ARHS 1325
Spring 2021
Dr. Adam Jasienski
Visual analysis paper
(3 pages, 12 size font, Garamond or Times New Roman, double-spaced.)
The purpose of this assignment is to hone your visual acuity. Learning to truly look at something (in this case at an artwork or historical object) is a skill that requires training, just like close reading. Think of this as an exercise for your “looking muscles” – you’re developing a critically important analytical tool, the applicability of which reaches far beyond the field of art history.
Choose an object from the time frame of the course (roughly the years spanning from 1500 to 1800) and feel free to challenge yourself by venturing beyond the traditional ‘fine arts.’ Paintings and sculptures, but also ceramic vessels, metalwork, furniture, garments, maps, printed broadsheets, drawings, or even entire buildings are appropriate subjects for your paper. You must have direct access to the work that you choose (e.g. from the Meadows Museum or Bridwell Library’s exhibition spaces) – although reproductions abound, they cannot convey the full experience of viewing and interacting with an object. Do not deny yourself the opportunity of working with the object directly! This is an honor-based system, but keep in mind that it’s very easy to tell from the quality of your analysis whether you actually saw the work in person or not!
Choose an object that speaks to you. Since you will be devoting significant time to examining it for your visual analysis paper make sure that you find the object compelling. If you do, you are bound to make more precise, richer observations and, in effect, to produce more interesting work.
Guidelines:
You should spend at least one hour in front of the work you have chosen, with notebook and pencil in hand. This may seem like a lot of time, but you will be surprised at how much information you will be able to generate from simply looking at the object in an attentive, careful, and thoughtful manner. Please refer to the guidelines below as you work and do your best to address each one (if it applies to the work you are examining). These guidelines will provide you with a set of tools for thinking about the object in front of you.
Once you have spent some time with your object, you will need to organize your observations into your visual analysis paper. Please do not simply restate all of your observations and do not necessarily try to include your observations from all of the categories listed below. Rather, please give a general overview of the object and highlight a few of its formal characteristics that you found particularly compelling, troubling, or curious. You may find that many of your observations revolve around a theme, which can serve you as a focal point and organizing strategy for crafting a thesis. It’s important to remember that a visual analysis paper is not mere description. A description simply lists what is visible in an image or object, while a visual analysis tries to prove an argument that is developed from looking at an object’s formal qualities.
Let’s take an example. Say you choose to work on a religious vestment made from embroidered silk. The observation that you jot down while in front of the object reads: “the textile is shiny.” When you move on to writing your analysis, you have to transform this simple description into a discussion of how the object works, rather than merely what it looks like. For instance, you might say: “The gold-wrapped threads that form patterns in the textile catch and reflect the light. Due to the reflective nature of the threads, the appearance of the textile changes as the viewer’s body moves in relation to it.” So, to recap: a description simply lists what is visible in an image or an object, while an analysis goes further and asks what those visible elements do.
Remember: the historical context in which the work was produced, the iconography of the represented scene, or the social aspects of its later use and afterlife are not appropriate to include in your visual analysis paper. All of your conclusions must be drawn only from looking at the artwork or object in front of you. You may conclude your paper by making an educated guess about these issues in one final paragraph. Also, please be sure to discuss further avenues of investigation that you might examine in a future research paper.
Helpful questions to guide your visual analysis
(Remember that not all of these will necessarily apply to your chosen object! For instance, some may only apply to two-dimensional works. Also, the list is not exhaustive. You may identify other important formal characteristics for your particular object.)
Size and proportions: What it the size of the object? Be as precise as possible. What are the proportions of the object’s elements? Size can be important in establishing the effect the object has on its viewer, e.g. the sensation of being dwarfed by a monumental artwork, or of having to peer down or squint at the details of a portrait miniature.
Materials and making: What is the object made of? (Wood, terracotta, oil on canvas, ink on laid paper, etc.); How has it been made? (carving, casting, relief printing, by applying oil paint with quick, visible brushstrokes over a very visible canvas, or creating a smooth layer of oil paint on top of a heavily grounded canvas, etc.)
Line and geometry: How do lines in the object lead your eye from one area to another? How are horizontals or diagonals used in the work? If there are well-defined lines in the object, how are they created? Are they angular? Curvilinear? Are shapes strongly outlined, or do they pass gradually into one another?
Relation of figure and ground: Is there a well-defined background and foreground? How is one distinguished from the other? How are figures arranged? What is their relation to one another, and to the work as a whole? Is there a symmetry or assymetry to how the work is organized?
Space: How are depth and three-dimensionality created in the artwork (if at all)? If the object you are working on is already three-dimensional, how are its elements distributed in space in relation to one another?
Color and light: Is the tone of the work warm or cool? Bright or dull? Are the colors used in a realistic manner? Is light used in a particular way? What is its source? Where does it come from and how does it fall? Does it emphasize or deemphasize particular parts of the object? If the work is a sculpture or other three-dimensional work, how does the light in the gallery affect the appearance of the work? How would it change in different lighting conditions?
Handling/texture: Is the surface rough or very smooth? Reflective or matte? How is the surface quality created? How does this affect our perception of the work?
Manipulability and movability: Is the object meant to be manipulated? How? Is it a moveable object? Why or why not?
The role of the viewer: How does the image engage with the viewer? Which of its formal elements, discussed above, attract, repel, welcome, intrigue, or otherwise affect the person who looks at it? How do you respond to the object on a sensory level? Imagine how it would engage your sense of touch, taste, smell, and hearing. Does the design of the object explicitly or implicitly consider senses other than sight?
Historical function and audience: Now that you are nearing the very end of your paper, speculate as to the intended use of the object and its intended audience. Who was this made for? How did it engage with the viewer? How was the viewer supposed to interact with the object?
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