Dr. Rodney Nevitt, Arth 1381: History of Art II

Paper Assignment 1 The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston consists of two building complexes: the two older buildings, now together called The Law Building, and the Beck Building, 5601 Main Street, across Main Street from the “old” museum, between Binz (which turns into Bissonet) and Ewing. The Law and Beck buildings are connected by a tunnel; there is a parking lot on Bissonet (no charge) and a parking garage on Fannin next to the Beck building. The paintings you will be writing on are on the second floor of the Beck building. If you show this paper assignment and your UH student ID at the entrance desk, you will be able to visit the museum free-of-charge. Also, note that Thursdays are free for everyone. Museum Hours: Tues., Wed., 10 am-5 pm; Thurs., 10 am-9 pm; Fri.-Sat., 10 am–7 pm; Sun. 12:15 pm – 7 pm; closed on Monday, except Monday holidays. Closed on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. On Thursdays, admission is free for all visitors. Your paper (five pages, double-spaced, typed) will be a formal (i.e., visual or stylistic) comparison of two paintings in the MFAH, both representing the Virgin and Child. It will also incorporate some “contextual” analysis of the paintings, relating them to the broader artistic and religious culture of medieval and Renaissance Italy. But it is not a research paper in the sense that the only information you need is what you know from Gardner’s text, class lectures, and close visual observation of the paintings in the museum. For advice about the form and organization of the paper, please also refer to the separate handout (on Blackboard), “Guidance on Writing the Paper”. Beneath the identifying information for both paintings below, I list several questions you should discuss in your paper: (Room 204, Beck Building: this room is not numbered on the wall, but is a small room that leads directly off of the big gallery, room 203): Master of the Straus Madonna Italian (Florence), c. 1340-50 Virgin and Child, c. 1395-1400 Tempera and gold leaf on wood The Edith A. and Percy S. Straus Collection 44.565 https://www.mfah.org/art/detail/46269?returnUrl=%2Fart%2Fsearch%3Fnationality%3DIndian%257CItalian%26artist%3DMaster%2Bof%2Bthe%2BStraus%2BMadonna (Room 205, Beck Building) Antoniazzo Romano Italian (Roman), c. 1430-1512 Virgin and Child with a Donor, c. 1475-80 Tempera and gold leaf on wood The Edith A. and Percy S. Straus Collection 44.551 https://www.mfah.org/art/detail/46254?returnUrl=%2Fart%2Fsearch%3Fartist%3DAntoniazzo%2BRomano The iconography of both paintings is similar, even including the goldfinch (about which you can read more in one of the wall labels), and the “Ave Maria, etc.” inscription. This will allow you to make close visual comparisons between the two paintings, in which you can explore the development of pictorial style from the “late medieval” or “proto-Renaissance” fourteenth- / early fifteenth-century period in Italian painting (the period of Giotto, etc.) to the later fifteenth century in Italian painting (sometimes termed the “early Renaissance”). This stylistic development, as exemplified in these two paintings, will be the main theme of your paper. Concentrate on the following points: 1) Compare the Straus Madonna, as an example of a style influenced by Giotto, with the earlier Italo-Byzantine style. You might make specific visual comparisons here with Berlinghieri’s St. Francis painting in the Gardner text. In what ways does the Straus Madonna reflect the new naturalism of this style—compared to the earlier Byzantine manner? Talk about stylistic similarities you see between the Strauss Madonna and Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned altarpiece in the Gardner text. This might include certain visual qualities—how each artist represents three-dimensional form and space—as well as any other similarities you see between the two artists. Also describe differences in style between the Straus Master and Giotto: compare their Madonna figures closely. 2) Compare the Straus Madonna to Antoniazzo Romano’s Madonna with regard to the representation of three-dimensional form and space. What is similar, and what is different, about each artist’s naturalism? Look at specific visual qualities. Note that Romano seems to add some illusionistic tricks: areas of reflected light, and so on. Can you relate Romano’s style to the naturalism of fifteenth-century Italian painting as described in Gardner? You might make comparisons here with specific paintings in Gardner. Is there something more “precise” or “mathematical” about his representation of form and space than in the Straus Master’s work? Think about the stylistic qualities of other artists of this period, the advances in naturalism, the interest in perspective, etc. However, despite the naturalism of Romano’s style, note that in certain respects he retains—in the depiction of the donor—an old-fashioned hierarchical scale, and that his representation of the infant Jesus standing is conventional in its own way: that is, it departs from what a child this age is physically capable of. 3) Also think about the relationship between Romano’s painting and the more assertively classical aesthetic of the Italian fifteenth century: note here the idealization of the style of the faces and bodies in Romano’s painting, as well as the different architectural style of the frame, compared to the Straus Madonna’s painting. 4) Compare how the Straus Madonna and the Romano painting both depict the emotional relationship between mother and child, and between both figures and the viewer. All this may be expressed in body language, gesture, pose, facial expression and gaze. Consider how all this relates to the function of sacred images, as theorized by Christian writers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and the theological discussions of the nature and humanity of Christ. (We have discussed some of this in class, and will continue to develop these ideas in the coming weeks). As you address all these questions, support your arguments with very carefully defined visual observations of specific paintings, both the ones in the Museum and those in your book. Students may choose different paintings out of the book to make their comparative arguments in this sense: there is no one correct way to do this. Cover all the above points in your paper. You need not organize them in the same order that I list them. Organize the paper in a logical fashion, with a clear thesis sentence at the end of the first paragraph, and a conclusion. (1) The organization of the entire paper should be clear and logical. Begin with an introductory paragraph that culminates in a thesis (usually the last sentence of the first paragraph), which is the main idea or argument that you will be discussing in the paper. For the small, non-research papers in this course, the “thesis” need not be terribly original or complex (though if you want to try for that, by all means do!). Something like this might serve (depending on the paper assignment): “In this paper, I will demonstrate how each of the paintings exemplifies stylistic features characteristic of its period and artistic culture.” The essential thing is that the thesis sentence tell the reader what the paper will be about, which in this case would be both the works of art (these may be referred to or described in greater detail elsewhere in the introductory paragraph) but also what your conceptual approach to them will be—how you will be discussing them, and what you will be trying to explain about them. (2) The body of the paper will then consist of a series of paragraphs. Paragraphs exist for a reason: a paragraph is or should be “about” a definable topic or issue that is a subset of the larger subject of the entire paper. Paragraphs should be of a reasonable size. If a paragraph consists of only a couple of sentences, that suggests it does not contain enough information to justify it standing alone as a paragraph: perhaps it should be tacked on to the end of the preceding paragraph, or the beginning of the next. If a paragraph goes on for a couple of pages, then consider that you might be cramming too much into it and that it would better be broken up into smaller paragraphs. There should be a logical “flow” from one sentence to the next, and also from one paragraph to the next, a logical structure to your argument and how it progresses from beginning to end. The last paragraph of the paper will then summarize your main points and contain a conclusion of some kind: this will refer back to your thesis sentence in some way and show the reader how your paper has answered what you set out to investigate. Writing well is difficult, but is well worth the effort, partly because polishing your words forces you to refine the thinking behind them. Good writing demands more than learning a set of grammatical do’s and don’ts, though those are necessary. There is no secret to thinking about art. There are a few minor conventions here and there to keep in mind when writing art history, but for the most part if you write well, then you will be able to write well about art. We are looking at physical objects made by human beings, and trying to explain how they came about, why they look the way they do, why they represent what they do, how they functioned in the context of their own culture, and what meanings they had for their original viewers. A lot of this can only be got by deeper research into the historical contexts of the works: for the papers you will write in this course, however, the only “contextual” material you are expected to have is what you read in the textbooks, and what we have discussed in lecture. The emphasis is on close looking at the objects in the museum, and training your eye to see what is visually significant about them. I am interested in your own close visual observation of and thinking about these objects, but of course you will be expected to demonstrate the general validity of what you are saying. The papers in this course are NOT about whether you like or dislike the works of art. Avoid making broad judgments about the quality, or what you think the quality is—good or bad—of the works. The more time you spend trying to understand works of art in their historical context rather than judging them, the better, and the more likely it is that those judgments, when you do make them, will be well-informed.