Formal Analysis and Preliminary Thesis

Description

Choice of Artwork: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78674?classifications=9&date_begin=Pre-1850&date_end=1990&locale=en&page=1&q=&with_images=1 Take time to observe the work. Look closely and take detailed personal notes about the work based on your observations. Your notes should include the work’s title, year, artist’s name, medium, size, movement, and museum or gallery location, and describe the work’s visual properties and effects created. In addition to the notes, you can also create a visual record (drawings, diagrams) of your initial experience of the work for future reference. As you take your notes on the work to write a formal analysis, try to answer the following questions about it: What are its medium (or media) and size? How are formal elements, such as colour, texture, line, space, form and tone (light and dark), used? (See Getty guides below for definition and explanation of these terms). How are the principles of art design such as contrast, unity, balance, movement, harmony, symmetry, discord, repetition, scale, and proportion created and used? (See Getty guides below for definition and explanation of these terms). How are the formal elements of the work composed in relation to one other, and as a whole? How do these formal elements and work’s design create an effect or experience for the viewer? Write down your initial ideas or questions about the work’s medium, technique, subject matter, style, or significance. Think about more specific questions you want to explore concerning the work’s appearance or your reactions to it. These questions will help you develop your research questions and possibly define your preliminary thesis statement for your paper. Guidelines: Formal analysis is not only a description of the material and visual aspects of the work of art. When you write a formal analysis of a work of art, you analyze its many visual components (including formal elements of art and principles of design) to understand how the work is put together or designed; and how the effects created in the work’s composition engage the viewer to react to the work and create meanings about it. To write a good formal analysis, you need to look closely at the work, observe and describe its material and visual properties. But most importantly, you need to decide which formal elements stand out for the viewer and why; and think about the significance of the work’s overall structure for ideas and meanings you think can be associated with it. Use your notes from “step 2” to write a coherent formal analysis of the artwork. Structure: Essay format. Make a point about the work. Format: 600-650 words (including preliminary thesis and research questions), Times New Roman, size 12 font, double spaced, 1-inch margin all around, 8.5″ x 11″ paper. Upload a DOC/DOCX/PDF file onto Quercus by the due date. Write a Preliminary Thesis Review the list of assigned themes below and select one topic for your final paper. You will write about your chosen artwork in light of this topic in your paper. Connecting the topic to the visual properties of your artwork, formulate a preliminary thesis for your research paper, and list three research questions you will pursue in the research stage of this scaffolded assignment. Format: One or two sentences for preliminary thesis; and point-form for three research questions. Choice of Theme: Social and political issues play a central role in the practice of some modern and contemporary artists.