Paper 2 – Canonical Art History
Listen
Hide Assignment Information
Instructions
Purpose
El Greco. Burial of the Count of Orgaz. 1586-88. Artstor.
The purpose of this assignment is to apply a canonical art method to construct your own account of art history. The featured canonical methods include Hegel’s Absolute Idea, Connoisseurship, Formalism, and Iconography-iconology. Choose one of the featured methods as your method for this assignment.
Format of Your Paper
Expected Length: 2000 words for main text (not counting the reference page)
References: 5 scholarly resources
Submit your paper in a word file (e.g., .docx, .rtf)
Due Date: see Course Schedule
Readings and Image References
You are encouraged to use the SUNY Empire Online Library’s image databases (e.g., Artstor), and for academic articles, JSTOR is a good search reference tool.
If this is your first art history paper, please read this website: Writing in Art History, to understand several common approaches to writing art history papers.
Use at least 5 scholarly references of your own choice. Resources you choose to use will determine the reliability and quality of your analysis. Failing to use sufficient scholarly resources may result in inadequate or weak analysis of artwork.
Use art history books, virtual museums, or internet resources to locate a work of art, depending on the artwork you wish to investigate. Explore the course page titled Online Resources Art History and Culture.
Assignment Instructions
Section 1: Explaining the Method
Use your own words to explain the method as comprehensive as you can. Consider these questions:
What is the guiding principle or theory behind your chosen method?
What is the purpose of the method?
How does the method work?
How can the method be applied to undertake visual analysis?
What are the specific characters of the method?
How does the method respond to the art historical needs and sociocultural contexts of its time?
How does the method explain the shift of artistic styles?
Who are the creators or prominent users of the method? What were their thoughts about the method?
What are the strengths of the method? What are the limitations of the method?
Find at least two scholarly sources, other than the textbook, to strengthen not only your understanding of the method, but also your articulation of the method. Preferably, use scholarly sources written by the creators or prominent users of the method. The suggested readings at the end of each chapter of the textbook are also excellent sources.
Section 2: Describing Your Approach
Describe how you will apply the method to create a mini account of art history.
Explain how you will organize the content of your art history. For example, will your art history be organized by a theme; a set of artworks from a single artist; a group of artists from the same time, culture, or society; a genre or style practiced by a group of artists; a chronological order; a comparative study of artworks; a specific art medium; or other sensible scheme?
What contribution do you wish your account of art history make? For example, do you wish your art history offers new evidence to authenticate an artist’s work? Do you wish your art history changes the assumption associated with a style of art? Do you wish your art history sheds new lights into human or sociocultural conditions of a given time, society, or culture?
Section 3: Making Art History
Apply your chosen method and organizational scheme to write up and make your mini art history. You must include and analyze at least 5 artworks in your account of art history. Use at least 2 reliable sources to help you learn about the artworks, their creators, and other necessary information according to your method. Include images of the artworks and provide a proper caption to each art work including: Artist Name, Title of The Work, Year, Medium, and Dimension. For example, if you plan to focus on Connoisseurship method, you may apply the Morellian tests to observe, describe, and compare five paintings by the artists from the 14th century Florentine School. Your account of art history thus may contribute to more detailed understanding of the style of the Florentine School and help authenticate the Florentine paintings. If you are interested in the history of paintings of the Madonna and Child over several centuries, you may use Formalism or Iconography method, to compare and contrast the styles, symbolism, or content of five paintings of said subject matter from different periods. Your account of art history thus may shed light into why and how the visual representations of the selected prominent subject matter shift over time.
Section 4: References
Include at least 5 references. This can include the textbook and several “reliable” and “scholarly” materials that provide you with biographical, historical, and cultural information about the artwork you are studying. MLA style is preferred.
Research Writing Resources
The SUNY Empire Library has excellent resources to help with your research writing, but here are some especially relevant ones:
Citing Sources (Use MLA Style)
What is a Research Paper?
Steps in Writing a Research Paper
Research Skills Tutorial: Scholarly, Popular and Trade Information Sources
