The Bates College Musuem of Art presents
THE THOUSAND WORDS PROJECT
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Artists sometimes need to be very matter-of-fact, descriptive without distorting information with personal feelings or opinions. We call this being objective. The opposite of objective, is subjective. When would artists need to be objective as opposed to subjective? Here is a portrait by D.D. Coombs. It is a painting of his mother.  When an artist makes a portrait, he must be careful to be truthful to his subject. In other words, he has to be objective. If he’s not, there is no guarantee that the portrait will look anything like the person it is supposed to be representing! Portrait artists often try to add information about their subject, to give viewers a better idea of what the person was like, or what career he had, and maybe even information about family. To do this they often use symbols to represent different aspects of their subject's life. Make a list of objective observations about this picture—everything from its shape, frame, colors, and symbols. Here is another portrait, this one by Alice Neel.
What clues does she give us about what this man was like?
Does he look wealthy, poor, or middle-class? Did he live earlier, at
the same time, or later than Mrs. Coombs? Why? |
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