In 2003 I was working in a pretty boring office job. Many of my friends held similar positions so it’s no wonder that we filled each other’s inboxes with jokes, comics and pictures in an attempt to break the monotony. Most of these forwards were lame but I remember one morning a colleague sent me an email that was so funny I fell out of my chair laughing. I received that same email about a dozen times from different sources over the next few days and without fail cracked up every time I read it.
The email was titled “I am better than your kids” and it contained a grown man’s appraisal of several drawings done by children. The author ruthlessly attacked and graded the children’s work against adult standards.
I recently reread this article and wondered to myself why I, and millions of other people, found it so funny. I think that the humour is derived from the fact that the author did something which is considered taboo. He critiqued children’s artwork. The commonly held belief is that the appropriate response to a child showcasing their latest work is to lavish unconditional praise. Conventional wisdom is that constructive criticism is destructive to a child’s self esteem or creativity.
Until recently, I subscribed to this theory. Whenever a student would show me a drawing, I would instinctively respond with some vapid accolade followed by “I like how you did......”. I can now see how this patronizing approach would undermine a child’s creativity and stunt their artistic growth. My response also assumed that the point of the child’s piece was to please me. That’s pretty arrogant.
“It is not enough simply to priase children’s work, put their paintings and drawings on the wall for display, or simply encourage the replication of ‘good’ art.” Reflection and critique are an essential part of developing artistic skill. Students can exercise meta-cognitive skills, discover new ways of creating and explore the different languages of arts (develop multi-literacies) by reflecting on their art as well as appraising that of others.
While I appreciate the importance of critique, it is the area that I struggle the most with. I don’t feel qualified to offer an opinion (based on my own inexperience and unfamiliarity with the subject) and am still learning the languages of visual arts. I feel that critiquing a piece of art is the equivalent of defending the laws of quantum mechanics...in greek.
However, I see that critique is a necessary skill to develop and Feldman’s (1996) four stages of critique provide a useful framework to approach this endeavor.
I will begin by considering Wolf Girl by Kiki Smith.
The drawing is an etching from Kiki Smith’s Blue Prints. It depicts a girl covered in facial hair wearing a bonnet and what looks like an old fashioned pioneer style dress. Although eyes and nose look like that of a young girl (though covered in hair) the mouth is very unusual with dark, tight lips revealing unusually small teeth.
The drawing has the appearance of flatness despite the shading and texturing of the face. The most three dimensional looking aspect is the eyes which draw you in so completely that you can almost forget that the rest of her face is so unusual.
Wolf girl looks quietly confident, something that is unexpected given her appearance. The fact that she is wearing pioneer clothes makes her confidence even more surprising. I think this is because I associate that time period with oppression and conformity.
This drawing delights me. I think it’s more than just the fact that Wolf Girl is, to be frank, funny looking. I feel that the picture inspires me because it depicts someone at ease in uneasy circumstances. It is a bit of a paradox but it’s more playful than confronting.
The next picture that I will comment on is Seth Alverson’s Mistake #1.
The forest in the background looks a bit like it could have been taken from a photograph. It therefore has a bit of a realistic feel to it.
A careful look at the positioning of the forest suggests one-point dimensionality was used to create a point of focus halfway through the body of the missing person.
For that reason I am distracted from the black smudge, covering the face of the missing person (that appears to have been completed before being blotted out).
The shape of the missing person’s body looks to me like it is facing backwards and that the person is walking towards the forest but the blotted out face makes it clear that the person is in fact facing forward.
I wonder if that’s the mistake, that the person is going backwards instead of forwards.
This piece disorients me. I am confused by what to look at and what I am seeing. Everything seems the opposite of what it should be, like an illusion. I feel that I am being deceived. I believe that this painting was done with intention and that this isn’t an example of an artist genuinely showing how they made a mistake. This offends me. Still, I can’t take my eyes off it. So if I’m judging this painting on the basis of its ability to capture and move me then I must concede its effectiveness.
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