- How we interpret art.
- What stories do we see?
- Why do we see them that way?
- What is the difference between subtle and graphic art? - I.e, Do we need to be bombarded with graphic images to be able to understand what is happening? Does just a subtle suggestion that lingers on our mind for maybe weeks provoke just the same amount of feeling and thinking about an artwork as it does when we are shown an artwork which is graphic and self-explainatory?
- Does it make a difference knowing the history behind an image? I.e, does it effect our opinion of it? does is effect our experience of the image?
After my tutorial.
After my tutorial, it became clear that I need to start looking at the language of the art that I have chosen to research. I need to start analysing the images and look at how they relate to the points above. I am still really interested in the way that people document and tell stories through their art, but as this research project has developed, I have become more aware of the different aspects that are involved in making an artwork tell a story.
The Experiment.
Also, after the question of whether knowing the story behind an image effects the way in which we interpret it that came up in my last post, I decided to experiment and ask someone to look at it who did not know the story and had never seen the image of "The Liquidation of Dr. Korczak's Orphanage" by Halina Olomucki before.
I hid all of the writing surrounding the image and the title of the piece from the person. I then asked them to tell me what they thought of the image. They said that it looked very chaotic, a group of people lining up and walking. Then I told them what the story was behind the image and it completely changed their outlook on the whole image. They used words such as, 'horrible', 'horrific', 'sad', 'heroic' and 'thought-provoking'.
Interesting Fact.
After some more online research, I actually found this website:
http://lastexpression.northwestern.edu/
which I briefly looked through. I found that the art created by the prisoners in the ghettos and Concentration and Extermination Camps was actually used in the Nuremberg Trials as evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were used to prove the existence of the gas chambers, crematoria and the way the Nazi and SS Guards treated the prisoners.
So basically, this sums up my question that I started with. These images were not only tell the stories of the lives of the people who were persecuted during the Holocaust, but they actually were also used a documentation and evidence to help bring the persecutors to justice.
The Experiment.
Also, after the question of whether knowing the story behind an image effects the way in which we interpret it that came up in my last post, I decided to experiment and ask someone to look at it who did not know the story and had never seen the image of "The Liquidation of Dr. Korczak's Orphanage" by Halina Olomucki before.
I hid all of the writing surrounding the image and the title of the piece from the person. I then asked them to tell me what they thought of the image. They said that it looked very chaotic, a group of people lining up and walking. Then I told them what the story was behind the image and it completely changed their outlook on the whole image. They used words such as, 'horrible', 'horrific', 'sad', 'heroic' and 'thought-provoking'.
Interesting Fact.
After some more online research, I actually found this website:
http://lastexpression.northwestern.edu/
which I briefly looked through. I found that the art created by the prisoners in the ghettos and Concentration and Extermination Camps was actually used in the Nuremberg Trials as evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were used to prove the existence of the gas chambers, crematoria and the way the Nazi and SS Guards treated the prisoners.
So basically, this sums up my question that I started with. These images were not only tell the stories of the lives of the people who were persecuted during the Holocaust, but they actually were also used a documentation and evidence to help bring the persecutors to justice.
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