So, the weird looking thing above is what I've selected for my blog assignment. Carl Critchlow is the artist of this piece, which was made in 1999. Critchlow is a fantasy artist who was born in Liverpool, England. He has worked as an illustrator on his own comic book projects as well as many others. Critchlow is also known for doing the illustrations on many cards for the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. I located this work on his website, www.carlcritchlow.com, while searching around for fantasy artists whose names I was familiar with. Many of his illustrations have a darker or creepy feel to them, and I wanted to discuss the impact of these associations and feelings in regards to general aesthetics.
The reason I chose this illustration in particular was because I immediately detected a sort of ominousness when looking at the picture. It appears to be some kind of rusted machine, and its scale is reflected by humanoid figures that it is grasping in its claws. Details of the creature, such as its eyes and claws further back, are obscured my mist or darkness. I noticed that the painting uses a very limited range of colors, which brings me to the first thing I wanted to discuss: What does color add to the way a painting is interpreted? Is it possible for an artist to misuse color when trying to convey something, or does "misuse" generally translate into "misinterpretation"?
As I said before, the "Crusher" possessed some level of shock value when I first looked at it. It was ominous, or creepy, or maybe I was just taken aback because it looked so strange. Fantasy art is definitely something that delves into the realm of the unreal or supernatural, but that doesn't always mean it will evoke emotion. My aesthetic enjoys art that can evoke a particular emotion, and I also appreciate art that is technically difficult or complex; I'm not much of an artist myself, so it is easy for me to appreciate even simple pieces. This brings me to my second topic of discussion: Does your personal aesthetic put more weight on the technical (formalist) aspects of art, or the emotional (emotionalist) aspects of art? Is technically superior art necessarily more impressive than simpler art? Does it matter which emotion is evoked from an illustration - do more preferable feelings toward the piece make the art "better"?
Critchlow's "Crusher" could probably not be appreciated by those of the mimetic perspective of art - it simply doesn't match anything that exists, it doesn't mimic anything. Instrumentalists might be able to extract a purpose behind this piece ("sentient robots will be the death of the human race"), but I don't think that the piece was created with the intent to inform - instrumentalists would generally have much to appreciate about this illustration. Both emotionalists and formalists could find something enjoyable about the piece, though. As mentioned, I got little chills looking at the piece - even if it doesn't provoke a reaction from everyone, it does appear to have been created with the intention of creeping out viewers (or at least warranting a "that's cool"). As far as formalism goes, it probably isn't the most technically impressive work out there, but it did take creativity to come up with such a strange subject. I think Critchlow's limited use of color adds to the painting and enhances the mechanical theme of the subject.
In the above paragraph, I mentioned "intent" a few times. One other thing I wanted to discuss with the class was artist's intent and it's importance; the aim of the artist is going to be considered no matter what kind of art one is looking at (or listening to), so it's definitely a big topic. How much weight does your aesthetic put on artist's intent? Has the artist failed if his or her intent is not obvious or is frequently misinterpreted? Is there ALWAYS intent behind a piece in the first place?
Websites used:
http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=3053 (List of Critchlow's works)
http://www.carlcritchlow.com/ (Critchlow's website)
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