four+step+criticism+model

====Critical writing is evidence of critical thinking. Looking carefully at art, placing it in historic context, examining its formal properties and subjective content and then forming a judgement based on specific visual evidence constitutes an experience in higher order thinking.==== ====I use the following 4 step model to help students structure their formal critical writing. We use it informally during oral critiques in class as well. I like this format because it helps students differentiate between fact and opinion and requires them to examine the work closely before reaching a concluding judgment. ==== ====The document that follows is an introduction to the 4 step process along with vocab and introductory explanations. We go through all four steps in class as a group before each student writes her own. Sometimes I talk with students about Bloom's Taxonomy in conjunction with this introduction.====


 * Being an Art Critic **

====Art criticism is one of the four fundamental principles of Discipline-Based Art Education (the Feldman method). The others are __art production __, __art history __, and __aesthetics __.====


 * //Aesthetics //**//- ////The branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste. ////All of us react emotionally to works of art. Art can upset us and make us feel good. Our values and idea of beauty influence what we think about art. Art history and art criticism also help build our sense of aesthetic value. //

The role model for art criticism is the art critic. A professional art critic may be a newspaper reporter assigned to the art beat, a scholar writing for professional journals or texts, or an artist writing about other artists.

Journalistic criticism, written for the general public, includes reviews of art exhibitions in galleries and museums. Most people are familiar with journalistic art criticism because it appears in newspapers, popular magazines, and on radio and television. Feldman suggests that journalistic criticism deals with art mainly to the extent that it is newsworthy.

Scholarly art criticism is written for a more specialized art audience and appears in art journals, such as Art in America, Art Papers, and Art News, as well as presentations at professional conferences or seminars. Scholar-critics may be college and university professors or museum curators, often with particular knowledge about a style, period, medium, or artist.

In both journalistic and scholarly art criticism, the viewer "confronts works of art and determines what they mean, whether they are any good, and, if so, why." Written art criticism can be thought of as persuasive writing, with interpretations of meaning supported by reasoned judgments. Critics want to persuade their readers to see a work of art as they do. If they are enthused, they try to communicate their enthusiasm through their choice of descriptors and how they put them together in a sentence, a paragraph, and an article."

====To describe means to give a detailed account of. To give a detailed account of a work of art requires that you look closely at it and report the facts of what you see. Include things like the objects, people, shapes, and colors that you actually see. Include in the description any facts you know about the piece like its size, dates, location, artist and medium. Also include the provenance of the piece if it is known. Do not include opinions, such as: “the man is wearing a stupid hat,” “That is a pretty color,” or “This picture is about people having a lot of fun.” These statements may be true for you but not for others. ====
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Description: Step 1 **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Begin with the largest, most global aspects of what you are describing and continue from there to the intermediate details, and then to the small specifics. Place and describe the action before you talk about what people are wearing, for example. Or talk about the number of people depicted before talking about the food on the table.

<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">(prov·e·nance <span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS',sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">/ˈprävənəns
<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The beginning of something's existence; something's origin. ||  || <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">In this step, you will talk about how the art work is organized. In order to see how it was composed, you will break it down to see what makes it tick. Analyzing an artwork means identifying relationships within it. Look for two or more things that have something in common that link them. Like people, colors and shapes are often related in several ways. Look for these relationships and describe them. Key in this process is an awareness and use of principles of design such as **balance**, **rhythm/ movement**, **emphasis/subordination**, **unity/variety**, **positive/negative** and **eye path**. A systematic approach to the analysis phase of criticism is to go through each element of art and principle of design individually to be sure you have recognized each as they appear in the artwork.
 * <span style="color: #666666; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Noun: ||  || <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The place of origin or earliest known history of something: "a rug of Iranian provenance".
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Analysis: Step 2 **