>Aesthetics

One LAUSD learning standard is applicable to the to this lesson and its focus on comparative analysis of artworks.

Students will compare Hopper's paintings with Hine's photographs, and philosophically reflect on the similarities and differences between the media of painting and photography by answering these questions:

o To what extent does painting reflect a different reality than photography?

(Reasonable answers: painting changes reality while photography documents reality; photography can also change reality, but those manipulations are not as apparent in photographs as they are in paintings; paintings can make things more beautiful than they really are or more sinister than they really are; photography can freeze real action in time and place.)

o What advantages does painting have over photography?

(Reasonable answers: photography appears to document the truth; photographs document rather than interpret as do most paintings; photographs seem more "real"--What is reality?)

o When is photography considered art?

(Reasonable answers: What is art, anyway? When the photographer says it's art; when the viewer says it's art; when the photograph has no instrumental function or message and exists only because it's pleasing to have on the wall.)

o What can Hopper do with paint that Hine can't do with photographic media?

(Reasonable answers: create scenes that never existed; suggest relationships between people and their surroundings that aren't real; convey feelings of loneliness.)

o What can Hine do with a photograph that Hopper can't do with a painting?

(Reasonable answers: document conditions that demand social reform; place the working class in authentic environments; provide photographs as convincing evidence.)

Art Criticism

Art History