Critique

What do we mean by "critique"?

Here are a few definitions that are useful:
Edmund Feldman, noted art educator, defines criticism as "Participation in informed talk about art." I think "informed" is the key word here.
Morris Weitz, philosopher, defines criticism as "The use of words to facilitate understanding art."
Terry Barrett, art educator, defines it as "Describing, interpreting, evaluating and theorizing about art."

To these I would add my own definition: "The application of critical thinking methods to understanding art in a positive environment where we get to learn and grow more artistically"

In this class we will be doing small group (5-6 students per group) critique.

Step 1: Prints are distributed so that no group is holding any image made by a member of that group.


Step 2: One person in each group is designated or elected to take notes on the comments made by the group. The groups then discuss each of the images they hold based on the guidelines below:

Basic guidelines to conduct the critique:
1. Do the images meet the assignment guidelines?
2. What elements of design can you see in each image? Rule of thirds, symmetry, negative or positive space?
3. What emotions does the image evoke?
4. What do you feel they were trying to capture in the image in particular?
5. Do you think of the mechanics of the processing (developing the negative, printing, matting, etc.) was executed well?
6. If improvement is considered, what would you suggest?
7. Compliments




Step 3: We reconvene the whole class and the secretary from each group recounts what was discussed and we talk about it together as a whole class with opportunity for the photographer to respond to questions.