How to Look at Art: A Beginner's Guide

I'm no expert, merely an enthusiast. But I've got some ideas.

Pieter de Hooch, A Mother’s Duty, 1658-1660

It is my purely unscientific opinion that more people would go to museums and look at art if they didn’t feel: 1) overwhelmed, 2) out of place, 3) at a loss to understand what they’re looking at.

Culture vultures like me and that guy with the man-bun probably aren’t helping. We wander around staring intently at each art work as though we know what we’re talking about, but we don’t. We’re just as clueless as you are, only insatiably curious and determined to satisfy that curiosity by letting our eyeballs rummage around in a painting. We’re not there to virtue signal, I promise. We’re there because creativity takes courage, and we know that it’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Ultimately, I believe (also my purely unscientific opinion) that we see ourselves. Art holds up a mirror to society or the viewer and challenges us to look a little deeper. In great art, there is always more there than casually meets the eye. And since I think we can agree there is no such thing as a consensual reality, we’re going to all see the same thing a little bit differently.

In other words, all viewpoints are valid. Including yours.

Looking at art is not a zero-sum game. It’s not black and white, right or wrong, dunce or disciple. There are no wrong answers. There’s only your perception of what’s in front of you. And since each one of us comes with her own set of prejudices, preferences, psychological baggage, and willful blindness, we can never actually see or understand art any more than we can see or understand life. Instead, we filter art through lens of our own human experience, which is exactly as it should be.

Again, it’s not the object we perceive; it’s us.

I realize that sounds an awful lot like the kind of artsy claptrap that makes people want to avoid museums and art galleries in the first place. Or me, if they ran into me at a party. But I think it’s important to get the big picture before we drill down on some specific techniques to “get inside” a work of art.

Remember: there’s no getting it wrong. There’s just your experience. And I know you can report on your experience.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston offers a four-step process for looking at art.

1. Look. Take time to look at the work of art.

2. Describe. Talk about what you see in the work of art.

3. Think. Interpret and assign meaning to the work of art.

4. Connect. Relate what you see to your own life, or to other works of art or images you have seen.

Now, this might speak to you, but from my perspective, it seems a little weighty. I’m not a sequential thinker, so when there are steps involved … I’m already drifting off to sleep.

My suggestion is a little different. Instead of looking, describing, thinking, and connecting, I suggest you do one thing when you stand in front of a work of art.

Ask yourself: what am I feeling?

At first glance, what you may be feeling is bored, tired, and a little hungry. Look deeper. Let yourself open up to the experience of the work. Don’t ask, what did the artist mean when she did x, y or z. Just focus on how looking at that work of art makes you feel. Then look for the details that made you feel that way.

Example One:

Lucian Freud. Reflection (self-portrait). 1985. Oil on canvas.

Lucian Freud (1922-2011) was a British painter specializing in nudes. I would describe his work as … disconcerting. Looking at this self-portrait makes me vaguely uncomfortable. Does it have that same effect on you?

Now ask yourself why. What visual clues made you feel this way?

To me, his right eye looks predatory. His left eye kind of dumbfounded and lost. If I were to see this face looking at me in a dim hallway, I would probably run. This is a man in fragments, as though he’s been patched together out of different skins. His indirect gaze makes him appear to be lost in thought, and the tenor of those thoughts seems like a stab wound that’s probably self-inflicted.

That’s it. That’s all it takes. A longer perusal (studies show that most people spend no more than five seconds looking at a work of art, so try to give it some time) might yield more emotions and more clues. But I’m an advocate for trusting one’s initial instincts, especially when it comes to art.

So, to recap. Look at the work of art, ask yourself how that work of art makes you feel, and then look for the details that made you feel that way. It’s simple.

Example Two:

Head VI, 1949, by Francis Bacon.

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was a British painter born in Ireland whose work can easily be described as provocative and disturbing. I included it here for the obvious reason that it evokes an immediate response. You may love it. You may hate it. But when you look at it, you feel something.

When I look at it, I feel trapped, panicked, screaming. You, too, perhaps. So, now we look for the clues. Why do we feel this way? The man’s mouth, opened in a horrifying rictus. The box-like object he finds himself in. But there’s more. The figure appears to be wearing ecclesiastical garb. A priest, perhaps, railing against the inhuman restrictions of his calling. There are hundreds of ways of interpreting this painting, but again, it’s less important that you “get it right” or guess what the artist’s intentions may have been, and more important that you articulate to yourself and others what your experience was when you saw it.

Example Three. Let’s try something a little more subtle this time:

Michiel van Miereveld, Portrait of Aeitje van der Graft, 1619

To be sure, some art is more representational than psychologically or artistically complex, yet even here (once you get past the impressive garb), you can feel the subject’s grim discomfort—or even suspicion—of the artist and possibly you, the viewer. I feel “less than” when I look at her. This woman is clearly more affluent than I am. She also appears utterly devoid of imagination or compassion. Why do I feel this way? The set of her mouth, the hard, pitiless look in her eyes. What I like to suppose is the painter making a point about his subject so artfully, even the subject has no clue an unpalatable truth has been revealed about her.

None of this is difficult, and can lead to some powerful examinations of the self that will stay with you long after you’ve left the gallery or museum.

Example Four:

The Soothsayer’s Recompense, Giorgio de Chirico, 1913

Italian painter of Greek origin Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) wasn’t a surrealistic, per se, but he is widely considered the godfather of surrealism, and it’s easy to see why. I would characterize his work as austere, mysterious, and heavily symbolic. Even Jungian.

So, what do you feel when you look at his work? To me, the piazza isn’t just deserted, it’s empty, even with the statue in the middle. I feel spooked, as though I’ve headed into a hellscape it might be difficult for me to get out of. The intense shadows are a little frightening, as are the relentlessly straight lines. To me, the statue feels as though it shouldn’t be there, and yet, mysteriously, it is, much in the way that objects suddenly appear and disappear in dreams.

What visual clues make me feel this way?

There’s almost a nightmarish quality to the colors de Chirico uses, the mustard yellow, the green skies. Life (the locomotive) seems to happen “out there,” beyond the walls. Inside the piazza, the message is clear: we’re not just alone, we’re emotionally deserted. The train—the future itself—is moving on without us.

Example Five:

Portrait of Leopold Zborowski, Amadeo Modigliani, 1918

I’m wild about the work of Jewish-Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) and Expressionism in general. Diagnosed from a young age with tuberculosis, a fatal disease at the time, Modigliani led a dissolute lifestyle characterized by frequent use of hashish and absinthe. I believe it was this distortion of perception that led to his characteristic painting and sculpting style.

What do you feel when you look at it? And what details in the painting make you feel that way?

I get a sense of a young man’s dissipation, perhaps a mirror to Modigliani’s own. The subject, Zborowski, was actually his agent, but theirs might have actually been a fraught relationship. Modigliani was mercurial, to say the least, and Zborowski paid him relatively little to paint. Gazing into those strange, blank, dispassionate eyes, I find it hard to like this man. Doesn’t he remind you of the quintessential hipster? All that’s missing is the lumberjack shirt and avocado toast.

Okay, now your turn. Spend a minute or two with this painting and describe your feelings and impressions in the comment section below. Remember: there are no wrong answers. That’s the great and beautiful thing about art. There’s only what you see.

Mary Cassatt, The Child’s Bath, 1893.

Pablo Picasso once said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

From Andy Warhol, “Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

Also from Warhol, “Sometimes, people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, so what. That is one of my favorite things to say. So what.”

And that’s what I’m asking you to say to yourself the next time you walk into a museum and feel inadequate to the task of being there.

So what?

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