Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Fall is a huge season for art shows. We've already talked about the Manet/Degas show at the Met, the Henry Taylor exhibit at the Whitney, the Barkley Hendricks at the Frick as well as the Ed Ruscha at MoMA. There's also Picasso on the Fault and Blue show there. We'll talk about that next week. The Bronx Museum has Michael Richards' Are You Down? You get it. There's a lot of art to see and that doesn't even count the gallery shows.

If you feel daunted about going to one of the big institutions, or if you're in the camp of art is nice but what can I do for my life, our next guest is here to help out. Joining us is Art historian Susie Hodge. She's the author of more than a hundred books including How to Look at Art and How Art Can Change Your Life and one of the best book titles ever, Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That: From Slashed Canvas to Unmade Bed, Modern Art Explained. Susie, it is so nice to talk to you.

Susie Hodge: Hello. Thank you. It's lovely to talk to you too.

Alison Stewart: Listeners what is a piece of art that has changed your life or made an impact on you? 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Or maybe you're someone who needs some guidance on how to tackle a museum and how to get the most out of an exhibition. Susie Hodge is here to help. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call in or you can text us at that number. Susie, I'm going to ask you a really basic question. How does one get started? When you approach a piece of art, what is the first thing one might want to do?

Susie Hodge: It depends what the art is obviously. If you've chosen to look at it or if someone else has told you to look at it, of course, you're going to have a different attitude towards it. For whatever works of art you look at, you should approach it as clearly as you can with an open mind. Don't have any preconceptions. We will have, most of us will have. Just look at it, stand back, take the whole thing in. Look at the size, look at the substance.

What's it made of? What do you think the subject is and do you like it? Do you like what you are seeing? Do you like the colors? Do you like the lines? Does it say anything to you? Does it remind you of anything from your life? Start from that attitude and then you can move on. You can get a bit closer to it.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about the subject. What should we observe about the subject of a painting? What are a few things that we can look for?

Susie Hodge: There are lots of traditional subjects. We see a lot of Christian subjects. We see stories. There's often some human substance to a figurative work. A figurative work is something that represents aspects of our own life. Whereas an abstract work is something that doesn't. There's no recognizable images from the world around us. It really depends on whether you are looking for a story. There might be an allegory there, there might be a recognizable story that you know about. It might be a portrait of someone who you don't know or a portrait of someone you do know.

Look at overall, what you are seeing. What does it say to you? I know that sounds a bit high-saluting. What does it say to you? Do you recognize anything from your own life? Obviously, the artist won't have known what's in your life so we all bring our own interpretations and that's fine. It's not math. There isn't sort of one main answer, one right or wrong answer. Whatever we bring to the art is great for us. It's personal. Look at the subject. How does it make you feel? Even if you don't know what it's saying how does it make you feel on a very basic level?

Alison Stewart: You've written about how a detail can really add to your enjoyment of a piece. An example is The Scream. Most people are aware of The Scream of the face in the foreground but share with folks about the detail of the figures in the back.

Susie Hodge: They've always intrigued me, and I think if you notice them they probably intrigue quite a lot of people, and there's quite a lot of debate. Are they walking towards the figure in the front or are they walking away from him? To me, they're walking away from what monk who painted it tells us. It seems as if he was on his own, so they possibly were walking away. You could also interpret it that they're shady figures who are coming towards him.

They're the threatening figures who are making him scream. Again it's down to all of us, each of us individually to decide. It's worth looking. This is what I say. I always say stand back from a work of art, take it all in, size, proportion, colors, et cetera as I just said, and then step forward and look at it more closely. What can you pick out? What can you see that intrigues you or doesn't? You don't have to like it or might make you laugh, or might scare you. Any emotion is good.

Alison Stewart: When we're looking at brush strokes, what can we learn and what is a piece or an artist where the brush stroke is really integral to the work?

Susie Hodge: This often depends on the date. I always tell people if they want to look at a work of art, you don't have to know a lot of facts, but it really helps if you can find out some. For example, there might be a label next to the work of art or you might know of the artist. Depending when that person was working, painting, sculpting, producing an installation or work of ceramic or something like that, depending when they were working, there were fashions. There was for a long time brush strokes were meant to be imperceptible. You weren't meant to see them.

It was actually considered quite vulgar for I'd say practically the whole of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries to show your brushwork. You will find individual artists who did very well who did show their brushwork. For example, Titian, you'll find that he showed his brushwork, Rembrandt. For a lot of the sort of official art institutions, they said, "Do not show your brush stroke. That's vulgar. We don't want to see that." Then if you come to the late 19th century artists like Monet or Van Gogh very famously, suddenly we saw this thick in [unintelligible 00:06:14] and they became part of the expression of the work.

Before these artists, when the paint was meant to be very smooth, you don't see the artist's hand at all. That was before we showed the artist's expression. After that, when you see a work of art that's got lots of the artists' expression in it, where you can see their paint marks and all their even chisel marks, if it's a work of sculpture, that's when we're moving into the late 19th century throughout the 20th century, and even now when artists are kind of allowed to show their emotion and to reach out to us from their inner psyche.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a few calls. Gail is calling in from New York. Hi, Gail. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Gail: Hello, hello. My parents split up when I was very young, and one of the things I would do with my dad when he would come by and pick me up is drag me around to museums. I remember walking around in the Museum of Modern Art and I was getting tired and "Isn't it time to go yet," and there was one more painting he wanted to see before we left. He's taking a look at something and I turn around and I see Francis Bacon's 1946 and it just scares me. Then I was like, "Oh wait a minute, a painting can make you feel something." I've been drawing and painting ever since. That was about when I was 10 years old.

Alison Stewart: What a great story. Gail, thanks for sharing it.

Susie Hodge: That's fantastic.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Let's talk to Kathy from Connecticut. Hi, Kathy. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Kathy: Hi, this is quick. I was an art major. I've painted all my life and I love museums, but my kids had no interest in museums. One day I was walking with my daughter who was about 12 probably a burden for her, but we were wandering through the Met looking at the sergeants. We ran into, well, we saw the painting of Mrs. John Phelps Stokes. My daughter fell in love with that painting, that particular painting just it's almost like she's alive and she exudes life and energy in youth, and I felt like my daughter could connect with that person. She still doesn't love museums but she's got her book of sergeant paintings, and she's taking art classes at her university. It's been just a wonderful experience. That one painting I'd urge anyone to look at.

Alison Stewart: Kathy, thank you for calling in. My guest is art historian Susie Hodge. Name of her book is How Art Can Change Your Life or How to Look at Art, one of her many, many books. It's interesting how art can change your life. What is the science behind how art affects the brain because your book has chapters on art can dissipate anger, it can help you learn empathy, it can help you conquer fear.

Susie Hodge: Yes, it can do all those things. There's been a lot of research. It wasn't just me making it up, looking at the work, and thinking, "Oh, that can do that." There has been loads of research and studies into what happens to our brains when we look at art. Scans have shown that blood flow increased for a beautiful work of art, just as it does when you look at someone you love exactly the same percentage. Looking at images of nature can lower stress. It's great to go out into nature, but actually looking at images of nature can lower stress and help to prevent chronic stress and stress-related diseases.

That helps, but there's also the other side of it. If you know a little bit about the artwork, or the artists themselves, or you can see it from looking at the work of art for example. Maybe there's the Gentileschi where she's painted Goliath. Not Goliath, someone having their head chopped off. See, there's anger there. If you read into her story, you can see why she's so angry. She's got her catharsis through her creativity. There's George Gross who was traumatized and angered by World War I. A lot of his paintings, you might think, "Oh, I can't look at that. It's uncomfortable to look at." Once you know what was going on in their mind, in their history, you can sympathize with their anger. I'm sticking on anger but I will move on. If you are angry, very often people say count to 10 and it will dissipate.

Look at a work of art and really study it, and then it'll dissipate. You can then look at your anger more objectively. Let's find something if you want to look at something happier but how about something inspiring self-reflection? We know that if you look at something like a Chinese landscape or Van Gogh's colors or any rhythm from many Harlem Renaissance paintings, you'll start to feel calmer and you can start thinking about things for yourself and mulling over what you think about life in general. It sounds like grand things but we need those times of peace.

Alison Stewart: Someone has texted, "Alexander Calder's, the Circus on permanent display at the Whitney. There's a video that plays about 20 minutes and the pieces are in display in the same room. Calder, nearly a giant animates the small mechanical toys and a circus performance in France. I feel like a child and joyful awe every time I go in there." That is from Kat. I did want to get to one thing before we have to wrap and I heard it from our first two callers as kids being dragged through big institutions. You could go to some of these museums. The Tate in London, the Regs Museum in Amsterdam, the Louv. They're huge. What do you think is your preferred time to go and how long should you spend?

Susie Hodge: Are we talking about adults or children?

Alison Stewart: Let's go with adults first.

Susie Hodge: I would say if it's your first time, go probably mid-morning or even late afternoon when it's quieter. Early morning or late afternoon when it's a bit quieter so you can spend time. There's, not an etiquette but an understanding in art museums and art galleries that you can all have your chance of standing right in front of works of art and don't feel self-conscious. If there aren't that many people around, you don't need to feel self-conscious. You wait for your turn and you own that space. You stand right in front of that work of art and look at it and you can spend a good 10 minutes looking at it if you want to or you can move away after just a couple of minutes. Try not to feel self-conscious.

All of us going to art museums and art galleries come from different backgrounds. Who's to say, if any of us know anything about it, it really doesn't matter. We are all allowed to enjoy art or appreciate it, whatever our background, whoever we are. Go to it with an open mind, as I keep saying, and feel that you can look at anything, anything that catches your eye. It doesn't have to be the greatest work in the show or the greatest work that you've read about. Some little obscure work in the corner is fine. As long as you spend some time with it. Just you on your own. Don't worry about anyone else around you.

Alison Stewart: In your writing, you say some people get disappointed when they see the Mona Lisa because it's so small. What is a piece of art that is worth standing in line for at any of the major museums?

Susie Hodge: Oh, I think there are many. I love to see the Mona Lisa but it's so difficult to get to. They say that I think everyone, the average time spent in front of the Mona Lisa is 15 seconds. [laughter] Or the Guernica in Madrid, that's unbelievable. You have to see that. That's a wonderful work of art. Anyone who can should go and see it. I would say really absolutely anything. Casper David Friedrich painted Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog and that's in Hamburg, in Germany.

That's a really moving work of art. It's a man standing on his own above a sea of fog. Or, of course, there's the Scream in Oslo. There are so many works of art that I would say, obviously, it's worth seeing. What about Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth in the MoMA? That shows determination and strength. She's sitting there. She hasn't got the physical ability but she has the mental ability to drive her forward. I think any work of art is worth it if it speaks to you if that doesn't sound too fancy. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: The books are called How Art Can Change Your Life, How to Look At Art. There are many more. Art historian Susie Hodge has been our guest. Susie, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Really appreciate it.

Susie Hodge: Thank you very much for having me.

Alison Stewart: That is All Of It for today. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here next time.

 

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