ART HISTORY 1 – ARH2050
Research Paper – DUE THE FINAL DAY OF THE SEMESTER ON
CANVAS
Your research paper must make a claim about one artwork. It will identify, formally analyze
and contextualize ONE artwork created between the Paleolithic Era and 1400 CE (the period
covered by our course modules.)
The paper will be five pages in length and consult and cite at least three scholarly sources
using Chicago style.
Your paper will contain a specific thesis statement (the claim you are making) and will explain
HOW your artwork is representative of its culture.
All papers must be double-spaced with 1″ inch margins all around. Please use Times New
Roman 12 pt. font. Please check for spelling and grammatical errors. Points will be deducted for
these errors.
You must use proper footnotes and a bibliography. Information you find and use in your paper
must be cited properly using footnotes. See the attached sample page as a guide. We will also
review the proper form in class. Papers submitted without footnotes, with footnotes in improper
form, or without a proper bibliography will not be accepted.
DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING YOUR RESEARCH PAPER
Step 1: Select an art object to research from metmuseum.org OR artsandculture.google.com.
Submit the title, date and location of your artwork on Canvas,
Step 2: Find at least three sources of scholarly information you can use in your paper: ONE
BOOK AND TWO ARTICLES. These sources will be your working bibliography. Scholarly
sources are peer-reviewed books and articles. Your sources for this paper will come
exclusively from the Tyree Library catalog (books) and the JSTOR library database
(articles).
Step 3: Create and submit your bibliography on Canvas using proper Chicago format (see
Chicago format guide on Canvas).
Step 4: After reviewing your sources, submit a paragraph summary of each source on
Canvas.
Step 5: Formulate a thesis and outline for your research paper. The thesis should advance a
specific argument about your artwork (see below). Your thesis and outline will be submitted
on Canvas.
Step 5: Using your thesis and outline as a guide, complete your research paper.
Your completed research paper will be submitted on Canvas at the end of the term.
PAPER OUTLINE
Your paper will consist of five sections:
Introductory Paragraph with THESIS STATEMENT
Formal Analysis of your artwork (refer back to thesis statement)
Iconography of your artwork (refer back to thesis statement)
Iconology of your artwork (refer back to thesis statement)
Summary Paragraph with reiteration of thesis statement
1. Introductory Paragraph – Identify your artwork and state your thesis.
2. Formal Analysis – Description and analysis of the work in your own words:
Detailed formal description of the works, moving from the general to the specific (Analysis:
breaking the whole into parts for understanding.) Include elements and principles of design:
subject, lines, medium, color, light, space, composition, scale, and technique. Ask and answer:
How does the art work in formal terms?
3. Iconography
Discussion of the content, symbolism and meaning of the work as conveyed through its formal
elements. Include information about what story or idea the object depicts.
4. Iconology – Synthesis – Thesis of paper: SO WHAT factor
•Discussion of period style revealed in the form of the artwork and contextualization of the
object in a specific movement/era. Thesis communicates to viewer how to see and experience
the artworks.
Your synthesis should make clear the relevance of THIS WORK. Your reader should
understand why it is meaningful and useful to study the work and form discussions around it.
5. Summary Paragraph – Reiterate your thesis.
EXAMPLE PAGE IN A RESEARCH PAPER SHOWING PROPER FOOTNOTE FORM
Barbara Brushstroke began work on her most famous painting, The Universe in Red, White, and
Blue, in 1942.1
It is a monumental canvas (eight feet tall and ten feet wide) and it was executed
in both oil and acrylic.2
As can be seen in the attached copy of the work, it contains large swirls
of paint in the colors mentioned in the title as well as many other colors. The swirls are of
differing sizes and appear to be placed randomly on the canvas using a large paintbrush. A series
of irregular linear shapes cross the canvas at various angles and seem to have been applied by
either pouring or splashing since there are no brushstrokes in these linear shapes.
1 Mary Tarte, The Life and Work of Barbara Brushstroke (NY: Routledge, 2002), 2.
2
Ibid.