Abstract :
This article explores the way young people’s
responses to an image evolve when they engage
with it repeatedly. An analysis of the
sequential encounters of six adolescents with a
Renaissance painting reveals that, as they gained
experience with the picture, the youngsters
probed for increasingly deeper layers of meaning
in the work. Specifically, on their second
encounter with the painting, the students
showed greater sensitivity to visual information,
and they incorporated their own experiences and
knowledge into the meaning-making process
more actively than on their first encounter.
This study also shows that, once the participants
had established a relationship with the artwork
on their own terms, they seemed eager to
discover contextual information about it.
However, far from accepting this information as
‘authority’, the young viewers considered it critically
and used it to deepen, expand and revise
their personal visions of the painting.
