This is part of my series, 75 Days of Media Literacy
This artwork is film, way before film existed. Looking at this, the original viewer also imagined God’s finger reaching out and bringing Adam to life. You did too; you just might not have realized it. You saw Adam, alive, looking back at God. You know he wasn’t an inanimate lump.
The same is true about this painting, except instead of God you’re perceiving Jackson Pollock’s movement, and a less God-like man likely didn’t exist.
Maybe you already knew that movement is implied in art, or maybe you are just seeing this. My goal with 75 Days of Media Literacy is to bring everyone along to consider how they literally see the world, explore other frames to understand what they see, and then push themselves to reframe their visual literacy as a result.
We made art before writing. Understanding what they showed us, but also how we interpret these works, helps us connect to history better, but visual literacy also inoculates us from the scams popular culture is always pulling. Understanding how visuals pull the strings makes you better at choosing how to interpret media.
Posts in this series will all be fairly short, written in a conversational tone, and ideally thought-provoking. While in other kinds of essays, I will argue my point armed with sources, here my goal in these posts is to get you thinking. I’ll offer some ideas, maybe ask some questions, and leave you to take it from there on your own time.
- Start with yourself
How your own habits, freedom, and social circle shape what you see.
