Art Crit T.2

How can we judge beauty in art?

The above work was done by Tina Mifsud, a local artist who created a series as a form of self discovery. She tackled themes of expression, scrutiny and acceptance through varying odd poses as an exploration of her own body, a vessel of emotion, insecurity and confidence. The collection revolves around a safe space for the artist, social media, varying perceptions, and the notions of confidence.

This work not only portrays the female body in a vulnerable light and sparks conversation as to whether the work could even be considered sexual or sensual. The body is portrayed as a symbol for deeper discussions beyond the male gaze, a term that emerged thanks to the media’s poise, vulnerable and weak portrayal of women through film, advertising and more.

The figure is posed sitting comfortably yet awkwardly in front of a mirror centred on the canvas and looking down at her phone. The figure could also be looking directly at the mirror or in this case, the viewer in a more confident and unbothered manner.

At first glance, the work seems like a painterly sketch with well blended skin tones leaving room for the brushstrokes to show in certain areas. Charcoal outlines the seemingly oil-painted body, typical of Mifsud’s work, and defines the hair as well as the shadows beneath and around the figure.

The beauty of this piece can lie in the figure itself, the concept or theme of the work itself or collection of works, the brushstrokes, technique, media and composition or all of the above. Beauty as a general term can be relative as well as subjective. The beauty of this work can be relative when looked at from the point of view of comparison to other artworks and can be subjective as the awe of it is down to the personal taste of the viewer, however relativity is also subjective to personal taste as when this work is compared to other artworks, those works are a selection of what the critic enjoys or which artists they know of.

The figure in ‘Selfie’ follows the rule of thirds where the figure is centred and slightly leaning to the right and leaning backward against what seems to be the wall as she is sat on a cloth or rag on the ground. The proportions of the figure are aligned and the frontal part closest to the mirror are larger than the bust, showing that the artist paid close attention to perspective when creating this piece.

The background is minimal and highlights the body through browns and cream whites where the majority of the space is lighter than the triangled use of brown for the hair and wall. The figure pops through the subtle use of charcoal as mentioned previously and the mix of sketch-like shading and oil-painted shadows. The background seems almost dirty, with what seems to be the orange of the phone light behind the figures head.The judgement of art should boil down to the artist’s impression of the work and their take on it however this tends to morph with outside commentary.

Some artworks are open to interpretation whilst others have concrete these and aims. The beauty of this work lies in it’s simplicity of composition but also the exploration of personal beauty as a theme and the psychological influence of social media morphing the appreciation of the artist’s impression of their own body, which was a common theme for many throughout 2020 during the Covid times.

Nevertheless, the author’s commentary of the work can also be considered biased and so the topic of – how can the beauty of an artwork be judged? – is left inconclusive as their interpretation of how it can be judged as well as their commentary of the work itself is upheld by their skillset and/or knowledge of art and art criticism in general.