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How to Talk about Art History

Ellen Oredsson, an art historian and content creator for M+ Stories (a blog from M+ Museum in Hong Kong), says, "I started this blog to make art history a bit more accessible, posting updates explaining a variety of art history topics." The categories on the website reflect Oredsson's stated mission: art history 101, artist features (focusing primarily on women and artists outside western traditions), and reader questions. In Art history 101, readers will find includes posts such as "5 Examples of Animals Acting Like Humans in Art History," in which Oredsson discusses five different examples of anthropomorphic animals in art. These examples include C. M. Coolidge's Dogs Playing Poker (1894) (which depicts dogs playing the card game), the depictions of cats in Japanese ukeyo-e woodblock prints (created during the Edo period, which spanned from 1615 to 1867), and the "strange recurring motif in Flemish 17th century art of birds sitting in the treetops and singing off a piece of sheet music." Other 101 topics include the female nude, how to look at an artwork, and the difference between genres and genre painting. Some recent reader questions Oredsson answered include: "How can I love artists like Gauguin when I know so much of his work was exploitative and racist?," and "I have a question - I hear a lot of people say that those old fashioned portraits are the equivalent of selfies today, mostly in retaliation to people calling selfie-culture vain, frivolous, etc. What do you think?"
Archived Scout Publication URL
Scout Publication
Classification
GEM Subject
Language
Date of Scout Publication
March 8th, 2019
Date Of Record Creation
March 5th, 2019 at 1:03pm
Date Of Record Release
March 5th, 2019 at 4:46pm
Resource URL Clicks
613
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