Recognising that a painting is by one artist rather than another can sometimes be like recognising the handwriting of someone you know well. It is an immediate and certain recognition, but you probably couldn’t put into words what exactly is so distinctive.
This three part course given by Chantal Brotherton-Ratcliffe will attempt to open our eyes more fully to the kinds of details which can tell us who a painting is by, and show us how to notice more fully and see more analytically. We will learn how to notice and decode the clues that a painting is offering us of where, when and by whom it is made.
Lecture 2 – Categories and List
The 19th Century doctor turned art lover, Giovanni Morelli, proposed a system for determining the hand of any artist which involve very close observation of the way small details are painted, such as earlobes or fingernails.The practice of looking so closely at such details in a painting is a good way of training us to pay attention to the “significant characteristics” of any artist.
What about the conditions in which we are seeing the painting? We will consider the difference that electric lighting, the height at which the picture is hung, or viewing conditions are making to the way we see and respond to a painting.
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