Choose one image from early “realistic” methods of artistic representation and one image from later “art of alteration” and analyze the following: What kind of truth does each work try to achieve? What methods is each artist using to create this kind of truth? How do these methods differ from each other?

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The Truth of Art

Instructions
Aaron Douglas’s style “is the result of a deep-rooted belief that in trying to imitate the actual world, art-as-likeness was really falsifying the way we see that world.” Although all art is a form of imitation—whether of the actual or the imaginary world—Douglas’s belief highlights the way artists have used conflicting methods of getting to the “truth” of the world. Choose one image from early “realistic” methods of artistic representation and one image from later “art of alteration” and analyze the following: What kind of truth does each work try to achieve? What methods is each artist using to create this kind of truth? How do these methods differ from each other?

Using the Met Timeline of Art, find an art piece that you will give a visual analysis of. You will then create a screen recording, making a 2-4 minute video of the qualities within the piece. Describe the visual qualities thoroughly within the analysis.

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Met Timeline of Art

Welcome to Unit 4. Now that we have explored the meaning of art, art qualities and art materials, we are going to pull it all together to discuss art analysis. Art is meant to be engaged with, we as humans are meant to examine and react to pieces of art. A formal art analysis offers a great start to examining a piece before moving into other factors such as social context and iconography, etc. This unit focuses only on the visual analysis, but in future units we will discus meaning, iconography, social context, etc.

Using the Met Timeline of Art, find an art piece that you will give a visual analysis of. You will then create a screen recording, making a 2-4 minute video of the qualities within the piece. Try to describe the visual qualities thoroughly within the analysis. You must submit the technical information of your chosen art piece along with the link to your video.
If you are not sure how to create a screen capture video, you are able to use Screen-Cast-O-Matic to create a free screen capture video.

Having completed your self-portrait, write a 500 word essay about your process. What was your inspiration? What led you to make your artistic decision(s)? What are your overall feelings towards cubism?

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Artistic expression #2

Cubism, as innovated by artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, “combined a large range of viewpoints,” placing an emphasis on the geometry of a subject and showing it from multiple perspectives. The result is a fractured image across the canvas (Phillips pg. 38). For your second artistic expression exercise, you will create a self-portrait in the cubist style.

Instructions:
This assignment features two components.

Portrait – Complete a Cubist-style self-portrait! You may use paints, color crayons or pencils, pastels, etc. It must be completed on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of paper. Submit a picture of your self-portrait, along with a picture of yourself — the subject.

Essay – Having completed your self-portrait, write a 500 word essay about your process. What was your inspiration? What led you to make your artistic decision(s)? What are your overall feelings towards cubism?

Is the work interactive, dynamic, collaborative, participatory, or adaptable? Does it explore appropriation, feedback, or instant replay? Does it expose the mechanics of video? Does it explore process? 

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Nam June Paik

Requirements

  • Write an essay about an artist Nam June Paik and discuss it in the context of  Video Art, and New Media Art in general.
  • The essay must include a specific work of Video Art, as well as an interpretation of your selection based on your understanding of the work and the qualities of the video review in the course materials.
  • Aim for about 4 thoughtful paragraphs.
  • Please refer to the Suggested Outline below.
  • Use the work of art as your text. While you are encouraged to consult course materials and the museum/gallery page linked below, no additional outside research is required. Please be sure to cite any sources if you do consult them (MLA style is preferred).
  • It’s helpful to include a word count at the end of your paper.
  • Please include any images you discuss in your paper. Practice labeling your images with artist, title, date, and medium. Note that titles of artworks should always be italicized.

Paragraph 1 (about 50-100 words)

  1. Introduce the work of art with the artist’s name, title (in italics), date it was created (if known), and medium (for example, multichannel video, video installation, black and white video, etc.). You can also include where the work is located or was installed if known, but this is optional.
  2. Include a thesis statement. Your thesis should provide a framework for your analysis and suggest your interpretation of the work and why it is a good representation of Video Art. A thesis statement does not necessarily involve a statement of the argument, but it should let the reader know how the artist’s formal choices affect the viewer’s understanding of the work’s content.
  3. Give the reader a sense of what you think the work of art is about and what the effect of the use of video has on the viewer? You might think about why the artist chose video. How would the work be different in another medium?

Paragraphs 2 & 3 (about 150 words each)

  1. In paragraph 2, you should briefly describe your example and point to the specific characteristics of Video and New Media Art you see used. For example, is the work interactive, dynamic, collaborative, participatory, or adaptable? Does it explore appropriation, feedback, or instant replay? Does it expose the mechanics of video? Does it explore process? You should be able to apply at least two characteristics of Video Art and two characteristics of New Media to your example.
  2. When discussing your artwork, you may also consider if the artist explores time, movement, color,or sound. Is the work projected outside, or is it within the walls of the gallery or museum space? How does the work’s location affect the viewer’s experience of it? Does the video immerse the viewer in an installation, or is it more intimate?
  3. Paragraph 3 should address your interpretation of the artwork; this is what you think the work of art is about. Since you are viewing the video online, you might think about how this platform differs from being in the same physical space as the artwork. Be sure to back up any interpretation with direct observation of the art object!

Conclusion (about 50-100 words)

  1. Your conclusion should briefly summarize your findings and relate back to the thesis statement you presented in your introduction; however, you should avoid simply repeating what you’ve already stated. You should include any new ideas, insights, or understandings you gained about the work through the analysis process.
  2. For example, consider how your example affected your understanding of Video Art (and perhaps of New Media more broadly). Does it give you a new appreciation of how artists can use video to encourage viewer participation and interaction? Did the work transform space in new or unexpected ways? Does it provide social commentary, or suggest a break with conventional approaches to art and/or art-making?
  3. Don’t forget to include an image, or images, of the artwork you’re discussing in your paper.

Discuss how the function of literature compares with the function of myth as described in chapter 3. To focus your answer, consider the hero myth alongside any combination of Homer’s Iliad, the novels of Ernest Hemingway discussed in this chapter, and one or more war poems from the chapter’s end.

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The Functions of Literature and Myth

Instructions
Discuss how the function of literature compares with the function of myth as described in chapter 3. To focus your answer, consider the hero myth alongside any combination of Homer’s Iliad, the novels of Ernest Hemingway discussed in this chapter, and one or more war poems from the chapter’s end.

Review “What is Myth” and “The Hero as World Myth” (chapter 3); “An Early Masterpiece: Homer’s Iliad,” “The Modern American Novel,” and “Critical Focus: Exploring the Poetry of War” (chapter 4).

Look at Andy Warhol’s 1962 silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe (Figure 5.42) in chapter 5 and apply chapter 1’s bulleted instructions on critical thinking to write an evaluation of this work.

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The Personal Critical Response

Instructions
Look at Andy Warhol’s 1962 silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe (Figure 5.42) in chapter 5 and apply chapter 1’s bulleted instructions on critical thinking to write an evaluation of this work. In your concluding paragraph, consider how this silkscreen asks for a response different from the one a work such as Michelangelo’s David (Figure 2.1) tries to elicit.

 

What people or movements do you think are central to driving the European and American art world in this period? What things set up the cultural world as it exists now? What artists or movements did we NOT cover that you think are critical to this story?

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Mapping Modernisms

Now that you’ve studied and reflected on Alfred Barr, Ad Reinhardt, and Hank Willis Thomas’s diagrams, it’s time to make your own!

Make a diagram that describes the history that we have covered this semester from the 1860s to the 1960s. You may use any medium you like, digital or analog, two dimensions or three, as long as you can document it visually in jpg files that can be uploaded to Canvas. Your diagram can be abstract or pictorial; it could represent a progression, connections, relationships, and/or commonalities.

Reflect back on the semester:

What people or movements do you think are central to driving the European and American art world in this period?

What things set up the cultural world as it exists now?

What artists or movements did we NOT cover that you think are critical to this story?

You can use artists’ names and/or the names of movements, and specific works of art. You can include things that influenced those movements which you think are important. You may even choose to re-center your diagram on someplace besides Europe. You can also choose to include yourself, and think about how these artists influence you. Here’s a list of artists, movements, and ideas we covered this semester. You do NOT have to use them all, this is just to jog your memory.

Once you’ve drawn your map/diagram, post a 500-word response (no more than 600 words) that addresses the following points.

A – Introduction to your map: in 1-2 sentences, introduce your diagram. Describe what period and geography it covers, and its form.

B – Observations & analysis – Analyze the three following elements of your process of mapping:

What artists/movements did you choose to emphasize in your map? Why?

What types of relationships do you want your viewer to understand? Why do you think they are the most important?

Why did you make the formal choices you did in making your map? (color, forms, medium)

C – Save space for a final paragraph! Answer the following question: What argument does your map make about Modernism and how is it similar or different to either Barr, Reinhardt, or Thomas’s arguments?

D – Revise for unity. Go back to your introduction and write 1-2 sentences that specifically address the main goal of this assignment. So, think about the ways in which the history of modern art has been constructed by different people and why they have created these different constructions (what were the stakes). Then revise your whole essay, ensuring that your observations and analysis support the claims you are now making in your introduction (remember this is a process of cutting and rewriting!).

 

Apply your knowledge of visual analysis, as described in the introduction of your textbook. Identify, describe, or use formal terminology to apply your knowledge of form to establish a style.

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Art Analysis

Fill out the form provided, art work : Hagia Sophia mosque

This assignment was designed so that you can apply your knowledge of visual analysis, as described in the introduction of your textbook. Beginning with the visual elements and design principles, the form of the work, to derive at the work’s style before considering aspects of its context and content. Understanding how to apply each of these components and how they work together to inform meaning in a work of art is a very important skill to acquire before beginning your research paper project.

Example: Color
You will be required to identify, to describe, to use formal terminology and to apply your knowledge of form to establish a style. Let’s take one formal characteristic like color to see how it might fit into these categories. (The rubric measures your ability to address ALL relevant formal components of your selected work. Other formal characteristics to consider might include line, shape, mass, volume, depth, perspective, motion, light, and texture. You will also want to examine the overall composition or arrangement of your painting.)

Excellent:
Color is an essential formal characteristic of the selected work because the artist selected complementary colors, red and green, colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel to create a strong contrast between different parts of the composition and that tension intensifies one’s reaction to the work. The colors work against one another and create a sense of compositional imbalance. The color choice is expressive rather than just descriptive. The artist selected these intensely saturated, complementary colors for their formal ability to communicate a sense of energy, tension and unease to the viewer and this emphasis on the expressive capabilities of color help to identify the artist’s style as expressive.

Good:
Color is an essential formal characteristic of the selected work because the artist selected complementary colors, red and green, to create a strong contrast between different parts of the composition. The color choice is expressive rather than necessarily just descriptive. The artist selected these colors because they communicate tension and unease to the viewer and this emphasis on the expressive capabilities of color helps to identify the artist’s style as expressive.

Acceptable:
Color is important in this painting because the artist uses red and green to create a strong contrast between different parts of the composition. This makes the work seem unbalanced. These colors are intense and make the painting more expressive.

What year is the artwork you have chosen? What is the format of the artwork? Is it part of a specific art movement? What art movements come before, after or overlap? What are your artist’s concerns or intentions? What is the subject matter?

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Timeline Project.

Art and Identity

National and personal identities do not magically happen; they are built on and influenced by immediate and past events, environments, traditions, and cultural legacies. Artists capture and document not only the physical conditions of a society but also the emotional and mental conditions. They construct a sense of who we were and are as a person and as a nation. Society’s identity is always fluid. When we see identity as static, we record people with stereotypes and do not see them for who they are. Art is one way to challenge static notions of identity by engaging the viewer in visual narratives that are unfamiliar to them, and that educate and challenge their previously held notions.

You will research this artist and create a timeline looking at your chosen artists’ influences.

You will establish some historic references that link to the chosen contemporary artists style, content, concern and/or intentions.

This timeline may be a traditional linear timeline or a mind map that clearly marks out the progression of your research.

The Objectives-

To learn more about these contemporary artists and how they have developed their work, concerns, interests, and intentions.
To look beyond and around your chosen artist’s work; into their background, into what might have influenced them, and make some connections with other artists, events or relevant issues.
To look at artwork with similar intentions, subject matter or genre’ to expose how national and personal identities are built on and influenced by immediate and past events, environments, traditions, and cultural legacies

Some questions to get you started.

Plot some points on your timeline

What year is the artwork you have chosen?
What is the format of the artwork? (painting, sculpture, installation, performance)
Is it part of a specific art movement?
What art movements come before, after or overlap?
What are your artist’s concerns or intentions?
What is the subject matter?
How might it address identity?
What artists or cultural events have influenced your artist?
Are there specific artists that have influenced their work and are there visual links contextual, intentions that link similarities or references?
Can you identify a link with an artist that has influenced your artist and/or artwork?
Can you identify a link to a cultural event? (women’s rights, equal rights, LGBTQ rights, environmental issues?

Describe the concept of force-field analysis and the forces that either drive or restrain the change process. Using the force-field analysis model, discuss a change initiative that you are familiar with, and define the key driving forces and key restraining forces that impact the change.

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Force-field analysis

Describe the concept of force-field analysis and the forces that either drive or restrain the change process. Using the force-field analysis model, discuss a change initiative that you are familiar with, and define the key driving forces and key restraining forces that impact the change.

Your paper should be three to four pages in length (excluding the title and reference pages). Your paper must be formatted according to APA style , and it must include in-text citations and references for at least two scholarly sources.