Lesson Proper for Week 7

READING THE IMAGE

 Alice Guillermo – a Palanca Awardee — is a researcher, art critic, professor, and renowned writer. In her
work titled “Reading the Image,” she provided guidelines for analyzing or interpreting images, whether
from ads, paintings, or text. She said that art should be placed in society and history because the two are
always connected." According to Guillermo, the basic documentary information of artwork includes the
following:

A. Title of the work

B. Artist
C. Medium and technique
D. Dimensions/measurement 
E. Date of the work
F. Provenance

 
Some examples based on the Spoliarium (can be seen at the National Museum of the
Philippines).

A. Title of the work – Spoliarium 

B. Artist – Juan N. Luna
C. Medium and technique – Oil
D. Dimensions/measurement – 4.26 m × 7.72 m
E. Date of the Work – 1883–1884
F. Provenance – Madrid, Spain (currently in National Museum of the Philippines)

 
According to Guillermo, understanding the work of art may involve considerable research
because the work's meaning can grow with time. Viewing it becomes a process of continual
discovery. For example, Michaelangelo completed "The Creation of Adam" in 1512. However, in
1990, Dr. Frank Lynn Meshberger wrote his analysis claiming that the background outlining God
 and the angel resembles the human brain. Before 1990 or even in Michelangelo's biography, he never
said anything about it.

Art's meaning is a mix of intellectual, emotional, and sensory significance that the work
conveys. Views may respond to works of art differently, thereby bringing in the breadth of his
cultural background, artistic exposure, training, and human experience in a dialogic relationship
with the artwork. Therefore, the painting is the dialogue between the artist and the viewer. A work of
art may accommodate several meanings, and it may not be absolute. Any interpretation is valid, but it
needs to prove a point.
 
FOUR PLANES OF ANALYSIS
 
A. Basic Semiotic Plane
Semiotics is the study of signs. According to Umberto Eco, "Semiotics is concerned with
everything that can be taken as a sign." The Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure presented many
concepts and definitions used by modern semioticians. Saussure described a symbol as any
movement, action, illustration, sequence, or occurrence conveying significance. He described
language as the structural system or grammar of speech and language as the decision taken by a
person speaking to communicate that relevant data. He looked at the signs concerning language. His
emphasis is not on the basic language structures but also on signs and their significance. He analyzed
the meaning of symbols through the langue and parole, and langue as the system of
signifier/signified or linguistic signs. It includes the rules that govern a specific language, like
grammar. Parole is the practical application of the system within a particular language or the
articulation through spoken words or written expression. He has also established two key concepts in
contemporary semiology. The signifier is about the physical aspect, the actual spoken or written
word.
 
Meanwhile, the signified or the mental construct is a symbol's idea or meaning. It implies the
examination of time, convention, and practice. It also relies on its connection and its variation from
other words.  Saussure concluded that the sign is a whole resulting from the signifier's association
with the signified. An example is the word "tree;” it is a sign that represents the "idea of a tree."
According to Eco, signifier has the following three types: 

A. Icon – is physically the meaning that is represented. For instance, a drawing of a bicycle represents
an actual bicycle.
 B. Index – demonstrates what it represents. An index describes the relationship between the
signifier and the signified. Without the presence of the signified, a signifier cannot exist. In this case,
we sometimes use smoke to represent fire.
C. Symbol – has no similarity between the signifier and the signified. One should learn the link among
both, culturally. A symbol is not logically related to what it stands for. It is often linked to the idea
that it embodies over time. For example, the alphabet and letters alone do not mean anything.

(Source: Bradley, 2016. Accessed from: https://vanseodesign.com/web-design/icon-index-

symbol/) 
 
Images should be viewed in a highly relational manner and not isolated or
compartmentalized. The two sources of meaning include the universal human experiences
(psychological or physical) and socio-cultural conventions of a particular society (i.e., the
definition of a color).
 
B. Iconic Plane
The iconic plane remains a part of the semiotic method because it is still based on a
significant relationship. However, the iconic plane is not the material components of the work treated
in the fundamental semiological plane; it deals with the unique attributes, parts, and characteristics
of the picture. The image is an "iconic sign,” which means beyond its narrow association with
religious icons in the Byzantine style; it has a unique, specific, and highly nuanced meaning. It is
distinct from a traditional sign, such as a road sign with a single literal meaning.
 
The iconic plane involves selecting the subject with political and social impacts. An example
of art history is workers and ordinary people's choice by the French realist Gustave Courbet in his
works, instead of the Olympian gods and goddesses or the Greek and Roman ancestry heroes
foundation of classic and university art until the 19 th century. 
 
The positioning, frontal, profiling, three-fourths, etc., of the figure or pictures and the
implications of these varying presentations are also the iconic plane's focus. Does the artwork
demonstrate a primary theme with the essential character, or is it decentered and the structure
asymmetrical? How can these illustrations make a difference in terms of significance? Does it look
formal or unintentional to the person or subjects? How would I characterize the central character's
role: calm, confident, dismissive, aggressive, or distant?
 
The iconic plane is a significant aspect of the iconic plane in the figure's style. The symbolic
form is not simply caprice, trendy, or personal compositions of the artist; it entails a specific
representation or perception of the environment or world views, if not philosophy. 
 
C. Contextual Plane
In the contextual plane, you put the work in context and its relationship to society. It is often
helpful to know society's history and economic, political, and cultural conditions; national and
world art and literature; mythologies; philosophies; and different cultures and world views. Here,
you come from the fundamental semiotic and iconic planes. One may obtain awareness and
perspectives into the original artwork's historical and social sense through research. The audience
needs to draw the discussion between art and society. Art derives its creativity and power from its
social environment, being a cultural force and the impetus for transformation.
  
D. Evaluative Plane
An art critic should determine what is considered a value in your nation. Is it depicted in the
artwork? What are the underlying social issues conveyed in the painting? It is concerned with an
analysis of a work's values. It is impossible to determine without learning the piece. The assessment
encompasses form and content. However, this segment is conservative theoretically because of
philosophical division. The semiotic analysis connects meanings, the material traits, and the concepts
and values of the specific picture symbol that is an art piece, including the basic semiotic plane,
iconic plane, and contexts. Meaning is rooted in the content structure at all times.
 

ART HISTORY
 
According to Britannica.com (Accessed 2021), Art history, also known as Art
Historiography, is the historical study of visual arts focused on identifying, classifying, describing,
assessing, interpreting, and comprehending art products. Art history may also include historical
developments in painting, sculpture, architectural design, art deco, drawing, printmaking,
photography, interior decorating, etc. Art history’s objectives are:
(1) to establish authorial origins of artworks, that is, discovering who created a particular
painting, when, when, and for what reason,
(2) to authenticate whether the artist,
(3) made the art to determine the era of cultural development the creation took place,
(4) to analyze the influences of the artist to the subsequent batches and
(5) to gather biographical documentation about the artists.

Art history also examines art styles and traditions across periods, movements, and schools.
Iconography is a significant part of art history; it analyzes the symbolism of works of art. For
instance, art historians identify the visual elements and interpret their meaning. Art historians are
interested in the works of art represented at the time of creation. It is a way to learn about the
civilizations of the past. The history of art is immense, and the earliest cave paintings predate writing
by almost 27,000 years. 
 

ART CHIEF ARTISTS

HISTORICAL
PERIODS / CHARACTERISTICS ANS MAJOR
EVENTS
MOVEMENTS WORKS
 Lascaux Cave  Ice Age ends (10,000 
Cave painting, B.C.–8,000 B.C.); 
Stone Age Painting, 
fertility goddesses,
(30,000 B.C.–  Woman of  New Stone Age and first
and megalithic
2,500 B.C.) Willendorf, and  permanent settlements
structures
 Stonehenge (8,000 B.C.–2,500 B.C.)
 Sumerians invent writing
 Standard of Ur,  (3,400 B.C.); 
Mesopotamian Warrior art and
 Gate of Ishtar, and   Hammurabi writes his
(3,500 B.C.– narration in stone
539 B.C.) relief  Stele of Hammurabi’s law code (1,780 B.C.); 
Code  Abraham founds
monotheism
 ART CHIEF ARTISTS
HISTORICAL
PERIODS / CHARACTERISTICS ANS MAJOR
EVENTS
MOVEMENTS WORKS
 Narmer unites
Art with an afterlife  Imhotep,  Upper/lower Egypt
Egyptian (3,100 focus, such as  Step Pyramid,  (3,100 B.C.); 
B.C.–30 B.C.) pyramids and tomb  Great Pyramids, and   Rameses II battles the
painting  Bust of Nefertiti Hittites (1,274 B.C.); 
 Cleopatra dies (30 B.C.)
 Athens defeats Persia at
Greek idealism:  Parthenon,  Marathon (490 B.C.); 
balance, perfect
Greek and  Myron,   Peloponnesian Wars (431
proportions;
Hellenistic (850  Phidias,  B.C.–404 B.C.); 
architectural
B.C.–31 B.C.)  Polykleitos, and   Alexander the Great’s
orders (Doric, Ionic,
and Corinthian)  Praxiteles conquests (336 B.C.–323
B.C.)
 Julius Caesar
 Augustus of assassinated (44 B.C.); 
Roman realism: Primaporta,   Augustus proclaimed
Roman (500
practical and down to  Colosseum,  Emperor (27 B.C.); 
B.C.– A.D. 476)
earth; the arch  Trajan’s Column, and Diocletian splits Empire
 Pantheon (A.D. 292); 
 Rome falls (A.D. 476)
 Birth of Buddha (563
B.C.); 
 Gu Kaizhi, 
Indian, Chinese,  Silk Road opens (1st
Serene, meditative  Li Cheng, 
and Japanese century B.C.);
art, and arts of the  Guo Xi, 
(653 B.C.–A.D.  Buddhism spreads to
floating world  Hokusai, and
1900) China (1st–2nd centuries
 Hiroshige
A.D.) and Japan (5th
century A.D.)