Critical and Contextual Understanding

The artist page that earns nothing

Almost every GCSE Art sketchbook contains one. A page about an artist. A picture of their work, a paragraph about their life, a note of when they were born and what movement they belonged to. It is neat, it is accurate, and it is often worth almost nothing. ⚠️ BECAUSE NOTHING ELSE IN THE SKETCHBOOK WOULD BE ANY DIFFERENT IF THAT PAGE HAD NEVER BEEN MADE. ⭐⭐ CONTEXTUAL RESEARCH IS NOT EVIDENCE THAT YOU LOOKED AT AN ARTIST. IT IS EVIDENCE THAT LOOKING AT THEM CHANGED WHAT YOU MADE. Read your own specification's wording and it says so: linking contextual research to your own ideas and intentions. ⚠️ THE WORD DOING THE WORK IS LINKING. NOT FINDING, NOT PRESENTING, NOT DESCRIBING. ⭐ AND THAT GIVES YOU A TEST YOU CAN RUN ON YOUR OWN SKETCHBOOK IN ABOUT TEN SECONDS: COVER THE RESEARCH PAGE WITH YOUR HAND. IF THE WORK AROUND IT WOULD LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME WITHOUT IT, THE RESEARCH HAS NOT DONE ITS JOB YET. So what does a page that passes that test look like? ⚠️ IT IS USUALLY SHORTER, NOT LONGER. One observation, not twenty facts. ⭐ AND THE OBSERVATION IS ABOUT A DECISION SOMEBODY MADE, NOT ABOUT WHAT THE WORK IS ABOUT. "This painter left the ground of the canvas showing through in places instead of covering it" is a decision. "This painter was interested in light" is a summary, and you can do nothing with it. ⭐⭐ BECAUSE A DECISION IS SOMETHING YOU CAN MAKE TOO. You can leave your own ground showing. You can try it and hate it. Either way something in your work changed because of what you looked at, and that is the thing being marked. ⚠️ AND NOTICE WHAT THIS IS NOT. IT IS NOT COPYING A STYLE. Producing a careful imitation of somebody else's picture shows that you can imitate. ⭐ BORROWING ONE DECISION AND APPLYING IT TO YOUR OWN SUBJECT SHOWS THAT YOU UNDERSTOOD WHY THEY DID IT. That difference is where the higher bands are decided. One question to carry through everything that follows: what decision did this person make that I could make too?

Two research pages, side by side

The same artist, studied two ways. The third column is what you can apply to your own sketchbook.

Tap what the claim actually says

Tap the TWO statements that follow from the mark being in the link rather than the research.

• If your own work would look the same with the research page removed, the research has not done its job
• What is worth recording is a decision the artist made rather than a summary of what they were interested in
• A longer and more detailed research page will generally earn more than a short one
• The strongest response to an artist is a careful imitation of one of their works

Accurate, neat, and worth little

A sketchbook page gives an artist's dates, the movement they belonged to, a reproduction of one work and an accurate description of what it shows. Nothing in it is wrong. Why does it earn so little?

• Because nothing on it is a decision the student could make themselves, so nothing in their own work can change as a result
• Because it is too short and needs more detail about the artist
• Because some of the biographical detail is probably inaccurate
• Because the reproduction takes up space that should be used for the student's own drawing

Five terms for this objective

Five terms, each defined by what it is. How to use them is the work of the steps that follow.

Match each observation to what you could try

Two that follow from the link

Select the TWO statements that follow from research having to change what you made.

• An attempt that did not work still counts, provided you show what you tried and what happened
• A page with one useful observation can be worth more than a page with twenty accurate facts
• The best way to show you understood an artist is to reproduce one of their works as accurately as you can
• Research can be added at the end of a project to explain work you have already finished

How to make a research page do something

You have already met the four assessment objectives and how a project moves through them. ⚠️ THIS IS ONLY ABOUT THE FIRST ONE, AND ABOUT THE PART OF IT THAT MOST SKETCHBOOKS GET WRONG. ⭐ START BY LOOKING FOR A VERB, NOT A LABEL. Ask what this person DID, not what they were interested in or which movement they belonged to. Did they leave something out? Change a colour that could not have been that colour? Cut the subject off at the edge? Work on a surface nobody would normally use? ⭐⭐ THEN ASK WHY IT WORKS, BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT MAKES IT TRANSFERABLE. A decision you can explain is one you can apply to a completely different subject. A decision you only admire is one you can only copy. THEN NAME WHAT YOU WILL TRY, AND WHERE. ⚠️ BE SPECIFIC: not "I will use this in my work", but "I will crop my own photograph the way this print is cropped, on the second page of my development." THEN DO IT, AND KEEP THE RESULT EVEN IF IT FAILS. ⭐ A FAILED ATTEMPT WITH A NOTE SAYING WHY IT FAILED IS STRONGER EVIDENCE THAN NO ATTEMPT AT ALL. ⚠️ AND MAKE THE CONNECTION VISIBLE IN THE WORK, NOT JUST ASSERTED IN THE WRITING. Writing "influenced by" under a drawing that shows no sign of it convinces nobody. If the influence is real, a viewer should be able to see it before reading anything. ⚠️ THREE HABITS THAT COST MARKS ON THIS OBJECTIVE. ⚠️ THE FIRST IS THE BIOGRAPHY. Dates and life events are almost never usable. If a fact about somebody's life genuinely explains a decision in the work, keep it and say so; otherwise it is taking up space. ⚠️ THE SECOND IS DESCRIBING WHAT A WORK SHOWS. A marker can see what it shows. What they cannot see is which choice you noticed and what you did about it. ⚠️ AND THE THIRD IS RESEARCHING ONLY FAMOUS PAINTERS. ⭐ YOUR SPECIFICATION SAYS ARTISTS, CRAFTSPEOPLE AND DESIGNERS. A textile maker, a furniture designer, an illustrator or a photographer may offer a decision far closer to what your own project needs. One last thing about sources. Material you gathered yourself and material somebody else gathered are both usable, and they are not equal: your own photographs and drawings give you information nobody else has, which is exactly what makes a personal response possible.

The same print, studied twice

Take a woodblock print made in Japan in the early nineteenth century, of a great curling wave with a small boat beneath it and a mountain far away in the distance. It is long out of copyright, most people have seen it, and it is described here in plain words rather than reproduced. TWO STUDENTS PUT IT IN THEIR SKETCHBOOKS. WATCH THE DIFFERENCE. THE FIRST WRITES: the artist was Japanese, worked in the early nineteenth century, made prints from carved wooden blocks, and was interested in the relationship between people and nature. The print is famous and has been reproduced many times. ⚠️ EVERY WORD OF THAT IS TRUE. THERE IS NOTHING IN IT THAT COULD CHANGE A SINGLE MARK THEY MAKE. THE SECOND WRITES SOMETHING SHORTER. The wave is much bigger than the mountain behind it, even though a mountain is enormously larger than any wave. The artist has put the near thing high and the far thing small and low, so the wave appears to be about to fall on the mountain as well as on the boat. ⭐ THAT IS A DECISION. SOMEBODY CHOSE TO ARRANGE IT THAT WAY, AND THE EFFECT IS AVAILABLE TO ANYONE WHO UNDERSTANDS WHY IT WORKS. And then they write one more line: I am going to try this with the tree outside my house and the block of flats behind it. ⭐⭐ NOW TURN THE PAGE, AND THE DIFFERENCE IS NOT IN THE WRITING. IT IS IN THE DRAWINGS. There are three attempts. In the first the tree is too small and it simply looks like a badly framed photograph. In the second the tree fills most of the sheet and the flats have shrunk to something almost toy-like, and it works, unsettlingly. The third tries the same idea with a person in the foreground and it collapses, because a person at that scale reads as a mistake rather than a choice. ⚠️ UNDER THE THIRD THEY HAVE WRITTEN THAT IT DID NOT WORK AND WHY THEY THINK SO. THAT NOTE IS WORTH MARKS. ⭐ AND HERE IS THE TEST FROM EARLIER, APPLIED. COVER THE RESEARCH ON BOTH SKETCHBOOKS. The first student's drawings are entirely unaffected; nothing on that page reached them. The second student's three attempts stop making sense, because they exist only as a consequence of one observation about scale. One more thing worth noticing. The second student used a reproduction, which is somebody else's gathering, to get the idea. But the tree and the flats are their own photographs, taken outside their own house. ⭐ THE BORROWED DECISION MET MATERIAL NOBODY ELSE HAD, AND THAT COMBINATION IS WHAT MAKES A RESPONSE PERSONAL RATHER THAN DERIVATIVE.

Order how one observation becomes evidence

Put these six moves into the order that turns looking at somebody else's work into something a marker can credit.

• Find one thing the artist DID, rather than what they were interested in
• Work out why that choice produces the effect it does
• Name what you will try because of it, and on which part of your own work
• Make the attempt, on your own subject rather than theirs
• Keep the result even if it failed, and say what went wrong
• Check that a viewer could see the connection without reading your annotation

Build the sentence a marker can credit

This is the annotation that turns a research page into evidence. Assemble it.

The contextual understanding run

Five questions on making research change the work. Three lives.

Complete the contextual understanding facts

Study of the work of other artists, craftspeople or designers as part of your own project is _____. Material you gathered yourself, such as your own photographs, is a _____. Material gathered by somebody else, such as a reproduction, is a _____. How the parts of a work are arranged within its edges is its _____.

Three sketchbook pages to fix

Three students showing you their contextual research. In each case the work is honest and the link is what needs work.

• A student shows you a beautifully presented page: a printed reproduction, a biography, and a paragraph on the movement the artist belonged to. Nothing in it is wrong. What do you tell them?
• A student has written "influenced by" under a drawing, but you cannot see any connection between the drawing and the artist they name. They insist the influence is real. How do you respond?
• A student's project is about textures in fabric, and every research page is about famous painters because that is who they could find. What would you suggest?

Turn one observation into a plan

Choose an artist, craftsperson or designer whose work you can look at. Find one decision they made, and explain what you will do with it in your own project.

• Name one specific thing the maker DID, using a verb rather than describing what they were interested in
• Explain why that choice produces the effect it does on somebody looking at the work
• Say exactly what you will try because of it, and on which part of your own project
• Explain how a viewer would be able to see the connection without reading your annotation
• Say what you will do if the attempt does not work, and why keeping it still helps you
• Explain why this is different from copying the maker's style, and avoid asserting any fact about them you are not sure of