The formal analysis paper will be assigned in section during the week of January 27th. The papers are due in section during the week of February 3rd. If there are any questions about the assignment please contact your teaching assistant.
In a 2-4 page paper, summarize Barnes' argument in your own words, emphasizing the main ideas; state the author's basic assumptions; respond to the author's methodology, use of evidence, and ability to prove his thesis; identify what you found th most interesting, surprising, or disturbing in the document and analyze why; and discuss how the reading relates to what you already know, within or outside the field of art history. The paper is due in section during the week of March 3rd.
Write a 5-7 page essay on a single painting or sculpture created between 1400 and the present and located in the Renaissance, European, American, or Comtemporary Galleries in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Please contact your teaching assistant if you wish to select an architectural work (architectural paper topics are restricted to Philadelphia). The essay should include formal analysis of the object/building, consideration of its placement in the museum/city, attention to its particular power (consider the arguments of Freedberg), the historical importance of its theme/style (use as your sources your texts and notes from the lectures) and in the case of architecture, consider urban context and local traditions. Devote at least one page of the essay to analysis of the questions that you would ask about this work were you to undertake a full-scale art historical analysis of its meaning; cite 5-7 possible sources for further reading and research in an appropriate bibliographic style (e.g., the Chicago Manuel of Style - there are several copies in the reference section of Van Pelt). Carefully document all references to the reading and lectures by parentheses in your text, such as (Minott, lecture February 10) or (Honour and Fleming, p.378). You may not write on a work discussed during the PMA tour or in lecture.