The Movement and Direction of Art - Final Draft

Martin

Melanie Martin

Instructor Sarah Newlands

ART FRINQ

23 February 2015

The Movement and Direction of Art

Art as a practice is a timeless expression of the human condition. The earliest records of our humanity are found in drawings on the walls of caves. It seems that as long as there were people, there was also art. Just as we as a society have evolved so has the art that has been produced. As Western society has progressed towards and then away from rigid social norms and expectations, so has our art. By contrasting two pieces from different eras one can see this happen through the waning use of movement and direction. For my research, I focused on two specific works to show that as society has moved towards a more freely expressive landscape, our art has mirrored this through less direction and more open interpretations.

To show an example of an earlier, more directed work, one can look at The Oath of the Horatii painted by Jacques-Louis David. The Neoclassical piece is an affirmation of masculine ego and the identity of the man in the face of duty. David uses the triangular negative shaped space created by the body of the males to create the first focal point of the painting. (Janson) These three sons are at the center of the narrative being told and as such the artist made sure to have the eye be drawn to them first. The brothers drawn in the foreground to ensure that these four men are the first to be seen in the work. The eyes of all four men lay on the hilts of the sword in the hands of the father, and the outstretched arms of the sons also take the gaze of the viewer onto the swords. All of this is intended to drive the viewers eye onto what is most important to the work.

The outstretched arms then push the viewers gaze into the empty top right corner of the work where they then fall onto the smaller triangle formed by the bodies of the women and children mourning at the fate of the three sons. Just as their suffering is second to the needs of Rome, so are these women second to the men in this painting. They are rendered in the background, almost blending into the hallways. Their eyes point nowhere and as such corral the eye to end its viewing on them. They are an after thought that compels the narrative further, the tragedy of heroic sacrifice, but are not supposed to distract from the message "A man must do what is right when called upon".

All of this information is given to the viewer just as intended by the painter through the use of these negative spaces, gazes, and directed gestures. In a period of time in which many thought there were preferred ways to do anything, it would make sense for a painter to think he would need to show a viewer what was important. While these methods are effective in giving the painter the ability to direct the eye as he sees fit and to have the viewer take away what was intended, it does limit the creative process and nearly stops any further interpretation of the work.

In contrast to this highly structured style developed in the Neoclassical period, more modern art has become a far less structured experience. The narratives that drove the creation of the old works have fallen away in favor of a more Existentialist interpretation of art. Pieces of art are made solely as art; they are not necessarily meant to convey anything other than elicit some emotion within the viewer. To illustrate this example, one can look at the Seated Woman by Nicolas Africano.

The Seated Woman depicts a shirtless women gazing off into the distance with her lower half covered by a sheet. The piece does not have the same narrative seen in Oath of the Horatii. It is simply a testament to the feminine figure and a push against the idealizing of bodies portrayed in art. Since the message is more contained and concise, it leads itself away from the need of direction, which can be acknowledged through how the sculpture directs the viewers’ gaze.

The primary focus of the composition can be found in the eyes of the sculpture. Her head is more prominent and detailed compared to the rest of her body while she is also mounted at eye level with the observer. The first feature that the viewer is drawn to is the eyes of the “Seated Woman”. Whether the viewer is wondering about what she is thinking about, or begins to wander about his or her own thoughts, this composition has provoked thought. This is directly in line with the message of the piece since the point is more of a mediation upon an idea as opposed to a narrative that needed to be told.

As technology has advanced, we have been able to track the movement of eyes as they look upon artwork to see what the eyes are drawn to first and the order to which they observe. In a study conducted by Davide Massaro and several other researchers, they set out to discover the differences in how eyes navigate over a painting that is either Dynamic or Static, meaning art that has a set directional flow for the eye to move compared to art that is chaotic and does not have a specified flow. Although they were not conducting research that correlated directly to my research topic, I was able to learn a lot from one diagram they created that recorded several viewers’ eye movement while looking at two separate works; dynamic and static.

Whether the work was dynamic or static did not matter to me in my search for answers, but I was able to discover that the viewer’s eyes focus most of its attention (red) on the face and eyes of humans depicted in art (Massaro). This research agrees with my idea that the first feature of the Seated Woman that a viewer will have the most connection to will be her face, which will then focus and gradually descend into thought.

Looking again at the Seated Woman, her eyes are the extent of the direction being created by the piece. The rest of the work goes to great lengths to remove any more gestures that could draw the eye somewhere else. Instead it is up to the concentration of the viewer to observe the rest of the piece. In many ways Seated Woman is the embodiment of modern thinking in art. There are many ways to interpret the same piece and all are legitimate, it is simply up to the individual to derive that meaning.

Bibliography

Massaro, Davide. "When Art Moves the Eyes: A Behavioral and Eye-Tracking Study." PLOS ONE:. Internet Systems Consortium, 18 May 2012. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

Janson, H. W., Penelope J. E. Davies, and H. W. Janson. Janson's History of Art: The Western Tradition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.

Ferguson, Frances. Solitude and the Sublime: Romanticism and the Aesthetics of Individuation. Psychology Press, 1992.

De Man, Paul. The Rhetoric of Romanticism. Columbia University Press, 2013.