In Terry Barret’s book entitled Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary, the author provides an outline and details for the creation of criticism and how formal analysis can have an impact on audiences.
Art criticism is the process of interpreting meaning and making observational judgement about works of art. In my experience, when the art critic focuses on shining a spotlight on aspects of an artist’s work, it is much more fulfilling to create art criticism as the writer that will provide detail on the creative components that make the art unique rather than perceived negative aspects. Art criticism should be about lifting the artists and their creations up in order to connect reasons for audiences to observe the work.
According to the book, “art critics help viewers perceive, interpret, and judge artworks.” This process should involve critical thinking and give audiences the opportunity to draw their own conclusions. It is important for writers to make statements based on their observations, but if the art is not politically correct or perhaps even overly controversial, the writer should allow the audiences to draw their own conclusions.
It is important to make accurate, non-offensive statements when developing criticism. The primary reason being that the word “criticism” carries a negative connotation for some people. When they hear words like “critic” or “criticism” they may assume that what the writer is creating is going to pinpoint negative things about the art. The process should be the reverse of this. After all, a picture is worth a 1,000 words and none of them need to be offensive to the artist or their creation. The only time suggestions on how to improve the art should be if the writer is also experienced in the craft of the artist. For example, if a writer is also a painter and he or she wants to observe and analyze an artist’s painting, perhaps the piece is inspired by Jackson Pollock, if the writer also has experience creating these types of paintings then their opinions regarding how to invigorate the art would be sound.
A professional art critic may be a reporter, scholar, or an artists themselves. Informative, creative, and positive criticism, published concurrently with news stories and an editorial that focuses on how art impacts the economy, is the unique slant that Arts Tribune takes. If you observe some of the popular digital media brands like Rolling Stone, Variety, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter, each delivers news on the same topics but they each have their own “slant” that will connect the content with different audiences. The vision for Arts Tribune is to deliver content that any creative audience may find useful and informative, but also delivering great criticism that shows the artists that we write about how much we appreciate their creations.
According to the author there are four steps of formal analysis: description, analysis, interpretation and judgement. Description is the analysis and interpretation without any judgements. Analysis addresses what the art is comprised of, how it functions and why the artist made the creative decisions that he or she has chosen. Interpretation is the writer’s assertion of the meaning of the art and how it functions. In my opinion, judgement should be about inspiration and the aspects of the art that audiences should focus on.
Art criticism can be written in a variety of formats. However, the four sections outlined by Barrett provide a sound way to develop formal analysis.