Criticising Photographs - A Framework

How do we arrive at a method of criticism? I don't like working in a vacuum so when i decided to try and improve my understanding and appreciation of art in general, I looked about for a useful roadmap. I remember at University my Art History tutor saying that if you're at a loss when confronted with a piece of artwork, just start by trying to describe what is there, what the artists is showing, how he has practically chosen to portray it. Gradually questions of meaning and purpose will reveal themselves.

I remembered this when I came across the work of the American aesthetician Morris Weitz. In 1965 he produced what is regarded as an important work investigating the philosophy of art criticism. Rather than producing a manifesto for criticism and sending the critics marching into battle with it, he proposed that criticism instead is rather what critics do. To find out what it is that they do he looked at all the criticism ever made of Shakespeares Hamlet. (well I suppose all that he could get his hands on) and came to the conclusion that critics do one or more of four things. They describe, interpret, evaluate and theorise. Not all critics do all of these things, and some place more emphasis on some than others. He found for example that not all critics actually evaluated Hamlet - i.e. said whether they thought it was any good or not. Some of these activities are closely related and cyclical, so it's not to say that the critic woke up and did his describing, had his breakfast and then did his interpretation, evaluation followed lunch and so on. Indeed the activities need not commence with description - often some evaluation or interpretation will be unavoidable on first impression, but as the activities progress, they feed upon and refresh each other.

The contemporary academic Terry Barrett wrote a book "Criticising Photographs" which is the best guidebook to the subject I have read. He works on the basis of Weitzs activities although he elaborates on these and introduces theories of other critics with regard to categorising and evaluating photographs. My own approach to looking at photographs is greatly influenced by this book. It should be noted that he doesn't tell you how to criticise a photograph - he describes a useful framework within which to approach criticism. I'm going to look at each of these activities separately in the next series of posts, despite the fact that they are interpendent. Later on I'll look at how they fit together and influence each other.

Here's a very brief outline. It might be worth thinking about how these relate to your own experience of looking at and trying to understand photographs.

Describe: What is it of - what does it show - how is it made - what can we know about it

Interpret: What is the intent, or message of the the photographer

Evaluate: Does it succeed

Theorise: Does it say anything about or contribute to photography as a creative genre or photographic philosophy, or anything else

The next post begins with description, we'll be looking at Willy Ronis' Engine Driver from 1939 (which I can't find at the moment!). Just to re-iterate, this series is not supposed to be some set of golden rules, it's just my personal take on the subject, so I'm interested in getting peoples reactions and comment