Exploring the Text

1. Who or what is being tested in The Innocent Eye Test? What does the painting say about art criticism? How do the details complicate the answer to who is testing whom?

   Chapter 11 - The Innocent Eye Test - Exploring the Text: Who or what is being tested in The Innocent Eye Test? What does the painting say about art criticism? How do the details complicate the answer to who is testing whom?
2. Identify and analyze the visual and historical information in this painting.

   Chapter 11 - The Innocent Eye Test - Exploring the Text: Identify and analyze the visual and historical information in this painting.
3. Visual art can be analyzed through the rhetorical triangle (see Chapter 1). Consider the painting, the artist, and the audience separately, and then analyze the relationships among these three elements.

   Chapter 11 - The Innocent Eye Test - Exploring the Text: Visual art can be analyzed through the rhetorical triangle (see Chapter 1). Consider the painting, the artist, and the audience separately, and then analyze the relationships among these three elements.
4. A hallmark of postmodern art is the appropriation—quoting or borrowing—of other art. What has Mark Tansey borrowed in this painting? What is the relationship between the old and the new? How does the appropriation create a conversation between the artist and the viewer? Between the past and the present?

   Chapter 11 - The Innocent Eye Test - Exploring the Text: A hallmark of postmodern art is the appropriation—quoting or borrowing—of other art. What has Mark Tansey borrowed in this painting? What is the relationship between the old and the new? How does the appropriation create a conversation between the artist and the viewer? Between the past and the present?
5. American novelist William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) is credited with noting that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. Does Tansey’s painting make the same point, or does it refute it? Explain your response.

   Chapter 11 - The Innocent Eye Test - Exploring the Text: American novelist William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) is credited with noting that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. Does Tansey’s painting make the same point, or does it refute it? Explain your response.