A quick look through the Renderosity galleries reveals a mass
of artwork that, for the most part, strives for aesthetic
perfection in beauty. Beautiful landscapes, beautiful women,
beautiful fractals. Even a large portion of the comments in the
galleries remark on how beautiful a piece of work is. This all
makes a lot of sense, as traditionally art is seen as the endeavor
to create, for lack of a better word, beauty. Indeed, one of the
many definitions for art at dictionary.com is The conscious
production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or
other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty,
specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or
plastic medium. So is there a problem here? Not really, beauty can
be an end, in and of itself, in the production of artwork. However,
what we risk losing in the struggle for aesthetic splendor is
meaning. Meaning is a slippery word to define, but
dictionary.com takes several stabs at it that hopefully can
help us here: Something that is conveyed or signified; sense or
significance, An interpreted goal, intent, or end, and Inner
significance. Clearly, any piece of artwork can be argued to have
meaning, and not every piece should be a strong political or social
commentary. Indeed, I often find that it is the pieces that are not
as overtly blatant in what they are trying to convey that are the
most interesting. On the other hand, Vicky in a temple with a
sword does not hold a lot of interest for me. While there are
always exceptions, and there have been some stunningly beautiful
pictures done of Vicky in a temple, for the most part these images
just dont have any meaning. Meaning adds depth to a piece of art
and generates thought and discussion. It goes beyond artistic
technique and provokes interpretation. Oftentimes a piece can be
interpreted in many different ways, and how a viewer experiences a
piece of art depends on what they bring to it a person educated
in traditional landscape painting will look differently at a
picture of a field than will someone who farms for a living.
However, this multiplicity of meanings can add further to a piece;
it all depends on the artists intent. So how does a person create
meaning in art? I do not claim to be an expert in this field, but
in my experience I have found a few methods by which meaning can be
generated. One of these methods is context. Context can be used to
create or change meaning in a piece on many different levels. For
example, consider a piece of paper with a question mark on it. The
meaning of this question mark will change depending on where it is
placed if it is on a womens bathroom door perhaps it is meant to
question traditional gender roles, or if it is placed next to the
mystery meat in a lunch line maybe its just questioning what on
earth youre actually eating. Besides simple placement (which is
perhaps not as applicable in digital media), we could consider
cultural and political context. A photo of a pile of shoes will
have very different meaning in an American town where shoes are
manufactured than it would have in Germany where photographers
documented piles of shoes from the victims of concentration camps
in World War II. The idea of meaning applies to all art forms and
another potential example where context changes meaning is in the
book (later turned movie) The Wizard of Oz. Many people have
theorized that this story is actually a political commentary on the
tumultuous 1890s. Clearly however that meaning has been lost to
modern viewers now that is has been removed from that context by
over one hundred years. Another way that meaning can be generated
in an image is through conjunctive and disjunctive pairings. A pair
of objects/thoughts whatever can be seen as conjunctive if they
are connected or traditionally seen together, and disjunctive if
they are in contrast or opposition. A little girl and a teddy bear
would be a conjunctive pairing, whereas a little girl and a shotgun
would be a disjunctive pairing. It is often within the disjunctive
pairings that meaning can be most easily created because viewers
naturally try to make sense of a scene that is not something that
is easily understood. Why is a little girl carrying a shotgun? Is
it a commentary on violence in school systems? Whatever meaning our
imaginary artist originally meant in the creation of this piece, it
has provoked thought and sentiment. Pairings do not need to be this
explicit to create meaning, but on the other hand sometimes
pairings are so abstract that the meaning may not be very clear
(many surrealist paintings come to mind for me here but then again
I have never studied surrealism). Whether explicit or more covert,
conjunctive and disjunctive pairings can be used to create meaning
within a piece of art. While I have advocated for the use of
meaning in creating art throughout this article, I recognize that
it is certainly not the end all and be all of art. Many of my own
pieces of artwork have been created with no particular meaning in
mind, and I will be among the first to praise a piece of art for
its beauty. I do believe, however, that meaning in art is an
approach to creating interesting pieces that is often underutilized
in our community, and I hope that further discussion can help
generate and transmit ideas about the many ways that meaning can be
created in art besides the two methods that I have mentioned here.
 Jenna Hoffstein [bluevenus], Front Page
News Staff Columnist We invite you to visit Jenna's Renderosity Art Gallery Renderosity MarketPlace Store December 28, 2005 |
Musings on Meaning
Nov 26, 2005 at 12:00 am by deemarie
Sections:
Archives
Privacy Notice
This site uses cookies to deliver the best experience. Our own cookies make user accounts and other features possible. Third-party cookies are used to display relevant ads and to analyze how Renderosity is used. By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understood our Terms of Service, including our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy.
Comments