Renaissance to Modern
Assignment #2
Due: April 29, 2013 (NOTE: This is later than listed on your syllabus)
Value: Applying the knowledge learned in class in new and creative ways and 75 points on your class grade
For this assignment you have three choices. Please select ONLY ONE of the following options. All work must be TYPED, double spaced, and written in clear, grammatically correct, standard English.
Option #1 Creative Biography. Write a day-in-the-life of an artist who never lived, but who might have lived. Your artist must have worked during the periods of European Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, or Post-Impressionism. Your biography should be 4-5 pages in length, typed, double spaced. You may include a work by your artist, as well (a sketch, for example), but this is not required. You MUST include the tollowing in your paper:
Birth and death dates of the artist
Training (where, with which master or at what academy, for how long, etc.)
Influences (other art work/artists from the period or earlier periods that shaped the vision of your artist)
Patronage (what sort of market was there for your artist's work, who purchased their work?)
Personal life (you can be as inventive as you would like here, AS LONG AS IT IS CONSISTENT WITH THE TIME PERIOD IN WHICH YOUR ARTIST LIVED)
Political, social, economic influences on your artist's life/work
Your artist's work: media, techniques, style, subject matter, etc. (describe at least three individual works)
How was your artist typical of his/her period?
Remember, while making your biographic sketch imaginative and fun, you must also be mindful to keep it as historically authentic as possible. I will be assessing your knowledge of the art/artists and historical context of the period you select.
Option #2 Virtual Field Trip. Review the list of Cincinnati Art Musuem art works relevant to our course that I have provided below. "Visit" the museum and study the on-line images for review while you are completing your paper (see the European Painting and Sculpture Collections collections section of the Cincinnati Art Museum site at http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/explore/collection/collections/?c=6035953. From the works listed below, select four to discuss in your paper (unfortunately, with the museum's new website design, you will need to scoll over each image to identify these). Anwer the following questions for each work in paragraph form:
(1) What period or style does this piece represent? What elements that are typical of that period or style do you recognize in this piece? What elements of this work seem distinctive or even uncharacteristic of the period in which it was created?
(2) What have you learned in class about the artist and his/her life and work? Are there aspects to this work that are characteristic of this artist?
(3) What surprised you about this piece? What impressed you?
Works in the Cincinnati Art Museum:
Luigi Cherubini, Jean-August-Dominque Ingres, 1841, oil
Going to Work, Jean-François Millet, 1851-53, oil
Sunset, Vevey, Switzerland, Gustave Courbet, 1874, oil
Orchestra Stalls, Honore Daumier, c. 1865, oil on canvas
Women at the Races, Edouard Manet, 1866
Rocks at Belle-Ile, Port-Dormois, Claude Monet, 1886, oil on canvas
Undergrowth with Two Figures, Vincent Van Gogh, 1890, oil on canvas
Option #3 Art and Healing. We have discussed (and/or will be discussing) a number of works in class that relate to issues of healing--Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece, Durer's Melencolia I, Artemisia Gentileschi's paintings of Susanne and of Judith, Gericault's Mad Woman, Goya's depiction of an asylum and Disasters of War series (which could be interpreted as working through the trauma of dealing with war) andt works by Van Gogh related to mental illnes. Visit the artists' section of the Arts and Healing Network website http://artheals.org/inspiration/healing_artists.html and then view the artists featured on the Survivors Network (http://www.survivorsartfoundation.org/gallery/featured.html), as well as the artists featured on the Society for the Arts in Healthcare website (http://thesah.org/news/photos.cfm). Select two works we have viewed in class (at least one must come from the art we have viewed from the Baroque period forward) and compare them to two works by contemporary artists that seem to have some common intent or content. You must provide the links to the two contemporary artists' work you selected, and cite the website from which these were selected, in your paper.
Anwser the following questions:
(1) What is this work about? How does the work relate to the healing process?
(2) In what ways does the historic work relate to the contemporary piece? (Be specific in discussing how they seem to be addressing related themes/circumstances, etc.). What is similar, what is different about these works?
(3) What potential to do feel the arts have to contribute to individual and/or communal healing?