Look and See: What Makes a Work of Art Work

Sunday, November 9, 2025, Noon to 2pm

Congregation Tifereth Israel, 519 4^th Street

Greenport, New York

Donation of $18 per person

In today’s world, we are relentlessly bombarded with images—from digital media and streaming videos to big-screen, phantasmagorical blockbusters—each shaping and manipulating our opinions, decisions, and perceptions. Visual literacy—the ability to “read” visual language—is an essential skill for understanding how and why we respond as we do to what we see.

This presentation explores the language of art through close readings of familiar masterpieces, moving from their surface beauty to the hidden structures beneath. We will, for example, examine the apocalyptic visions of artists such as Jacques-Louis David, Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, and contemporary creators from the United States, the Middle East, and South America. Along the way, we’ll uncover how light, shape, color, and line conspire to provoke fear, desire, anger, or confusion.

As you sharpen your visual literacy, you will also sharpen your ability to discern—and to question—the ways culture shapes art’s ever-changing forms.