ARTH 695 – Topics In Art History

7pp. min. double spaced

Paper assignment: compare Jacque Tati’s Jour de fˆete, the color with the black and white and the colorized 64 version (Criterion). Also compare The Martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul after Parmigianino as rendered in chiaroscuro woodcut (Antonio da Trento) and engraving (Caraglio). You might also compare the fresco decoration for Villa La Gallina at Arcetri by Pollaiuolo with his altarpiece of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (London).

or

Compare L’Herbier, The late Matthias Pascal and with Mozzhukhin, The House of Mystery (1923). Describe movement, lighting, composition, and range of expression. Compare with the figures in Salvator Rosa’s etchings (the British Museum website is very helpful) or with Jacques Callot, or another printmaker of your choice.

=======================ADVICE ON WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS===================================

Start from a question, and develop a thesis. Evaluate what you read; don’t merely paraphrase it. In order to accomplish this, use a variety of sources, plus your own head. Organize your thoughts. Know why every paragraph is where it is, and why it begins and ends as it does. Put a new idea in every sentence, but not much more. Eliminate excess words. Don’t hesitate to revise and rewrite. When you are willing to discard, you are beginning to get somewhere. Be particularly careful to rewrite the the first and last paragraphs until they are as good as you can make them. Do not glide along on the level of glib generalization. Range from carefully wrought details to more speculative vistas. Consider alternative ways of understanding your subject and your evidence. Make sure your reader will not be able to misunderstand what you write. Being as precise as possible and no more so is tricky, but very important. Often prose is improved by removing unnecessary verbiage. Clarity is the object. The best handbook to good writing is the admirably concise Strunk and White, The Elements of Style. Edit carefully, or your reader will mistrust you. Art history students should also become adept at close, analytical observation, plus develop a sense of history and the questions it raises. This paper is an opportunity to enhance all of these skills. Don’t merely absorb; evaluate and critique, both what you read and what you see. Always ask yourself how we know what we say we know. What is the evidence for the claims being made?

The basic reference encyclopedia for the discipline is the Grove Dictionary of Art (on-line databases, Library). To find articles in periodicals, begin by using JSTOR. It is your responsibility to find the best sources (including ones our Library may not have), which will not necessarily be the most recent ones. Don’t leave Recall or Interlibrary loan requests to the last minute. [This semester Library resources are more limited than usual.] Remember that museum websites may be important research tools, that Google Art Project has digital images of very high resolution, and that ArtStor has search capacities.

Footnotes may supplement your argument, credit opinions, or direct the reader to the most authoritative sources of information (do not footnote facts which are general in the literature, such as an artist’s birth and death dates—unless, of course, those dates are a matter of controversy). Do not use quotation as a crutch; quote only when the exact wording is crucial. Always integrate quotations into your own prose and your own argument; do not lean on authority. Indent and single space quotations of more than five lines.

Research skill entails sorting through potential sources to determine which are the most authoritative and comprehensive, as well as judging which are the most promising avenues for questioning and/or expanding the evidence. Take whatever opportunities you have to use foreign language skills, and remember that translation is always imperfect.