How to be an Art Critic (5 of 5): Judging Art and Putting All the Steps Together

• Students will evaluate artworks based on the subjects' literal qualities (imitationalism)
• Students will evaluate artworks based on the compositions' formal qualities (formalism)
• Students will evaluate artworks based on the content (emotionalism)
• Students will evaluate artworks based on their own personal likes and dislikes
• Students will combine the four steps of art criticism to complete a critique of a work of art

This lesson is about judging the worth of an artwork, not in the financial sense, but through the lens of art criticism. We will first judge artwork by using the first three steps of art criticism, evaluating whether the work is successful because it is realistic, or if it has a good composition, or if it conveys mood or meaning. We will then judge artwork based on our personal feelings. A work of art may have no value to one person but mean the world to someone else. Afterward, each student will critique an artwork using the four steps of art criticism that we have used throughout this course.

1. Welcome and review
2. Step 4:  Judge works based on success of imitating real life, having a good composition, or communicating an idea or mood
3. Students will sort artworks based on which of these three methods of judgment they would use for that work
4. Step 4, continued:  Judge works based on how much you like them
5. Students will sort artworks based on their personal opinion
6. We will briefly discuss how to judge work when purchasing artwork
7. I will give an example of what it sounds like when all four steps are gone through at once.
8. Students will demonstrate all four steps of the art criticism process with a work of their choice.

Students will sort and manipulate images of famous artworks during this session.