New Perspective

This class has definitely broadened my view of what art is. The various perspectives we were exposed to in this class have instilled in me a new respect for art that may not seem beautiful or meaningful at first but may have actually been more hardly worked upon than a standard living room painting, which so many of us find beautiful. The works we studied in this class have made me look for a deeper understanding in art that does not look conventionally pretty. I've learned to appreciate art more for what it is rather than what it stands for. As Susan Montag states in her article entitled Against Interpretation, "Real art has the capacity to make us nervous". The impact of the art in the viewer and its ability to make the viewer think are what I feel the basis of the artwork's value. During this class, we criticized several art pieces and at the end of it, I can now understand that the objective of an art critic should be to show how it is what it is and that it truly is what it stands for, rather than to show what it means and seek meaning that may not even have been there or intended.