In general the feedback I received was positive and encouraging. The one area where there was some concern was the exercise on Parson’s Schema. It did not surprise me that some concerns were raised about this as I was rather worried about it when I first submitted it. I found the theory and Parson’s book …
Category: Part 5
Reflections on Part 5
I enjoyed this part of course a great deal. The scope of the work I have covered – Palaeolithic cave paintings to contemporary Canadian photography – is remarkable I’m really building now on my previous knowledge. I mentioned in my essay on Jeff Wall’s photograph I had studied his work on a previous OCA photography …
Madame de Pompadour by Francois Boucher
François Boucher [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons I saw this at the Wallace Collection and was fortunate in that soon after I had seen it there was a Gallery talk by a member of the Wallace Collection staff on the painting, so I was able to listen to the talk. What …
Project 9: Analyse the Response of Others
The Flooded Grave – Jeff Wall Even though I had studied some of Jeff Wall’s work on a previous OCA photography course and therefore knew something about his work, I learned a great deal more from this exercise. The first thing I had to do was to find a higher resolution image to …
Project 8: Using Parson’s schema describe your responses to a work
The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard I found this a somewhat difficult exercise. Although the different stages are clearly explained in Parson’s book, and he goes into great detail at each stage, there is, inevitably overlap between the stages and this is where the difficulty arises. Given that it is a psychological/sociological investigation of how …
Annotation: Rock Painting
Image By HTO (Own work (own photo)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons I was a bit anxious about this exercise before getting into it, I thought “what is there to write about a cave painting?” However when I looked at more (and larger) images online, I found more to comment on. I began to see …
Annotation: A work to which you find yourself unsympathetic
John Davies – Bucket Man Before starting this exercise I had seen “Bucket Man” on several visits to the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts and had never really been attracted to it – so it seemed an ideal subject for this part of the course. I must admit that, through not being greatly …
Prince Baltasar Carlos in Silver by Diego Velazquez
The aspect that struck me most about this painting was the eyes of the young Prince. Close-up they don’t seem to have any particular detail, but when you step away from the painting they seem to be quite piercing – the dominant force of the portrait. My notes on the painting can be found here: Prince …
Venice; the Grand Canal from the Palazzo Foscari to the Carita by Canaletto
There is a room in the Wallace Collection containing a number of paintings by Canaletto. As well as this scene, there is another painting, on the opposite wall, which is also a scene of the Grand Canal, but looking in the opposite direction. It is interesting to study a painting when it is surrounded …
The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals
This is a very well-known painting, but it seems that it is mainly in seeing the original that you come to appreciate the skill of the artist. The embroidery on the clothing is rendered in the most intricate detail. But it is also by examining it close-up that you can see, from the swagger and …
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