This document discusses 13 different ways that art can be understood or analyzed, including representationally, through verbal supplements, genre, materials used, scale, temporality, context, relationship to art history, how it progressively reveals itself over time, iconographic tradition, formal properties, parody/irony of content categories, and biological or physiological responses. It provides examples to illustrate each of the 13 ways, citing works from artists such as Picasso, da Vinci, Duchamp, Dalí, de Kooning, and Harvey.

1. Thirteen Ways of
Looking at a
Blackbird
McEvilley, Thomas, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”, Art &
Discontent:Theory at the Millennium. McPherson & Company. 1993.

2. Content arising from:
1
REPRESENTATIONAL
Artwork understood as….

3. Content arising from:
1
REPRESENTATIONAL
Artwork understood as….

4. Content arising from:
1
REPRESENTATIONAL
Artwork understood as….

5. Content arising from:
2
Verbal supplements

6. Content arising from:
2
Verbal supplements
Jan Willem Pieneman, The Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815, oil on canvas, 576 cm x 836 cm, 1824

7. Content arising from:
3
Genre

8. Content arising from:
3
Genre
Paul Cezanne
Mary Heilmann

9. Content arising from:
4
MATERIALS

10. Content arising from:
4
MATERIALS

11. Content arising from:
5
SCALE

12. Content arising from:
5
SCALE
Damien Hirst

13. Content arising from:
5
SCALE
Damien Hirst

14. Content arising from:
6
TEMPORALITY

15. Content arising from:
6
TEMPORALITY
Jim Denevan

16. Content arising from:
7
CONTEXT

17. Content arising from:
7
CONTEXT

18. Content arising from:
8
Relationship w/ Art history

19. Content arising from:
8
Relationship w/ Art history

20. Content arising from:
8
Relationship w/ Art history
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Pablo Picasso, 1907 Lege African Mask, Congo

21. Content arising from:
9
Progressively reveals its
destiny through persisting in time.

22. Content arising from:
9
Progressively reveals its
destiny through persisting in time.
Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-19 Marcel Duchamp, 1919

23. Content arising from:
10
ICONOGRAPHIC TRADITION

24. Content arising from:
10
ICONOGRAPHIC TRADITION
The Ascension of Christ ,Salvador Dalí, Oil on canvas / 115 × 123 cm, 1958

25. Content arising from:
10
ICONOGRAPHIC TRADITION
The Ascension of Christ ,Salvador Dalí, Oil on canvas / 115 × 123 cm, 1958

26. Content arising from:
11
FORMAL PROPERTIES

27. Content arising from:
11
FORMAL PROPERTIES
Untitled Number 5, Agnes Martin, synthetic
polymer paint on gesso on canvas, 71” x 6’,
1975Woman, I, Willem de Kooning, Oil on canvas, 6’
x 58”, 1950-52

28. Content arising from:
12
Parody/irony of content categories

29. Content arising from:
12
Parody/irony of content categories

30. Content arising from:
12
Parody/irony of content categories
Leif Parsons

31. Content arising from:
12
Parody/irony of content categories
Leif Parsons

32. Content arising from:
13
Biological or Physiological responses

33. Content arising from:
13
Biological or Physiological responses
Myra, Marcus Harvey, 9’x 11’, 1995

34. Content arising from:
13
Biological or Physiological responses
Myra, Marcus Harvey, 9’x 11’, 1995
“Far from cynically exploiting
her notoriety, Harvey's grave
and monumental canvas
succeeds in conveying the
enormity of the crime she
committed. Seen from afar,
through several doorways,
Hindley's face looms at us
like an apparition. By the
time we get close enough to
realise that it is spattered
with children's handprints,
the sense of menace
becomes overwhelming.”
Cork, Richard (16 September 1997), "The
Establishment clubbed", The Times, retrieved
30 September 2009

35. The End