This past week, I stumbled across a YouTube channel called Great Art Explained.
I’ve quickly fallen in love with it. I used videos from this channel to inform my writing on Edward Hopper and Andy Warhol.
Whenever I discover media sources that impart knowledge on various subjects like art and history, I am deeply grateful for the individuals who devote their time to educating others.
Growing up, I didn’t really have much appreciation for art. It’s not that I didn’t like it, I just didn’t understand it. I remember field trips as a kid to the Philly Art Museum, wandering around aimlessly, unsure why any of the art belonged there. However, this changed after I took an elective course in college about Renaissance Art.
It ended up being one of my favorite classes, mostly because of the professor’s incredible gift for both educating and entertaining, guiding a class of helpless teenagers through the exploratory world of 15th and 16th century artwork. Instead of taking the sometimes snobbish and elitist route of art education, he made learning about art fun.
After I took that course, things started to click for me. I understood how styles of painting changed over time, who specific painters were, and why their paintings were influential and noteworthy. It made me actually enjoy going to a museum and walking around; I finally had a better understanding of what I was looking at.
I often feel that when you go to a museum, you’re seeing the painting in the wrong context. It’s been stripped of all of its authentic beauty and placed in a sterile, unfitting environment. Other museum-goers stand and look alongside you, muttering to themselves about where the museum cafeteria or bathroom is. But imagine how different the artwork would feel if you saw it minutes after the artist had just finished it—with paint still wet on the canvas?
In order to appreciate something, whether it’s art, music, writing, or any other type of creation, you need to have the proper context around it. We often experience things in the wrong format—we consume the output of the artist’s hard work, but we lack the entirety of the artist’s input, when they were putting paint brush to canvas (or pen to paper, etc.).
When you comprehend the context of a work’s inception, it unlocks patterns that you can then use for your own art, regardless of whether the art form is the same or different as the type of art that you create. For example, after taking the Renaissance Art course, I read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo DaVinci. At the time of reading, it completely changed my outlook on life. DaVinci was entirely consumed with his own curiosity. He didn’t seek to learn things because he thought it would make him more money or improve his reputation. He had an undying thirst to decipher the world around him, and therefore spent his time trying to dissect every intricate detail of his daily life.
The more you grasp the context of an artist’s work, the more you can be influenced by it. If you can imagine being there when Frida Kahlo finished The Two Fridas or Van Gogh finished The Starry Night, then you are one step closer to creating something meaningful yourself.
Take the time to learn context. It’s more than worth it.
.png)
This past week, I stumbled across a YouTube channel called Great Art Explained.
I’ve quickly fallen in love with it. I used videos from this channel to inform my writing on Edward Hopper and Andy Warhol.
Whenever I discover media sources that impart knowledge on various subjects like art and history, I am deeply grateful for the individuals who devote their time to educating others.
Growing up, I didn’t really have much appreciation for art. It’s not that I didn’t like it, I just didn’t understand it. I remember field trips as a kid to the Philly Art Museum, wandering around aimlessly, unsure why any of the art belonged there. However, this changed after I took an elective course in college about Renaissance Art.
It ended up being one of my favorite classes, mostly because of the professor’s incredible gift for both educating and entertaining, guiding a class of helpless teenagers through the exploratory world of 15th and 16th century artwork. Instead of taking the sometimes snobbish and elitist route of art education, he made learning about art fun.
After I took that course, things started to click for me. I understood how styles of painting changed over time, who specific painters were, and why their paintings were influential and noteworthy. It made me actually enjoy going to a museum and walking around; I finally had a better understanding of what I was looking at.
I often feel that when you go to a museum, you’re seeing the painting in the wrong context. It’s been stripped of all of its authentic beauty and placed in a sterile, unfitting environment. Other museum-goers stand and look alongside you, muttering to themselves about where the museum cafeteria or bathroom is. But imagine how different the artwork would feel if you saw it minutes after the artist had just finished it—with paint still wet on the canvas?
In order to appreciate something, whether it’s art, music, writing, or any other type of creation, you need to have the proper context around it. We often experience things in the wrong format—we consume the output of the artist’s hard work, but we lack the entirety of the artist’s input, when they were putting paint brush to canvas (or pen to paper, etc.).
When you comprehend the context of a work’s inception, it unlocks patterns that you can then use for your own art, regardless of whether the art form is the same or different as the type of art that you create. For example, after taking the Renaissance Art course, I read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo DaVinci. At the time of reading, it completely changed my outlook on life. DaVinci was entirely consumed with his own curiosity. He didn’t seek to learn things because he thought it would make him more money or improve his reputation. He had an undying thirst to decipher the world around him, and therefore spent his time trying to dissect every intricate detail of his daily life.
The more you grasp the context of an artist’s work, the more you can be influenced by it. If you can imagine being there when Frida Kahlo finished The Two Fridas or Van Gogh finished The Starry Night, then you are one step closer to creating something meaningful yourself.
Take the time to learn context. It’s more than worth it.
