Looking at Art, Step 1: The Basics

How do people understand a work of art just by looking at it? How can I figure out an artwork’s meaning? 

Whether you’re an art historian, visiting a museum, or seeing artwork on social media, there are several steps you can take to fully understand a piece of art. Let’s start with the basics. 

When you’re looking at a work of art, there will almost always be information about the title, the artist, and the year it was made. Look at that information. Ask yourself: 

• Have you heard about this artist before? Do you know anything about them or their work? 
• Does the title tell you anything about what the subject of the artwork is? For example, if the artwork is titled Pine Trees, can you see any pine trees? 
• Does the year this was made help you understand this work? For example, if this artwork was created in the 1960s, think about how the artist or the artwork might relate to things happening in the 1960s, like the Civil Rights Movement. In many cases, an artist is heavily influenced by the things happening around them, either in their personal life or in the world around them.

Let's use these questions to analyze the painting below.

Now we’ll ask ourselves about the title, artist, and year, and see if we can start understanding this work of art. 

• The artist is David C. Driskell. We at the David C. Driskell Center know quite a lot about him, his life, and his artwork, and we know that he loved to use bright colors and create artwork about nature! 
• The title is Self Portrait. Based on this information, we now know that the artwork should show the way the artist, David C. Driskell, looks or the way he thinks about himself. 
• This work was created in 1957. We at the Driskell Center know that during this time in his life, David C. Driskell was living and working in Alabama, but it doesn’t really seem like that information helps us understand the artwork. That’s okay. 

Some of this information was very helpful, and some of it wasn’t. That’s okay. Also, you may not know anything about the artist, or the artwork might be untitled, and that’s okay too! Not every work will be easy to understand, but we can learn to do our best. That’s what makes looking at art a skill - with patience and practice you can become an art expert.

Test Yourself

Time for you to practice on your own! Use the painting below to practice these steps. What can you figure out about an artwork from just its basic information? 

Asking ourselves these questions is the starting point for understanding artwork, but it is definitely not where we stop! Continue to the next module, Looking at Art, Step 2: Describing, to continue learning about looking at and understanding art.