See the syllabus for full information. Here are some excerpts from the syllabus:
One Group Presentation (10% worth of final grade): Students (ideally 5 students in one group) will prepare an 8-minute-long presentation (plus 2 min Q &A) about an unknown work of art that has not been presented in class lectures.
You need to create a slideshow file (approx. 7 slides) with the following information:
One Group Paper (10% worth of final grade): You are essentially writing a scholarly paper on the unknown work of art that you will present in class with your group members. However, this paper is not a presentation script; it must be written in an academic format with proper footnotes and a bibliography. This assignment focuses on looking and writing and requires you to rely primarily on your own visual observations, followed by concise research.
Classify your work of art using appropriate art-historical terminology from your textbook or class discussions. In addition to using material from lectures and readings, you may consult up to three written sources for your research. To avoid plagiarism, you must document all sources properly using footnotes and include a bibliography [emphasis added].
Important Restrictions:
Dates may change. Check Canvas for current information.
You need to find an artwork to study, and you need high-resolution pictures of that artwork.
Strategy: Famous vs. lesser-known
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Here are three options for finding high-resolution pictures of artworks. I recommend trying all three options.
Option 1: The textbook
Asian Art by Dorinda Neave, Lara Blanchard, and Marika Sardar. Available in Simpson Library.
The syllabus says "It’s ok to pull out something from the textbook if not discussed before."
Option 2: JSTOR
Option 3: Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture is a site that provides free access to images of artworks and cultural artifacts. Here are several ways to browse this site:
Option 4: Museum websites
Many art museums, but not all, provide high-resolution pictures of artworks in their collections. Here is a list (from Wikipedia) of museums that have large collections of Asian art. For each museum, go to that museum's official website to view items in its collection.
After you have selected an artwork that you'd like to write about, the next step is to find basic background information about the context of the artwork.
Don't cite background information. Instead, read it and take notes, and use those notes to find sources you can cite. (The reason why you shouldn't cite background information is that it merely repeats information from other sources. It's better to cite those original sources.)
Wikipedia is a common source of background information, but Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. If you'd like to read background information written by actual experts, use the books in the Reference section on the first floor of Simpson Library. I particularly recommend these books:
After you've read background information, and written down a few clues to follow up on, the next step is to type those clues in search boxes to find scholarly sources.
Scholarly sources are written by scholars, for scholars. The two most common kinds of scholarly sources are books and journal articles. How do you identify scholarly sources? Here are some things to look for:
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To find scholarly sources through Simpson Library, use the search box on the library homepage, which searches the physical contents of the library and most of the electronic databases, all at the same time.
I recommend trying both broad search terms and narrow search terms:
The library search box finds results from all subject areas, not just art. If you only want to find sources that are related to art, use the Art databases.
Tip: Don't try to read a scholarly source in order from beginning to end. Instead, try this: For journal articles, read them in this order:
For books, read the tables of contents, and then check the indexes to see which pages are relevant to your chosen artist. |
If you just want to browse the shelves and see what books the library has, go to these areas in the library:
For the Museum Paper, your citations must follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Use these tools to help you with Chicago style:
The library provides guides to doing research in every subject that's taught at UMW. Here is the guide to doing research in Art & Art History.