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  3. Television

  4. How to Look at and Understand Great Art

TELEVISION

How to Look at and Understand Great Art

Series: How to Look at and Understand Great Art
4.6
(93)
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Episodes
36
Rating
TVPG
Year
2021
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

Featuring masterpieces from 250+ of the world's greatest artists, this in-depth guide to the practical skill of viewing art will help you reach new levels of appreciation.

Related Subjects

  • Educational

Episodes

1. The Importance of First Impressions

32m

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Examine the contexts and environments in which we encounter art and their critical effect on our viewing experience. Consider ways of displaying and framing paintings, as well as key parameters for viewing sculpture. Then, learn the predominant genres of Western art, and the artist's media, tools, and techniques.

2. Where Am I? Point of View and Focal Point

30m

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Explore how point of view - the artist's positioning of the viewer with respect to the image - works in painting and sculpture, paying particular attention to differences in angle and spatial relation. Then, continue with focal point, or the artist's centering of attention on a key area of the work.

3. Color - Description, Symbol, and More

29m

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Uncover the core principles of color in painting, including the distinctions of value and saturation and the relationship of colors as analogous or complementary. See how major works of art achieve their power and meaning through color, as seen in celebrated canvases by Seurat, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.

4. Line - Description and Expression

30m

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Discover the properties of line, another essential element of art, as "descriptive" (describing reality) or "expressional" (conveying feeling). Learn about the use of geometric lines, implied lines, and directional lines within a composition. Also, study the compelling, psychological use of line in Picasso's works, Seurat's "The Circus", and in key Modern and Expressionist works.

5. Space, Shape, Shade, and Shadow

30m

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Examine geometric and "organic" shapes in painting and sculpture and the crucial relationship of figure to ground and mass to space. Then, explore the illusionistic use of shading, shadows, and overlapping shapes in Caravaggio's and Friedrich's works, and the compositional power of shapes in paintings such as Matisse's "Dance" and Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam".

6. Seeing the Big Picture - Composition

30m

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Define symmetry and asymmetry in painting and sculpture, and the key effects on the viewer of each. Also, study scale and proportion of figures, and the distinction between "open" and "closed" composition, reflecting the artist's approach to visually framing the image.

7. The Illusion - Getting the Right Perspective

29m

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Tracking the history of illusionism in Western art, grasp the principles of linear perspective, foreshortening, and atmospheric perspective as they replicate how the human eye perceives. See how artists, including Cézanne and Van Gogh, manipulated perspective for their own creative ends, and observe the extreme illusionism of trompe l'oeil and anamorphosis.

8. Art That Moves Us - Time and Motion

29m

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Explore how artists evoke motion and the passage of time, including implying motion through strong directional lines and time through narrative devices. Study approaches to implied motion in Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Op art, and the use of actual motion in performance art and modern sculpture.

9. Feeling with Our Eyes - Texture and Light

29m

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Here, consider texture in sculpture as an aid to meaning in sculptures by Rodin, Donatello, and Bernini, and the painter's use of paint as a way to capture texture and light on canvas. Then observe the virtuoso representation of texture by master painters Ingres and Titian, and the handling of light and shadow in works by Renoir and Georges de la Tour.

10. Drawing - Dry, Liquid, and Modern Media

31m

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In this first lecture on genre, define the various purposes of drawings, from "croquis" drawing to capture a pose or action, to successive sketches visualizing larger works, to finished drawings as a distinct art. Study the diverse media of drawing, focusing on master drawings in metalpoint, charcoal, ink, pastel, and pencil.

Extended Details

  • SeriesHow to Look at and Understand Great Art
  • Closed CaptionsEnglish

Artists

The Great CoursesDirector
The Great CoursesProducer
Sharon Latchaw HirshActor