ART 2000, Spring 2010

ORAL COMMUNICATION AND THE VISUAL ARTS

FINAL Essay/ TERM-PAPER

A) Select your paper topic from those on which you have made a presentation in class.  Consider which can be expanded most effectively into the longer paper, on which you want to do more research, and for which you will be able to find sufficient research materials. If your topic/theme was assessed as needing refinement, that should be part of the therm paper process, as well.

B) Select 2 comparative works from your text or other books.  Comparative works will help you to refine the statements that you make about your chosen work.  They do not have to be all the same media, but you need to explain why you chose them in relationship to our topic. You may select works we have seen in class, from your textbook or not, or other works from outside class. If you find them on the web, make sure that they are authentic, and NOT copies created for sale.  ArtSTOR (on the library website) is more likely to be trustworthy.  Try examining various works, thinking in terms of the assignment. Consider issues or treatments they have in common or specific ways in which they contrast.

C) Consider the following questions about the works: How do you respond to the works? What were the purposes?  Were the works meant to tell a story, to teach a lesson, to make a point? How are any purposes achieved in formal terms? Are the formal means used effectively or not?  Are your responses related to the ways in which the artist used formal means? Is there a stronger emphasis on form than on content?  Is it abstract? non-objective? naturalistic? idealized? Does the work address the viewer?  If so, how, specifically?  Is there a particular physical, psychological, spiritual, or emotional tenor?  What response do you have, and what, specifically, in the work, brings out that response in you?  Does the style affect your response?          Do you want to explore more work by this artist, or other works from the same period, movement, country, etc.?  Do you want to compare the work to others which have related themes or subject matter?  Any of these might be the central theme of your essay, keeping in mind the topic category for which you chose to do the presentation.  Choose the works and issues carefully, while considering how you will discuss them with regard to your central theme.   

D)  Research: 

·          You must do library research for this project. Create a bibliography of at least 8 entries of written works you consult for your subject/artist/theme.  These must include journal articles from scholarly publications -- journals and books. They should be of considerable length – at least 15 pages per article; they should not be reviews of shows, works, or books.   Do not rely on the internet (see below).  You may use shorter sources, if they are relevant, but they cannot part of the needed 8 main works, rather they would be over and above those 8.

·          If your chosen work was not created by a major artist, you may not have a full range of choice of research materials on the person.  You might need to focus your investigation upon the thematic issues or the culture or time period, or historical context.  At any rate, you still must still make sure that you are treating the assignment as a research project, while retaining the primary goal of investigating the work as a work of art.    

·          Your careful thinking about your project in terms of issues of the class, and your attention to thoughtful presentation of your findings is most important.

·          You must plan to create a very specific, clear, and coherent treatment of the material.  In addition to your involvement with research, you should deal with the piece in a personal way, writing about your own observations and reactions, carefully considering them, and then discussing them in terms of what you are learning about art and art history, research and presentation techniques in this class.

·          Grades will be based on how well you contend with the work and the ideas, as well as researching what other scholars have offered and your writing.

  E) Cite your sources.   You will need to consult sources to further inform yourself about the type of work, its meaning and use, as well as relevant data about cultural/historical context, period, and purpose.  Be careful to give credit for any sources you read, any ideas you gather, and any information you use, WHETHER YOU QUOTE IT DIRECTLY OR NOT.     Citation for art history is in Chicago style, with footnotes (preferred) or endnotes – DO NOT use parenthetical references.   

PLAGIARISM – STEALING OTHERS’ IDEAS – IS A SERIOUS ACADEMIC OFFENSE, AND WILL BE TREATED AS SUCH.  AND, IT IS ALWAYS MUCH MORE APPARENT THAN YOU THINK IT WILL BE.

(And I can easily check it)

BE VERY CAUTIOUS ABOUT “INFORMATION” FROM THE INTERNET.   There is no requirement for anyone to have any authority to post on the web.  Especially avoid “.com” sites as unlikely to have scholarly content, credentials. If you use info from a website, give the full web address, as a hotlink and state the date of access.    Nonetheless, the web may be a good source for downloading images you need to submit with your paper, although ArtSTOR is more reliable for authenticity, as noted above.

·          For any references, or background material you read, create a detailed, properly formatted bibliography, to attach to your paper.  If you use any ideas from what you read, whether you quote it directly or paraphrase, you must give credit to those persons for their ideas, including the authors of your textbook for this course, and class lecture statements by me or by any other teachers, or other lecturers from whom you may have gleaned ideas.  Such credit is given by citation in footnotes or endnotes. Use whatever suits you – Turabian, Chicago, MLA, etc., but DO use a standard system, NOT one you make up.

·          As for writing and speaking about art, as opposed to other topics, it may help to consult sources such as Barnet’s A Short Guide to Writing About Art;  Sayre’s Writing about Art:  di Yanni’s  Writing about the Humanities; Reid’s Writing and Thinking about Art History.  However, it may be sufficient to carefully consider requirements of the assignment as stated.

 2) YOUR PAPER SHOULD MEET THESE REQUIREMENTS:

A) First, in list form, at the beginning of your essay, identify the 3 (or more) works fully, including artist, title, date, media, size, museum number or reference number.

            1) If you use works from your text for comparison, give page number, or illustration number, as well as artist, title, date, media, size.  (ex. Stokstad p. 306 or  # 13-1, Gianlorenzo Bernini. Saint Teresa of Avila in Ecstasy. 1645-52. Marble. 11’6”. Cornaro Chapel, Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.) For these, you do not need copies.

     2) For works from sources other than your textbook, assign figure numbers (in the order they appear in your discussion), and insert the images into your electronic document, with captions below the images ,that give the artist’s name, full title of the work, including location for architecture, architectural decoration, date, media, dimensions, museum location if not architecture and still in situ,  and the source of your image.  See the samples below for presentation and caption forms. 

B) Describe clearly the basis upon which your works are associated. This is the main point of your essay and should be a well-developed theme.    

IMAGES

·          Insert your images into the text of the paper or place them at the end.  They do not count for part of the page count needed.

·          These must have:

artist’s name, title, date, media, size, image source, page or illustration number  – all neatly typed below the image.

·           Label them as Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, etc. (arranged in the order they are introduced in your discussion).   

·          For each, supply information about the source of the image in your bibliography, the same as you would for any reference.

ESSAY  In your essay you will discuss the works you have chosen in terms of the issues or elements that you have decided to emphasize and compare.  Describe the relevant visual elements of the works in verbal terms, as well as any inter-relationships between form and content.  Consider the size, media, technique, composition, setting, design, materials, cultural context, color, line, value, modeling, volume, light, space, texture, condition, etc., and how the artist/architect used the various means to create effects, moods, direction, depth, structure, etc. 

BUT, do not get bogged down in exhaustive formal analysis – only deal with issues important to the theme of your essay.

Focusing on your chosen works, write a careful, clear and coherent essay, discussing those pieces in the context for our class.  You may compare and/or contrast formal aspects, your responses to the works, or the ways in which the artists achieve their effects.

Avoid a generalized discourse on details of history, culture, style, or personal opinion.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (WORKS CITED)

WHAT YOU MUST CITE:

·          your textbooks, if used -- full citation, even if you only use images from them.

·          my lectures or another teacher’s lectures,  by giving the reference (course#, date). 

·          any references, or background material you read 

·          any ideas from what you read, whether you quote it directly or paraphrase

·          any website material you use

·          For any references, or background material you read, create a detailed, properly-formatted bibliography, to include at the end of the paper (not necessarily on a separate page, if the list is short). 

·          If you use any ideas from what you read or hear, whether you quote it directly or paraphrase, you must give credit to those persons for their ideas, given by citation in footnotes or endnotes.

·          You must provide copies of any website material you use. Download and print, attach to back of your paper.

·          Use whatever system suits you – Chicago (the standard for art history),Turabian, MLA, etc., but DO use a standard system, NOT one you make up. (DO NOT use parenthetical references, ONLY footnotes or endnotes.)

·          GRADING:  As per your syllabus, the assignment is worth nearly 15% of the total grade for the semester’s work, so plan to spend time and thought and care on it.  You will be judged for creating a neat, well-written, carefully completed document, with proper grammar, punctuation, spelling, and references and bibliographic data.  There will be NO EXTENSION OF DEADLINES, REGARDLESS OF CIRCUMSTANCES, so plan ahead.  No late papers will be accepted.

Intellectual Content/Artistic Relevance = 50%; Presentation/Following Directions = 25 %; Structure/Grammar/Writing = 25%

   IMAGE PRESENTATION

CHECKLIST FOR ESSAY (DUE through the Assignment Dropbox, by May 4^th)