
This Is image Venus de Milo on display at the Louvre
The earliest surviving writing on art that can be classified as art history are the passages in Pliny the Elder's Natural History concerning the development of Greek sculpture and painting. From them it is possible to trace the ideas of Xenokrates of Sicyon, a Greek sculptor who was perhaps the first art historian. As a result, Pliny's work, while mainly an encyclopaedia of the sciences, were disproportionately influential with respect to art from the Renaissance onwards, particularly the passages about the techniques used by the painter Apelles. Similar, though independent, developments occurred in 6th century China, where a canon of worthy artists was established by writers in the scholar-official class (who, being necessarily proficient in calligraphy, were artists themselves), and the Six Principles of Painting were formulated by Xie He.
I don’t want to be cliché, now I will writing about semiotic art history.
Semiotic art history is an approach to art historical analysis that borrows from the established theories of semiology. It seeks to uncover the codified meaning or meanings in an aesthetic object by examining its connectedness to a collective consciousness. Applying a language-based philosophy to visual media is inherently problematic and for that reason, art historians typically supplement its application with other methodologies that allow for political and historical considerations.
Art historians use semiotics in order to subvert the myth of art as an immediate and unmitigated vision of the world, a window through which the object can be viewed without external mediation. In a tradition that assumes that visual meaning can be intuitively uncovered, the complexity of imagery can only be adequately addressed in reading images as text. Standards of styalization and form replace words as signifiers of meaning. Just as dictionaries are inadequate in supplying true meaning to words, nature is insufficient as the ultimate reference for visual signs if the notion of the Platonic ideal is dismissed.
As opposed to iconography which seeks to identify meaning, semiotics is concerned with how meaning is created. Roland Barthes’s connoted and denoted meanings are paramount to this examination. In any particular work of art, an interpretation depends on the identification of denoted meaning—the recognition of a visual sign, and the connoted meaning—the instant cultural associations that come with recognition. The main concern of the semiotic art historian is to come up with ways to navigate and interpret connoted meaning.
Art historians do not commonly commit to any one particular brand of semiotics but rather construct an amalgamated version which they incorporate into their collection of analytical tools. For example, Meyer Shapiro borrowed Saussure’s differential meaning in effort to read signs as they exist within a system. According to Schapiro, to understand the meaning of frontality in a specific pictorial context, it must be differentiated from, or viewed in relation to, alternate possibilities such as a profile, or a three-quarter view. Schapiro combined this method with the work of Charles Sanders Peirce whose object, sign, and interpretant provided a structure for his approach. Alex Potts demonstrates the application of Peirce’s concepts to visual representation by examining them in relation to the Mona Lisa. By seeing the Mona Lisa, for example, as something beyond its materiality is to identify it as a sign. It is then recognized as referring to an object outside of itself, a woman, or Mona Lisa. The image does not seem to denote religious meaning and can therefore be assumed to be a portrait. This interpretation leads to a chain of possible interpretations: who was the sitter in relation to Leonardo? What significance did she have to him? Or, maybe she is an icon for all of womankind. This chain of interpretation, or “unlimited semiosis” is endless; the art historian’s job is to place boundaries on possible interpretations as much as it is to reveal new possibilities.
Semiotics operates under the theory that an image can only be understood from the viewer’s perspective. The artist is supplanted by the viewer as the purveyor of meaning, even to the extent that an interpretation is still valid regardless of whether the creator had intended it. Rosiland Krauss espoused this concept in her essay “In the Name of Picasso.” She denounced the artist’s monopoly on meaning and insisted that meaning can only be derived after the work has been removed from its historical and social context. Mieke Bal argued similarly that meaning does not even exist until the image is observed by the viewer. It is only after acknowledging this that meaning can become opened up to other possibilities such as feminism or psychoanalysis.
The study of visual art can be approached through the broad categories of contextualism and formalism. They are described as:
The approach whereby a work of art is examined in the context of its time; in a manner which respects its creator's motivations and imperatives; with consideration of the desires and prejudices of its patrons and sponsors; with a comparative analysis of themes and approaches of the creator's colleagues and teachers; and consideration of religious iconography and temporal symbolism. In short, this approach examines the work of art in the context of the world within which it was created.
The approach whereby the artwork is examined through an analysis of its form; that is, the creator's use of line, shape, color, texture, and composition. This approach examines how the artist uses a two-dimensional picture plane (or the three dimensions of sculptural or architectural space) to create his or her art. A formal analysis can further describe art as representational or non-representational; which answers the question, is the artist imitating an object or image found in nature? If so, it is representational. The closer the art hews to perfect imitation, the more the art is realistic. If the art is less imitation and more symbolism, or in an important way strives to capture nature's essence, rather than imitate it directly, the art is abstract. Impressionism is an example of a representational style that was not directly imitative, but strove to create an "impression" of nature. Of course, realism and abstraction exist on a continuum. If the work is not representational of nature, but an expression of the artist's feelings, longings and aspirations, or his or her search for ideals of beauty and form, the work is non-representational or a work of expressionism.
Our postal address is
jalan pasar kembang
Jogjakarta
For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes the consumer's domain name and e-mail address (where possible).
We collect only the domain name, but not the e-mail address of visitors to our Web page.
The information we collect is used for internal review and is then discarded, used to customize the content and/or layout of our page for each individual visitor.
With respect to cookies: We do not set any cookies.
If you do not want to receive e-mail from us in the future, please let us know by sending us e-mail at the above address.
From time to time, we make the e-mail addresses of those who access our site available to other reputable organizations whose products or services we think you might find interesting. If you do not want us to share your e-mail address with other companies or organizations, please let us know by calling us at the number provided above.
From time to time, we make our customer e-mail list available to other reputable organizations whose products or services we think you might find interesting. If you do not want us to share your e-mail address with other companies or organizations, please let us know by calling us at the number provided above.
If you supply us with your postal address on-line you will only receive the information for which you provided us your address.
Persons who supply us with their telephone numbers on-line will only receive telephone contact from us with information regarding orders they have placed on-line.
Please provide us with your name and phone number. We will be sure your name is removed from the list we share with other organizationsWith respect to Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have special relationships with any ad server companies.
From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will contact you before we use your data for these new purposes to notify you of the policy change and to provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses.
Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information [including proprietary information] that we maintain about them.
Upon request we offer visitors no ability to have factual inaccuracies corrected in information that we maintain about them
With respect to security: When we transfer and receive certain types of sensitive information such as financial or health information, we redirect visitors to a secure server and will notify visitors through a pop-up screen on our site.
If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above addresses or phone number.