Art Historian Provides Hilarious & Surprisingly Efficient Art History Lessons on TikTok

@_theiconoclassIf youse come at me again for my Aus­tralian pro­nun­ci­a­tion I swear 😂 #arthis­to­ry #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #baroque♬ orig­i­nal sound — AyseD­eniz

Art His­to­ri­an Mary McGillivray believes art appre­ci­a­tion is an acquired skill. Her Tik­Tok project, The Icon­o­class, is bring­ing those lack­ing for­mal art his­to­ry edu­ca­tion up to speed.

The 25-year-old Aus­tralian’s pithy obser­va­tions dou­ble as sur­pris­ing­ly stur­dy mnemon­ics, use­ful for nav­i­gat­ing world class col­lec­tions both live and online.

Some high­lights from her whirl­wind guide to the Baroque peri­od, above:

If it looks like the chaos after black­out where every­one is stum­bling around in the dark under one soli­tary emer­gency light, it’s a Car­avag­gio.

If there’s at least one per­son look­ing to the cam­era like they’re on The Office, it’s a Velázquez.

If there’s a room with some nice fur­ni­ture, a win­dow, and some women just going about their every­day busi­ness, it’s a Ver­meer.

Rather than the tra­di­tion­al chrono­log­i­cal pro­gres­sion, McGillivray mix­es and match­es, often in response to com­ments and Patre­on requests.

When a com­menter on the Baroque Tik­Tok took umbrage that she referred to Artemisia Gen­tileschi by first name only, McGillivray fol­lowed up with an edu­ca­tion­al video explain­ing the con­ven­tion from the 17th-cen­tu­ry per­spec­tive.

@_theiconoclassReply to @rajendzzz her dad was hot, com­ment if you agree #baroque #artemisia #arthis­to­ryclass♬ Guilty Love — Lady­hawke & Broods

At the urg­ing of a Patre­on sub­scriber, she leaps across four cen­turies to dis­cov­er an unex­pect­ed kin­ship between Cubism and Renais­sance painters, using George Braque’s Man with a Gui­tar and San­dro Botticelli’s Four Scenes from the Ear­ly Life of Saint Zeno­bius. One is attempt­ing to escape the shack­les of per­spec­tive by show­ing sur­faces not vis­i­ble when regard­ing a sub­ject from a sin­gle point. The oth­er is using a sin­gle space to depict mul­ti­ple moments in a subject’s life simul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

@_theiconoclass#arthis­to­ry #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #renais­sance #cubism #medievaltik­tok♬ orig­i­nal sound — Fin­ian Hack­ett

McGillivray is will­ing to be seen learn­ing along with her fol­low­ers. She’s open about the fact that she prefers Giot­to and Fra Angeli­co to con­tem­po­rary art (as per­haps befits an art his­to­ri­an whose face is more 1305 than 2021). Artist Dominic White’s wear­able, envi­ron­men­tal sculp­ture Hood­ie Empa­thy Suit does­n’t do much for her until a con­ver­sa­tion with the exhibit­ing gallery’s direc­tor helps ori­ent her to White’s objec­tives.

@_theiconoclassWant to see me tack­le more con­tem­po­rary art? Big thanks to @mprg_vic ❤️🪶#arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #arthis­to­ry #con­tem­po­rar­yart #art­gallery♬ orig­i­nal sound — Mary McGillivray

She tips her hand in an inter­view with Pedes­tri­an TV:

I’m not very inter­est­ed in decid­ing what is art and what isn’t. The whole “what is art” ques­tion has nev­er been very impor­tant to me. The ques­tions I pre­fer to ask are: Why was this image made?

She rec­om­mends art crit­ic John Berg­er’s 1972 four-part series Ways of See­ing to fans eager to expand beyond the Icon­o­class:

It’s got all the things you would expect from a 1970s BBC pro­duc­tion – wide col­lared shirts, long hair, smok­ing on tele­vi­sion – plus some of the most influ­en­tial insights into how we look at art and also how we look at the world around us.

Watch Mary McGillivray’s The Icon­o­class here. Sup­port her Patre­on here.

@_theiconoclassWant a part two? 😏😘 #arthis­to­ry­tik­tok #arthis­to­ry­ma­jor #learnon­tik­tok♬ Rasputin (Sin­gle Ver­sion) — Boney M.

via Bored Pan­da

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Free Art & Art His­to­ry Cours­es

One Minute Art His­to­ry: Cen­turies of Artis­tic Styles Get Packed Into a Short Exper­i­men­tal Ani­ma­tion

An Intro­duc­tion to 100 Impor­tant Paint­ings with Videos Cre­at­ed by Smarthis­to­ry

Steve Mar­tin on How to Look at Abstract Art

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her June 7 for a Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.