An Introduction to Visual Culture - Essay Example

The book entitled “Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture” is written by Sturken and Cartwright and it is published in 2001. The first chapter is all about humans’ ability and capability to attach meanings to their surroundings. Additionally, each one of us has been blessed with the tendency to attach a different meaning to a visual stimulus (Sturken.M & Cartwright, 2001) and therefore, it can be argued that art does not have a meaning of its own while; it gets one which the audience assigns.

The strategic choice theory establishes that humans have the discretion to treat the same or similar situation in a different way and the same goes with art everyone has the freedom to formulate an opinion of their own about a painting, picture or even a natural scene. The cliché that states that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder is perfectly applicable in the field of arts. Some people say that the painting called Mona Lisa Smile is nothing but a drawing of a girl with a dark complexion and she is caught in making a halfhearted attempt to smile. The people with the abovementioned belief towards a master class painting see no beauty in it because they do not want to. Psychologists argue that one can find good in bad people as well if anyone cares to look and the same rule applies to arts and paintings. If one learns to look beautiful then perhaps everything is beautiful.