Educated in art or not......

[Fred Berg]

The subject is centered in this shot. I would try to use the RoT's.

But if you take the window behind the subject as the framing, then the centre of interest is moved to the left of centre.

 

[unpopular]

The whole center of interest thing is a design issue, not an art issue.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Hands/Hair in top third
Open mouth in middle
Papers/Desk in bottom third

I like this. Who ever said that if you used the RoT in an image, it had to be applied both vertically and horizontally?


Frankly Mishele, I don't see how art education can be a hindrance to the creation of art work but I can see it in the case of art appreciation. And people who have had only a little art education often make me cringe way more than people who have had none. When learned appreciation takes over feelings, it is never good. But then again I can't help and roll my eyes when someone thinks black velvet paintings are fine art

Unfortunately, I feel this is a problem similar to that of "what is art?" One that has no simple, one-size-fits-all answer.


I had a similar problem to yours when I studied screenwriting. I couldn't enjoy a movie anymore because I was too darn busy analyzing it... It passed.

 

[unpopular]

^^ I often find a warmer reaction to my images from those who have no idea what is "wrong" with them. Too little education is definitely worse than none at all.

 

[GeorgieGirl]

More talk about the god dam ducks. I have no idea if ducks are ok or not. I say no.

 

[bentcountershaft]

Frankly Mishele, I don't see how art education can be a hindrance to the creation of art work but I can see it in the case of art appreciation. And people who have had only a little art education often make me cringe way more than people who have had none. When learned appreciation takes over feelings, it is never good.

This is an excellent point about the "amount" of knowledge. Sometimes just a little bit of knowledge can be a bad thing. If you only know one rule (guideline) and apply it to everything you see then you aren't seeing the whole picture (pun totally intended).

The same thing applies to music. When I first started writing songs I didn't know anything at all about music theory. I was free man, no rules no restrictions! And the results were, in hindsight of course, generally horrific with the occasional short bursts of accidental coolness (inverted melodies that are almost harmonized and the like). When I started to learn a few basics, I felt really trapped in, often abandoning pieces because they "just didn't work" and I struggled with that for about a year. The main problem was that my ear and my tastes were far more advanced than my knowledge of theory and it took some time to catch up.

Some of the best advice I've ever read on the subject was by guitarist Joe Satriani. He said something along the lines of, "Learn everything you can about theory, then forget it. Because sometimes the wrong note is the right note." I don't see how that advice can't apply to visual art as well. If you don't know the rules (guidelines) then you'll never know the best time to break them.

 

[mishele]

Frankly Mishele, I don't see how art education can be a hindrance to the creation of art work but I can see it in the case of art appreciation.

I completely agree w/ this!!
I was just in Key West and went to a couple of Galleries. I had no problem looking at all the different forms of art. I enjoyed them for what they were and never really never questioned them or analyzed them.
I think it's just the state of mind that I'm in when I look at art. Looking at art on here feels like work.....lol

 

[c.cloudwalker]

"Learn everything you can about theory, then forget it. Because sometimes the wrong note is the right note."

It absolutely can be applied to the visual arts. And the forgetting part comes naturally. One day you are watching your composition, the next day you are just shooting kind of thing. Although it is not really forgetting, more like storing it away where you don't think about it but it's still there.

 

[dxqcanada]

Picasso and Pollock were not bound by rules.
This is what schooling in Art taught me.

Picasso was fraud who is credited for what Braque and Matisse were responsible for.
That's what schooling in art taught me.

... and that knowledge influences your view of any of Picasso's works ?

 

[ann]

In the art world, the bottom line DOES IT WORK! If it does, no one cares and if it doesn't they couldn't care either.

 

[Trever1t]

I've had some schooling in the art world but is it a hindrance when viewing other peoples work? Do all the ideas and philosophy cloud your gut feeling? At times I feel like I try to interpret or analyze art too much instead of just letting the feeling flow....lol Does anyone else struggle w/ this?

Absolutely not!

While one does not need an art education to be an artist an education can only be a benefit to those who already possess artistic ability and those that don't. Don't for a minute think that Picasso or Dali or Escher or most other successful artists didn't have a education in the arts

Seriously, how can you break rules you never learned?

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Seriously, how can you break rules you never learned?

I guess you haven't heard of the old Naïve art...

 

[Trever1t]

Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true. The words "naïve" and "primitive" are regarded as pejoratives and are, therefore, avoided by many.[SUP][1][/SUP]

Learn rule to break rule

 

[Derrel]

Learn the rules. Then learn to break them.

There are no rules!!! There are no "rules". There are elements and principles of design and composition. There are no set "rules". Lets repeat that about a million, billion, trillion times: "There are no rules".

The so-called "Rule of Thirds" is not a rule, but is instead a guideline that allows people a shortcut to placing elements of a composition in places where the eye tends to linger, and where tension will not be caused. Most of what people think of as rules are instead, shortcuts and typically accepted ideas about general ways to accomplish things. For example, in a portrait, it is considered bad form to leave 1/8 inch of top space on what will be an 8x10 sized portrait---that little top space or head space, will place the top of the head at the edge of the composition, which creates tension.

Composition is the most-effective or best utilization of the image area. Composition is arranging the elements using design principles to achieve a desired effect. Composition is the one thing that can be tremendously improved by studying the fine arts. A typical compositional blunder is to place a child in the middle of a horizontal image area, crop off the top of his or her head, crop really,really close to the chin at the bottom, and then to say, "I like it this way." That is the hallmark of the uneducated, unstudied, ignorant photographer--one who has absolutely ZERO idea of how to BEST use the entire image area. It typically results in 40% person, and 60% dull, uninteresting, irrelevant, and distracting background that does absolutely nothing to advance the composition, or to cause the viewer to want to look at the image for more than 1 or 2 seconds. I see that a LOT. Pictures like that show me that the photographer does not understand anything about composition.

In most of the USA, public school students have a very limited education in art. "Art" in public schools is typically really not much more than "crafts". Turkey hand-tracings, color-by-number drawing and painting, identical clone-like "art projects" where each student creates the same, basic piece of "art". That is not art education--that is "crafts". Performing the mechanical (filling in areas with colors, pasting on macaroni, drawing a hand-turkey,etc) without any education in the theory or principles is not really art education. But that is kind of what typical elementary school kids receive as their "art" education. So it is little wonder that by the time they hit high school, kids for the most part are not interested in "art". Art has been devalued in American education. It's not even Cliff notes--it's the back of the book blurb.

One thing that art education will teach a person is how composition and design are found everywhere. And it will teach a person that the world is filled with kitschy junk being passed off as "art". The worst part of this entire discussion, this discussion of the value of studying art, is that so,so many people with absolutely zero education in the study of fine art weigh in with opinions, *as if* they know what it (studying art) will do...it's as if somebody who has never flown in an aircraft tells you what flying will feel like, or what a person who has never left the city for more than a day tells you how you will feel after a 10 day foot trek along the Pacific Coast Trail... Listening to the points of view and arguments of people who have absolutely NO EDUCATION in a field of study is a dangerous way to form opinions. Would you listen to the opinions of a self-trained medical doctor operating with zero certification, zero courses, and zero understanding of the field of medicine? Art as a field of study is almost as old as medicine. We recognize the need for training in medicine in order to be qualified to talk about it. Same with the law. But with art, and old Jane or Joe can weigh in. I mean--your kid can do "art" by gluing macaroni onto a piece of craft paper! "Art" is crayons and watercolor paint, and Elmer's glue!

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true. The words "naïve" and "primitive" are regarded as pejoratives and are, therefore, avoided by many.[SUP][1][/SUP]

Learn rule to break rule

Re-read me. I said, the old Naïve art. There's probably a reason I put that word there.