What is Art?

The very first artwork I saw in the Jepson Museum was Anne Ferrer’s Hot Pink (2012).  I asked myself what does this mean and how can it be art since I do not know what is supposed to be representing.  When I observe a piece of art such as Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) I am able to convey its meaning and/or message; however, when I looked at Hot Pink I did not know what to think about it.  I watched a clip about Anne Ferrer and she wants the viewer to use their imagination on the meaning of Hot Pink.  A piece of art with no meaning is something I did not know until we visited the Jepson, and there is no artwork checklist mandating that an artist has a meaning behind their piece, although most artists have a meaning behind their art work.  This class has changed my definition of what defines art, because art does not need to be oil on canvas, marble, or clay.  Art can be anything that engages the viewer, such as

Courtesy of the Jepson's website

Pablo Picasso’s Seated Bather (1930) is a painting about how cruel one of Picasso’s wives was when they were together.  Seated Bather is about Picasso’s wife who is considered to be evil from her painting.  When I first looked at Seated Bather I did not realize that Picasso was referring to his wife.  I did however come to realize that the Picasso had a sense of hatred and anger towards some female figure, because of her sharp teeth and mean face.  Even though Pablo Picasso’s artwork was mostly in cubist form, I could still understand the meaning behind Seated Bather.

Courtesy of 001galarie.com 

Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister for the United Kingdom during World War II, but he was also a painter.  In his free time Winston Churchill would paint the scenery of where he was visiting.  Lucy Lippard’s Lure of the Local: Being in Place talks about how “layers of meaning [are] familiar to local residents but invisible to visitors, cartographers, and even scholars” and in Winston Churchill’s Scene on the River Meuse you are just looking at a picture of a town on the river; however, the meaning of the painting is invisible to non-locals (34).  Scene on the River Meuse is also “handed-down history” because it is a picture of what the area looked like almost 70 years ago.  I did not know that Winston Churchill painted in order to help deal with his depression during World War II; however, the layers of meaning in his paintings relate to the area where he is painting whether it is in England, France, or Morocco  

Courtesy of the Guardian