HOW TO STUDY ART WITH WIKIART.ORG
- Written by Linda Carter
“Why not spend that time on art: painting, sculpting, charcoal, pastel, oils? Are words or numbers more important than images? Who decides this? Does algebra move you to tears? Can plural possessives express the feelings in your heart? If you don't learn art now, you will never learn to breathe!”
This bland truth of life is said by Laurie Halse Anderson, a New York bestseller author when the topic of art education came up.
The movement art brings in the mind, body, and souls of people couldn’t have been phrased better. For many years, art wasn’t given the credit it was due and many of the greatest artists have thrived just on talent and mostly, on inspiration from their contemporaries. It was not until the 20th century when art education became a popular thing and now has spread like wildfire throughout the world.
In the advent of this, many visual arts platforms have bombarded our digital space and Wikiart particularly is much lauded for its gigantic supply of art worldwide. It has become a hub for art aficionados who indulge in the analysis of the paintings, the art styles followed and learning strategies that many artists used on their way to artistic fame. These ancient tricks and tips come in handy while studying and creating art that Wikiart enables and how this site does it shall be discussed in what follows.
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Gazing at the artworks
Wikiart being a huge platform, representing any and all kinds of art has become a learning center for its users. Since it features the best artists of all time, it places on a platter, the motifs, painting styles and techniques that were used and are still used for the new people in the game.
The site being free adds on to its level of usability around the globe for people can access it anytime and for as long as they want, a facility unavailable in physical galleries and museums. These long hours can be utilized for scrutiny of the masterpieces.
So, Wikiart easily enables the first step of understanding which is really observing the painting to go into its details which have their own stories to tell.
For instance, let us observe The Water Lily Pond aka the Japanese Bridge by Claude Oscar Monet and see what we can make of this painting at the very first glance. Green hues are spreading throughout the canvas with pastel-colored flowers here and there. It’s a fine mixture of firm brushstrokes as well as loose ones to create the reflection in the pond. These techniques come in handy for academic purposes since they bespoke true craftsmanship which artists can lend from Monet only by studying his painting closely.
The oil pigments in the painting have been carefully used so as to give a realistic touch to the whole image of the pond. Looking at the precision with which each leaf is painted, one could the painter was someone who knew the patterns of foliage very well, suggesting an interest in gardening activities probably.
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Dive into the artist’s life
Other than supplying the bulk of paintings as well as sculptures, Wikiart gives an elaborate description of the events that entailed in the life of a particular artist. We could reach artists through multiple ways like from the art movement they were essentially part of, the art genres, their nationalities and the century they boomed in.
Landing on an artist’s page, you will find the major events of their life which moved them as well as their biography. For further help, the description also points out the contemporaries which influence the painter’s art styles.
Now, if we look at Monet’s description, you’d go on to realize that he had his own garden which was his ultimate muse which reconciles with the observation we made in the first step. The description also reeks of his adoration for botany which he wrote books about too, containing gardening techniques.
The description also portrays him as an Impressionist, implications of which we will discuss in the next step.
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Critical Analysis
This step concludes the learning process of a painting as it merges our observations with the description, leading to the scrutinization process which teaches the most about how an artist channelized things and emotions into his art.
His fascination with nature is evident in all the landscapes he painted which encompassed his garden and this painting is another spectacle of that. He also greatly studied water and light which is what makes this painting so abstract. He’s an expert of plants so he meticulously merges the flowers and leaves to create a blurry outlook, making the painting not just real but also aesthetically pleasing.
The fact that he was an Impressionist is outshining way too much in this painting so you can have a glance at what Impressionism was all about from the art styles section to further analyze this painting. The Impressionist Movement entailed the use of subtle color palettes which is exactly what Monet has done. The usage of these colors invokes a sense of peace in the viewer which was an important element of Impressionism.
Art is meant to be understood with in-depth analysis which requires long hours of scrutiny with well-researched information, all of which Wikiart serves on a platter for its users.
