A Trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Essay – Description
1. Personal Reflection
Describe your general experience visiting the Museum of Art as though you are writing in a personal journal. Include details of your experience such as what you did, what you saw, how you felt.
Which entrance did you use, describe what you saw when you first entered the museum. What part of the museum did you go to first? What different types of art did you see? What was your general impression of the whole museum?
2. Analysis of Artwork in Formal Terms. Select two artworks, one two-dimensional AND one three-dimensional (40 points). Photograph each artwork –
For this assignment you will select two artworks from museum’s collection or the exhibition you visited. One artwork must be two dimensional, while the second one must be three-dimensional. Analyze each work by identifying the following information:
Formal and stylistic analysis: For each artwork provide the artist name, title of the artwork, date, media, size (height always precedes length. If the work is three-dimensional, add depth). Is the work representational? (Does the work clearly depict objects or people as we would recognize them in the world around us)? Alternatively, is its subject matter completely unrecognizable (is it non-objective)? To what degree has the artist simplified, emphasized, or distorted aspects of forms in the work (or abstracted it)? Does this artwork have a unique style? Or can you identify characteristics that it shares with other artworks by the same artist, from the same period or place, or belonging to the same artistic group or movement?
Iconographic analysis: Are there things in the work that you can interpret as signs or symbols? For example, is there anything that suggests a religious meaning, or indicates the social status of somebody depicted in the work (hierarchical scale)? Labels often provide good information about iconography.
Biographical and psychological analysis: Would information about the life of the artist help you to interpret the work? Do you think the artist’s state of mind (happy, depressed, anxious) has affected the artwork? Again, labels are often a good source of biographical detail. In some museums volunteer docents are available to answer questions about an artist’s life and works.
Contextual analysis: Would you understand the work better if you knew something about the history of the era in which it was created, or about religious, political, economic, and social issues that influenced its creation? Identify three visual elements and three principles of design in each work of art, giving examples of how they function in the compositional aspect of the artwork. Give evidence to your claims. It is not enough to mention the vocabulary, you must back up your assertions with evidence. For example, if identifying colors in a painting, do not just mention yellow, blue, discuss the color harmony used and how the colors interact with one another to create a certain mood. Read about color in the textbook. Is it complementary, cool, warm? What kind of feeling does it evoke?
3. Interpretation of the art object
Discuss the content of each piece. What is the subject matter of the artwork? If known, you could touch on the reason surrounding its creation. Mention if the artwork presents the viewer with a narrative or a story. Does it discuss social issues? What emotional feeling is present. Summarize your reactions to this art object. Analyze the relationship of the artwork to history by reviewing the chapter in the textbook corresponding to the date of the work from the DMA. Place it within cultural, historical, and chronological contexts. Using the textbook as reference, mention an artist and one artwork found in the textbook that was or is a contemporary to the artist you selected. Explain how the work reflects the style characteristics of the period. Add the chapter and image number to the work and provide citation notation.
For example, in analyzing the work by George Braques (3.3.25)*, there is a painting from the same time period found in the textbook that looks similar, which is only natural, since both artists shared a studio in Paris, and both developed Cubism during the 1910s.
* 3.3.25 refers to the textbook chapter 3.3, image number 25.
Use the following outline as a guide for writing the essay.
Introduction: May include a description of what you saw when entering the museum and your reactions (positive or negative). Mention the selected artworks – artist name, title, media, dimensionsand add the selfie and photos of artworks
Two-dimensional artwork. Identify three visual elements in the composition and add mention how each is being used in the artwork. Identify one artwork from the textbook dating from a similar timeframe as the artwork in the museum, and in a few short sentences compare and contrast both artworks.
3. Three-dimensional artwork. Identify three visual elements in the composition and add mention how each is being used in the artwork. Identify one artwork from the textbook dating from a similar timeframe as the artwork in the museum, and in a few short sentences compare and contrast both artworks.
4. Conclusion with any additional pertinent information
5. Work cited page
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