Chosen case study: Botticelli, Primavera, Uffizi, Florence
How do different approaches affect how we see and understand the same work of art?
Referring to at least two different approaches, write a critical assessment in relation to a work of your choice.
For this essay, you need to choose a visual case study – which may be a painting, a photograph, a sculpture, a building etc. Identify at least two texts that discuss that visual case study, and compare and assess the approaches taken. Ensure that you focus on the approaches, rather than writing an essay on the visual case study itself. As such, it is advisable to select texts with a strong methodological focus. This will help to concentrate your answer on the approach. One way to check that you have established and sustained the appropriate focus is to read through your essay conclusion prior to submission: have you drawn conclusions and offered arguments concerning the approaches?
Your essay should indicate why you’ve chosen your selected texts/approaches, and outline the contexts of publication (academic monograph, journal article, exhibition catalogue, online publication), as well as the date of publication. To what extent are the texts similar or different in approach, date of publication, and type of publication? What questions and avenues of exploration are established by the authors? What arguments are put forward? How would you characterise the use of language and mode of argument? What kinds of visual analysis are involved (if any)?
