First writing assignment
I. This assignment has three goals – 1) to allow you to engage in the process of formulating a stylistic category; 2) to work with a valid and trustworthy on-line source in art history; 3) to allow you to follow leads of research.
II. For this assignment you will start with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn timeline of art history. You can find this several ways. You can open it from the Metropolitan Museum’s homepage or from google by searching “Metropolitan Museum of Art heilbrunn time line of art history”
III. Open the timeline; select “Works of Art” choose 1-500 AD or 500-1000 AD for the time period and Central America for the geographic area. You will get a page of images
IV. You will need to open several images until you find those that come from one of the regions that you can do for this assignment: Nayarit, Colima, post-Olmec Vera Cruz, and Remojadas
V. When you find an image that interests you and from one of the three options, you then want to follow it. Open the image. You will find several views and some general information about the image. When you scroll down you will also find links to 1) scholarly studies of the piece of similar pieces, 2) Metropolitan Museum of Art publications that have featured the piece, 3) a presentation of related pieces, each of which can be opened for similar information.
VI. You need to select three additional works that are similar and for which you can get multiple views. Your first task is to perform visual analyses of the four pieces that you have selected to determine what you think are the diagnostic stylistic features that these works share and which might be labeled as the style. This will form the core of your paper.
VII. You will then go back to the chat labels for each piece, and the tabs for References and the Met publications. You will now want to read what others have written about these pieces. Using the this information, you can provide the basic information for what is known about the context for these works – where they were found and how they might have functioned and for any possible symbolic meaning – iconography – which is contained within the works. These pieces of information are not the focus of your paper, they provide a a frame for your discussion of style, probably an introductory paragraph that tells us what part of Mexico we are looking at and from what type of archaeological context these pieces came or most likely came and a wrap up paragraph after the discussion of style but before the conclusion that presents what is generally thought about how these pieces functioned in their culture and what might have been their symbolic meanings.
VIII. The real meat of the paper is your analysis of the compositions of the four objects from which you have drawn your conclusions about the diagnostic stylistic features. Make sure that YOU do your own stylistic analyses before you read what others think. If others see the same features, fine, but if they do not, that is no problem. What someone else discusses may allow you to see something that you missed or may convince you that what you see is much more important.
IX. Final paper needs to be typed, double space. Keep it to between 500-600 words, 2.5 – 3 pages. You need an introductory paragraph that introduces the four pieces (provide the museum number for each piece) and places them within their archaeological context. Follow this with three paragraphs of stylistic discussions. Make sure that you designate each piece in some manner so that you can refer easily to it in the comparative discussions. Add a paragraph that treats the issues of cultural context and possible iconographic intention. The conclusion sums up the findings from the stylistic analyses.
X. For this paper, there is no need for footnotes, but you must have a bibliography and photographs of the four pieces. The photos can be downloaded from the Met collection.
Bibliographic format:
Book: Coe, M. and R. Koontz, From Olmecs to Aztecs. 7th edition. (London 2013).
Article: Matos Moctezuma, E. “The Coronation of Moctezuma II.” In eds. C. McEwan and L. Lόpez Luján, Moctezuma, Aztec Ruler. (London 2009) 56-77.