Describe, Analyze, Reflect, and
Connect
There are four parts to the system:
describe, analyze, reflect, and connect
(DARC). Description calls for keen
observation and vivid, detailed
recounting of the visual characteristics
of artworks. Analysis is of the facts
gathered through research--significant
aspects of an artwork, such as the
intentions of the artist, the meanings
behind the works, the cultural contexts
in which the artworks were made, and
the ways meanings are expressed
visually. Reflect entails deeper
thinking about the meaning of the work
and personal interpretation of it.
Connection has two basic applications:
linking artworks and cultures to reveal
an underlying theme; and connected
researched artworks and themes to a
student’s past and future artworks.
Think about your
visualizations!
When you are working through your DARC
think about taking it beyond just written
summaries (reports) of the works of art, and
your reading analyses, and consider also
how to create artistic visualizations of the
results you come up with. Such as the
example below is a wordcloud analysis of a
critique of Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup
Cans” work from 1962, which the larger
words reflect the phrases I used the most to
describe and analyze the work. This
visualization gives one a nice example of
taking information and creating a different
method of looking at the “data.”
Describe,
Analyze,
Reflect, and
Connect
(DARC)
AAD 199
Marshall, J. & D’Adamo, K. (2011 September).
Art practice as research in the classroom: A
new paradigm in art education. Art
Education, 64(5), p. 15
Scientific looking does not occur
in isolation from other cultural
contexts...scientific knowledge
depends on social, political, and
cultural meanings.” (Sturken &
Cartwright, 2009, p. 347).
Describe
Analyze
Background
Researching:
Information (artist, date,
Artist intent
cultural framework,
Meanings behind
other...)
the work
Basic Narrative
Cultural context(s)
Visual Characteristics
Mood
An Example (formal “report” version)
Describe: This “Campbell’s
Soup Cans” series of
paintings is one Andy Warhol
completed in 1962 as part of a
larger series he worked on
during this time period. The
overall layout of the work is
very linear and has a strong
sense of repetition and alignment. The alignment includes four
rows and eight columns of soup cans, which are similar in shape
and color scheme giving the sense of repetition throughout the
work, but what is interesting is that if you look closely at each
individual can you see that they are different. Each canvas is
listed as 20 x 16 inches, which makes the entire composition
pretty large when all taken together. The colors include a strong
use of red and white, which gives the top half of the cans a
strong sense of contrast. This contrast also works with the use
of repetition to create what I think is a very dynamic composition.
Analyze: What I learned about these “Soup Can” compositions
is that Andy Warhol created them part of an exhibition that
opened in July 9, 1962. The reasoning for the overall focus on
Campbell’s soup cans is a little unclear, but it seems as if Warhol
got the idea from his friend Muriel Latow. The idea revolves
around the Pop Art ideal to highlight everyday items and turn
them into what people would see as “fine art.” In a way this was
a critique much like Duchamp’s “ready mades” in which
Duchamp took everyday items, such as a urinal, and place them
in exhibition and gallery settings to transform the idea of what we
usually take for granted into something seen as artistically
interesting as items specifically created with exhibition in mind.
But the stories surrounding Warhol’s motivation for the subject
matter of soup cans is at the same time reflective of Warhol’s
abstractness of reasoning and on purpose cheeky lack of clarity,
all of which were hallmarks of the Pop Art movement.
Reflect
Personal Interpretation:
Meaning of the
work
How the visual
characteristics affect
you
Your place within
the cultural and
historical context
Connect
Cultural Context
Narrative & Themes
This work
Other works
An Example (formal “report” version)
Reflect: For me personally I
see the work very much in the
vain that the main story
focused on in terms of placing
ordinary items, ones that we
see everyday, in a venue
normally reserved for works of
art defined as traditionally
beautiful and created to be seen as works of art. By taking the
cans and creating paintings out of them blurs the boundaries
between the so-called “high” and “low” arts. I also think with
Warhol’s use of a very linear layout of the individual cans along
with his use of the repetition and contrast highlight a mechanized
view of the objects. This mechanized view then is a commentary
on the assembly line aspect of our culture in the twentiethcentury. So Warhol is saying that not only our product design
and items are mechanized, but also all art is not above this
mechanization process.
Connect: iThe piece was created at the height of some
significant cultural shifts such as the Civil Rights movement and
protests, Vietnam War, John F Kennedy being President, and
also the debates between Modernism and Post-Modernism. As
such it fits in well with this time period of change of attitudes and
extreme questioning of the status quo in the United States.
Warhol’s piece was part of the upheaval of the traditionally held,
and more conservative, ideals found in the 1940s and 1950s.
These “Soup Can” works also fit into Warhol’s other works such
as his focus on famous people such as Marilyn Monroe and his
work appropriated comic book aesthetics. All of which creates a
complex message to both the general public as well as the
entrenched conservative art world of the time.
Notes: