DU Art Collection
X
Reading Art
Welcome to Reading Art, a Durham University Art Collection online resource for secondary students.
Reading, understanding and forming opinions about art can sometimes be quite intimidating. Taking the time to look closely, learning how to analyse and communicating your own interpretation of an artwork is a valuable skill that can increase confidence, strengthen independent critical thinking and improve communication skills.
This resource will take you through how an arts professional, such as a Curator, approaches interpreting artworks to help people interact with them.
How do we read art?
Reading art is just like reading a book, listening to music or eating food. Each mark made, like a sentence, is communicating to you. The writer or the artist is speaking directly to you as the viewer, but each person will take away a different meaning depending on their own life experience.
“If we give as much as we expect to take from a novel, a poem, an image or an album (or a conversation, or a relationship), it has a greater chance of becoming profound. As readers, we feel this happen when something speaks directly to our experience and we feel the words burning themselves into us...You may forget the exact words, but you carry a relationship with the text through your life. You may think this was entirely because of the quality of the text, but it was also about the quality of your reading.” - Kae Tempest, On Connection
There are many ways to read art. We are going to explore how you can critically engage with an artwork in order to write an interpretative caption.
Listen to staff from Durham University's Art Collection, find out more about the collection, and hear about social artist Lady Kitt's work 89 Ways You Are Worth More To Me Like This. (2018)
All artwork captions need this basic information to get started...
Artist's name:
Title:
Date:
Medium:
Here is an example of this basic information filled in:
Artist's name
Patrick Caulfield
Title in italics
7. ‘Crying to the walls: My God! My God! Will she relent?’
Date the work was created
1973
Medium The material the work is made from
Screenprint on paper
© The Estate of Patrick Caulfield. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2021.
© The Estate of Patrick Caulfield. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2021.
Patrick Caulfield
7. ‘Crying to the walls: My God! My God! Will she relent?’
1973
Screenprint on paper
How to read art
Key areas to explore:
- Artist's life
- History and context
- Connection and emotion
- Subject matter
- Medium and material
- Explore existing interpretations
Task:
As you scroll down you will read an interpretative caption of Patrick Caulfield's work 7. ‘Crying to the walls: My God! My God! Will she relent?’ .
The caption has been developed using a Looking, Describing, Communicating and Analysing approach. This was followed by compiling responses, research and then editing to create the final reading.
At the end of this resource, you will find a downloadable worksheet designed to help you analyse Calypso (1973-74) by Dame Elisabeth Frink.
Questions & discussion points:
- Does the historical context of the work change its meaning?
- Is this work relevant to you and your life?
- Approach this work from an alternative view point to yours. Would its meaning change if your gender, sexuality, race or abilities where different?
- Where is your eye first drawn to?
Look
Look closely. No, look closer.
How was this work made?
Explore the 7 elements of art:
Shape, Form, Line, Colour, Value, Space, Texture
Art Analysis Sheet
Art Analysis Sheet
Describe
What is the work depicting?
Is this work a representation of reality, or is the work abstract?
Is there a narrative or story being told?
If you could walk in to the work, would you be able to hear, taste, touch, see or smell anything?
What are they talking about? Worksheet
What are they talking about? Worksheet
What are they thinking? Worksheet
What are they thinking? Worksheet
Communicate
How does this artwork relate to your life?
How does the colour make you feel?
What do clocks make you think of?
Analyse
What is the artist trying to tell us?
Is the title relevant?
What is the historical, geographical and social context?
Was this artist part of a movement?
20th Century Art Movements
20th Century Art Movements
Here is an example of Patrick Caulfield's work, 7. ‘Crying to the walls: My God! My God! Will she relent?’ (1973) being interpreted using this method.
Look: Shape, Form, Line, Colour, Value, Space, Texture
Simple shapes, cartoon-like forms, bold thick black lines, bright canary yellow, black and white, opaque, minimal, flat
Describe:
A cartoon-like image of a clock suspended. Facing slightly away. The time on the clock is about 4.06. Is this am or pm? Can hear the clock ticking, battery powered modern clock. You might find it in an office.
Communicate:
Clocks can represent many emotional responses. Clocks remind me of time pressures, of being late or on time and being organised.
Analyse:
Although Caulfield was associated with the British Pop Art movement by critics, he didn't label himself as such. His work was often of objects or interiors.
The title makes the viewer feel as if there is something going on outside of the frame... maybe an argument? Maybe the wall they are crying into is the same wall the clock is hung on.
When you bring everything together and edit your notes, you should end up with something like this...
© The Estate of Patrick Caulfield. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2021.
© The Estate of Patrick Caulfield. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2021.
Patrick Caulfield
7. ‘Crying to the walls: My God! My God! Will she relent?’
1973
Screenprint on paper
In this bright, bold, minimalist print in three colours....
....Patrick Caulfield has made a cartoon-like image of a clock suspended in a canary yellow backdrop. Facing slightly away from the viewer, the time on the clock reads roughly 4:06, but we are unaware if it is the morning or afternoon...
...Depending on the time, the meaning of this work will change. Clocks and time can remind us of pressure and being overwhelmed...
...The title makes the viewer feel as if there is something going on outside of the frame... maybe an argument? Maybe the wall they are crying in to is the same wall the clock is hung on...
Give your opinion
Interpretations are most interesting when they show the writer's point of view.
Do your research
Finding out about the historic context, the artist's own thoughts and what other people think will help inform your writing.
Keep it simple
Use simple language and words so as many people as possible can read and understand your thoughts.
Now your turn
Use the worksheet below to take notes on Dame Elisabeth Frink's work Calypso (1973-74).
Interpretation Worksheet
Interpretation Worksheet
THANK YOU!
If you would like more information about Durham University's Art Collection, or would like to book a school visit, outreach or virtual visit please contact Emily Dowler at 4schools@durham.ac.uk
Durham University Art Resources
- How to read art? worksheet
- 4schools: Art Online
- Summer in the City Festival
Further Reading
- Kae Tempest, On Connection (2020)
- Grayson Perry, Playing the Gallery: Helping Contemporary Art in Its Struggle to Be Understood (2014)
- John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972)
- Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialisation of the art object from 1966- 1972 (1973)
https://monoskop.org/images/0/07/Lippard_Lucy_R_Six_Years_The_Dematerialization_of_the_Art_Object_from_1966_to_1972.pdf - Harg Vartanian, “Art Does Change Things”: A Conversation with Curator and Art Historian Kellie Jones (2016)
https://hyperallergic.com/331117/art-change-things-conversation-curator-art-historian-kellie-jones/ - George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)
- V &A Blog, Writing Labels & Gallery Text (2013)
https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/creating-new-europe-1600-1800-galleries/labels-gallery-text
For more information about Durham University's Art Collection you can visit our website: https://www.dur.ac.uk/art.collection/
Or email Emily Dowler at e.v.dowler@durham.ac.uk
Built with Shorthand