RC - Tips/Strategies for Art passages

jkyu2006

Hi,

I'm pretty comfortable with the RC passages about science as I've watched JY's lessons about finding the opposing arguments, hypothesis, evidence, theory, low to high res annotations. Just wondering if there are any tips specific to passages about old Art as well? Because the LSAT puts a lot of passages about 14th century art or something like that.

Blake160

Visual art is a subset of "arts" which includes painting, sculpture, performance art, dance, music, poetry, and writing. I was a fine arts major, so I will share some concepts from art school. Here is a simplified version of art analysis:

Formal Description and Analysis

Formal description is what the work looks like. Is it figurative (shows identifiable subject matter) or is it non-representational (abstract)? Does the work use hard lines or broad brushstrokes? Is there a three-dimensional perspective? What types of paints are being used? Which colors? What is being shown?

Analysis is the author's interpretation of the form. What does the use of hard lines convey? Why does the artist choose to depict certain subjects and not others? What type of mood does the use of blue evoke?

Excerpt from LSAC's website:

That Lichtenstein’s images were fine art was at first difficult to see, because, with their word balloons and highly stylized figures, they looked like nothing more than the comic book panels from which they were copied.

The bold portion is description. The other parts are the author's analysis. Both are important to distinguish since you may have to answer questions such as "which of the following would examples would best characterize artist's works?" or "The author believes that artist's style successfully conveys____?"

Contextual Description and Analysis

Contextual description, like formal description is about facts, but instead related to the historical and art-historical context. When was the work made? Which other artists were practicing at that time? What is the artist's ethnic background? What were the social ills of the time? What were the prevailing art movements?

Analysis of historical and art-historical context is the author's evaluation of the importance of these factors. How did the artist's Asian-American experience influence her work? How does this work diverge from Abstract Expressionism? Why did Cezanne use different colors than his fellow Cubists? What is the influence of African masks on Picasso's work?

Exerpt form LSAC's Website:

[Lichtenstein's] merger of a popular genre with the forms and intentions of fine art generated a complex result: while poking fun at the pretensions of the art world, Lichtenstein’s work also managed to convey a seriousness of theme that enabled it to transcend mere parody.

The bold part is contextual description, the rest is the author's contextual analysis.

LSAC can add another layer of complexity by presenting an author's critique of another critic's evaluation of an artist, but the same concepts apply. The author may bring up new descriptive evidence, or insist that the other critic ignored relevant contextual information. The author may also suggest that the other critic misinterpreted historical details or key formal features in his or her evaluation of the artist's work.