Hannah Sammut

An analysis of Jason Farago of The New York Times’ “Close Read” series for a visual storytelling course.

The “Close Read”- How Interactive Art Criticism Explores Major Pieces for the Casual Observer 

By Hannah Sammut

For most, a trip to an art museum can be a rather passive experience. Without much context or background knowledge on artwork, most simply scan the galleries; admiring what aesthetically looks “nice” or trying to find a piece by an artist that may be a little more well-recognized. That’s where an excellent guided tour can really make the difference- it turns Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans into commentaries on what is considered “fine art” and how it should be available for middle class masses, it turns Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” from a figure with its mouth agape to an interpretation of what a panic attack during an outing with friends looks like. It’s the context behind each work that adds value to the experience of visiting a gallery, it makes us feel like art experts for a day. So in the time of COVID-19, how are those both itching to return to the galleries and the passive viewer supposed to gain new insights into the art world?

Enter The New York Times’ “Close Read”, a visual interactive that combines the experience of a mini art history lesson, a guided tour, and a philosophy class all into one. Designed for those mildly interested in art but definitely not experts, the pieces are written by Jason Farago, The Times’ resident art critic.  

His first “Close Read,” titled “Taking Lessons From a Bloody Masterpiece,” examines Thomas Eakins’ “The Gross Clinic” (1875), a painting once regarded as so grotesque that The Times once wrote it as, “so dreadful that public may be well excused if it turn away in horror.” The painting is a depiction of Thomas Gross, one of the first modern surgeons, and his team performing a surgery in a darkened theater of peers. That’s where the first interactive comes in– a zoom into the protagonist of the piece, a surgeon “leaning like a ship’s captain on a choppy sea.” A scroll further, and we are zoomed in once more to the surgeon’s halo of white hair that illuminates him as if he contained a beam of knowledge. It’s then that our eye (or rather, the screen takes us to) takes us to his blood-soaked hands- the very detail that was so challenging to the fine art community. Beside the enlarged photo of the painting, facts and figures about archaic surgical practices at the time appear on the screen, giving the reader an understanding far greater than just scrolling through, say a virtual gallery. 

As context is the main theme here, other pieces with anatomy as the main topic come up as the reader continues to scroll. An immersive technique is attempted to give once again a larger understanding of the topic, as tools used during surgeries at the time are shown as well as some hidden Easter eggs in the piece. A hidden portrait of the artist himself as one of the peers in the surgical theater is revealed and intentional similarities between the way pencils in the theater and scalpels in the foreground were painted (Eakins wanted to highlight how both art students and surgical students must look at the bluntness of life and death without sentiment) are all things that would remain unnoticed if it weren’t for the way “Close Read” tackled interactive criticism. 

However, it’s the “Close Read” of Albrecht Durer’s “Self-Portrait at Age Twenty-Eight” that is the magnum opus of how amazing The Times interactive art criticism pieces can be. Published this September, it tackles one of the most important movements in art history- the self portrait. 

Instantly, we are greeted by a portrait of a beautiful young man, who beckons us closer, (cue an extreme zoom-in) and asks us who we are, what we are doing here, and what we see. As we scroll more, focus is solely on the man’s eyes, so absurdly realistic it could be a photo. It’s this interactive journey that explores the self-portraiture of Albrecht Durer, whose pieces are so life-like that they could be regarded as history’s first “selfie.”

Panning throughout the work brings the fine detail to light- the hairs on the subject’s beard that are so minute some call it “fetishitic” and rivals believed a special brush was used. In a museum one could never dare to get this close; surely security alarms would sound as soon as one could make out the individual bristles of Durer’s fur-lined collar. With another scroll, we are transported into his eyes, where we can just make out a reflection of a window. Another, and we’re shown the detailed vein on his hand. Well-known paintings pop up beside Duer’s portrait, suggesting he used masters’ depictions of Christ to try to create himself. 

My favorite part about this “Close Read” is how it introduces other works via panning to show how self-portraiture was often hidden into a larger work. A large Botticelli piece is shown and after a scroll, we are hyper-zoomed in again to see the artist painted into the background. Durer helped normalize the depiction of self, and to make a lasting impression, a further scroll through the article zooms into popular contemporary self-portraits. We’re met with depictions of Frida Khalo, Andy Warhol, and Sarah Lucas. Once again, what could have been just a passive glance at an old master painting has been transformed into a commentary about the depiction of self with the help of guiding our eyes. 

As soon as we visit the page, we are met with a pair of eyes belonging to a perfectly painted stranger. Stranger to most, as the intent is for the reader to question why it’s the man in this painting who deserves an entire feature article in The New York Times. The eyes ask us who are we, what are we doing here, and takes us through a journey of the man who revolutionized the self-portrait so absurdly realistic it could only be regarded as history’s first “selfie”.

Interactive scrolling and graphics highlight some of the novel techniques in Albrecht Drurer’s “Self Portrait at Age 28”, and pop-up text give insight on how one man’s portrait changed art history forever. The interactive piece is intended for readers who aren’t familiar with the art history world, but can recognize some famous artists that are mentioned to further understanding. Analysis of this piece feels necessary because today we live in an era where pictures of oneself are everywhere, and it would be interesting to understand how the normalization of one’s image instead of a religious figure (as was typical during art of the time) came to be.

One of Farago’s posts