Write a project paper on Womens Art history.
An authentic assessment measures your knowledge and your ability to analyze new material through a means other than an examination. In this course you will apply what you have learned to a real-life situation: you are an art historian working in a museum and you have been assigned to a project by your supervisor. Here is your assignment:
You have been asked to be the curator for an online exhibition of the work of a female artist for your museum. You will conceptualize an exhibition topic, conduct research on that topic and artist, and write the explanatory materials for the exhibition.
An online exhibition presents information in greater depth than the wall texts and labels in an actual art museum exhibition, and will have some of the information that is included in an exhibition catalogue. Through a series of assignments, you will develop specific parts of the exhibition. Your online viewers will include your classmates and virtual museum visitors. They will want to know about your artist’s life and career, why she explored specific subjects or worked in particular media, and how her work might be interpreted. To better understand the significance of your online exhibition, your audience also will want to discover how gender has affected her career or is revealed in her artwork.
Instruction for Project Stages:
Stage 1, Artist (4% of course grade): To begin, select a female artist from the medieval to the present period whose work you enjoy, and then begin to narrow your focus to a particular aspect of that artist’s work. The most compelling exhibitions are not just about an artist; instead they offer a viewpoint about some facet of that artist’s work. For example, instead of an exhibition on Judith Leyster, you could do an exhibition on the symbolism in her paintings, or on her images of people playing music, or on how gender roles are reflected in her images. Another example-instead of writing about Lavinia Fontana, you might construct an exhibition that supports the thesis that her success was due to the patronage of the noblewomen of Bologna.
In a paragraph, explain why you chose this artist and what theme you might explore. Submit by the end of week 2 to your assignments folder. Discern whether you will be able to find sufficient research material to organize an exhibition around this artist and possible topic. List at least 2 of your scholarly references with a brief sentence or two describing the content of each one. Your professor will provide feedback.
Stage 2, Theme and beginning bibliography (7% of course grade): Based on feedback from your professor and your initial research in the UMUC library and art museums found in the course Webliography, write a paragraph explaining specifically what aspect of the artist’s work your exhibition will cover or what question about your theme you will try to answer in your exhibition. In addition,list at least two new journal (not encyclopedia) articles that you have found in the UMUC online library, and provide a brief summary of the content of the articles. Submit to the assignments folder by the end of week 3.
Stage 3, Biography of artist (7% of course grade): Write a brief biography of your artist. Include her birth date and country of origin, her education and training as an artist, style and thematic concerns found in her work, and a summary of her major achievements. Your biography should be about two pages long, double-spaced. Use at least 4 of your references; add more as needed. Submit by the end of week 4 to your assignments folder.
Stage 4, Works of art in the exhibition–2 Parts: 4a and 4b (7% of course grade):
4a:
Now you are ready to select the works of art that will be in your online exhibition. Choose a minimum of three and a maximum of five works of art that fit within your chosen topic. Conduct research on these works of art and write a commentary for each artwork for your online exhibition. You will want to include some combination of describing, analyzing, interpreting, and drawing conclusions. You will certainly want to make clear how the work of art relates to your overall theme. Make comparisons among the works you have chosen.
The Caption or header: Each work of art will need its number, the name of the artist, title of the work of art, its date, its medium, its size, and the institution/individual that owns the work of art. Place this information just below or next to each included image.
Submit your images of chosen works of art, with the header information for each, plus the short commentaries as described above. Save as a Word doc or pdf file. This is due by the end of week 5; submit to the appropriate Assignment folder in your Portfolio.
4b:
Write a two-page in-depth commentary for one of your works of art and, of course, include the image of that work. Utilize the Elements and Principles of Art resource posted in the Course Content menu bar. Submit by the end of week 6 to your assignments folder. Cite and reference–Chicago style with author/date or numbered in-text citations required. Use Spell/Grammar check. Save as a Word doc or pdf file; post in 4b Assignments in your Portfolio.
Stage 5, Introductory text (7% of course grade): Think about why your viewers might be interested in your topic. In what ways might they make connections with your exhibition topic? To develop your exhibition, you will want to give a full explanation of your topic and its significance. This might include an examination of the artist’s subject matter, style, or choice of media; information on how the topic has been treated by other artists and how they compare or contrast with your artist’s exploration of the subject (include images), and historical context for understanding the artist and her work.This section should be about three pages in length, double-spaced. Submit by the end of week 7 to your Stage 5 assignments folder.
Stage 6, Final exhibition (20% of course grade): You are ready to do the final construction and polishing of your online exhibition! Your exhibition will include all stages, 1-5 (identified and in order), all images, any needed revisions plus any necessary additional information such as an Abstract (assigned for week 8) and a Conclusion (1 or 2 paragraphs) discussing how your exhibition illuminates the topic of the history of women in the arts through an analysis of how societal expectations and constraints related to gender affected her career or how gender is reflected.
