Assignment #2

The Four Domains of CreativityThe four domains of creativity are fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. Fluency is when things flow for example when a painting has similar brush strokes across it it appears to flow. Flexibility is being malleable, or able to change. Originality, I would say is the most important of these domains. The ability to create something that has come from your own brain is originality. You could re-do the Mona Lisa using dominoes and it would be original instead of just copying each brush stroke. Elaboration is when there is more to the artwork than originally meets the eye.

The Feldman Method of Art Criticism
The Feldman Method forces art observers to view art in a different way rather than just "I like it, I don't like it." There are four steps to the method: describe, analyze, interpret, and judge/evaluate. The first, describe, makes the observer look at the basics of the piece. You can ask the questions- Who is the artist, what is the medium, how big is it, and what are the characteristics? The second step is to analyze the piece. To analyze you can use the elements and principals of design. Interpreting pieces can be difficult but some helpful questions are: what does it mean, does it create a metaphor, does it have an alternate meaning, or does it have a social meaning? Last, we are allowed to judge the piece, and say weather we like it or not.

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh is one of my favorite pieces, but I can criticize it by using the Feldman Method. Describe- The painting is made up of mostly blues and it is night time, the artist is Van Gogh, its size is 29 in × 36¼ in and the medium is oil on canvas. Analyze- The painting shows many elements and principals: color, texture, line, space and movement, balance, proportion... Interpret- This painting to me shows some sort of darker figure growing toward the town, Van Gogh painted it while in an asylum so there are obviously some dark things going through his mind. Judge- As I said before this is one of my personal favorites, I love the impressionistic style and the way that the sky swirls around.