inquiry topic, but may be related in some ways.
I…
Hi Jessica,
I think your spot on when you say that many people are intimidated by the idea of looking at art, they feel there is an etiquette to it that they don't understand, not realizing that they are looking at art every day. As someone who is teaching world history this semester I'm interested to see how you introduce people to the history of visual images.
Jessica! Will you share strategies for reading visual images that might be useful in English classes? I have not had much success with it thus far. I'm looking forward to seeing what resources you might provide!