Mueseum paper essay

Dallas Museum of art or the Kimbell art museum.
Pick six different concepts . For example, one art piece you discuss should represent the concept of art for daily use, another one should be a good example of art as a visual delight, etc.Please keep in mind that your paper needs to be a minimum of four full pages long.  Further, each art piece you use as an example of the six purposes and functions of art from Chapter 2 should be identified by artist, title and media.  Additionally, feel free to describe each art piece and discuss your impressions of them. 
The Museum Paper is the only assigned paper for this Art Appreciation course. Accordingly, I’ve tried to give students all the information they need to get as much as they can out of the assignment as well as to earn the full 100 points available.  With rare exception, students who want to rewrite their paper may do so after they get their initial grade and my comments. So, get started as soon as you can and feel free to send me your paper early. Good luck.

1) Read Chapters 1 and 2 from the textbook.

Chapter 1 is entitled, “The Nature of Art and Creativity”, and it will give you some background and orient you to the visual arts.  Further, it discusses what Art and creativity are, different types of artists, and the concept of “Looking and Seeing.”  This chapter will introduce you to some terms to help you better express things you might already know and some you may not have thought about before.

Although Chapter 1 contains important concepts, students are not required to incorporate these concepts into their papers.  Rather, this chapter will help you understand your virtual museum visit and subsequent chapters.

Chapter 2 is entitled, “The Purposes and Functions of Art”, and addresses why people feel the need to create Art, the ways people use Art, how Art enhances society and the different ways artists communicate what they want to express.  Pay particular attention to the six purposes and functions of art because you will cite these concepts in your paper.

2) Check out the art on the website of an approved major art museum. After reading this assignment and the assigned textbook pages, go to one of the following websites:

Dallas Museum of Art
Kimbell Art Museum

Think about what you’ve read in Chapter 2 while you’re looking at the art.  This is probably even more important for those pieces you don’t like or understand or can’t figure out why the museum even chose them for its collection.

While looking at the art, I want you to identify six art pieces that are good examples of the six Purposes and Functions of Art discussed in Chapter 2. Each art piece should represent only one concept from Chapter 2.

I want you to be exposed to a variety of art so it’s important that you make sure to see art created by different artists, made in different media and produced during different time periods. For instance, this means you shouldn’t pick just paintings to discuss, or just art created by a single artist or just art only from one exhibit area.

3) Write a paper about your virtual museum visit and Chapter 2.

After your virtual museum visit, write a paper about your experience.  Begin by saying what museum website you visited (e.g., “I chose the Dallas Museum of Art’s website for my virtual visit”).  Then discuss the six art pieces you chose.  Begin by saying something like, “The art piece that represents art for daily use is (insert art piece title, artist and media). Then go on to describe the art piece using your own impressions and ideas (conceptualize).  I definitely do not want a research paper.  Instead, I want you to incorporate the assigned reading into your paper and discuss the art piece as if you are describing it to someone else.  You don’t have to put a lot of detail into your description necessarily.  I do not expect you to write about art like an art critic would.  Don’t worry about using the the terminology from the principles of design or the visual elements that are discussed in later chapters.  Just write about the art in your own words. 

Your paper should cover the following:

a) The Art. Tell me about the specific art pieces you saw.  If you cover fewer than six art pieces, you will not be able to earn full credit on the assignment.

Feel free to tell me your impressions of individual art pieces, but don’t feel obligated to understand everything.

b) The Assigned Reading. Discuss the art pieces you saw as examples of the concepts or ideas set forth in Chapter 2 (i.e., pages 20-35 of the textbook).  Specifically, I want to know that you read about, understand and can apply the concepts of the six purposes and functions of art to individual art pieces.  For example, if you discuss an art piece that was created to make a statement against oppressing people, you would identify it as art for political purposes.

It is not necessary to incorporate concepts from the other chapters you’ve read, including Chapter 1, but you may if you like.

What I don’t want:

Please don’t tell me how a featured artist is untalented or that his/her art is not worthy of display. Just remember that this is an art appreciation course so do your best to try to appreciate the art you see even if you don’t understand or like some of it. Assume for purposes of this assignment that each piece at the museum has some validity.

No “generic happy talk” please. I’m glad if you had a positive experience viewing the art on the museum’s website and if the art impressed or inspired you. That said, just skip all those superlatives for this paper and instead talk about the ideas I mentioned above.

This paper is not designed to be a research paper and I do not want you to use any outside research sources. But, if you can’t get around quoting something from the museum, by all means, cite the source. But, don’t worry about making this paper too precious.

Of course, plagiarism is forbidden. If you plagiarize, don’t expect to get any credit for this assignment. Further, students submitting plagiarized work will receive an automatic “F” for the assignment and may be reported to the school for disciplinary action. Enough said. 

What I do want:

I want to hear your own ideas and reflections about the museum, the art and the concepts addressed in the assigned reading. If someone else read your paper, I would hope it would inform them about the subject matter and might even give them some insight if they’ve never been to an art museum before.

I want to know that you read the assigned chapters, understand the concepts from Chapter 2, can apply those concepts from Chapter 2 to the art you saw on the museum’s website and can write about it in a paper that is 4 full pages long.

DUE DATE:

As with all course deadlines, the due date to submit the Museum Paper is listed in the Course Calendar under the Course Calendar tab on the course website.

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

Word Documents – Your paper should be a minimum of 4 full pages long, double-spaced (without extra spaces between paragraphs), written in Times New Roman 12 point font, and have 1″ margins on the top, bottom, and sides. Museum Papers should be a MINIMUM of 4 full pages in order to receive any credit for the assignment.  (Better to spill over to a 5th page to ensure you meet the minimum length requirement).

Rich Text Format (RTF) Documents – Because of automatic formatting, RTF documents tend to run shorter than Word documents.  Accordingly, if you submit an RTF paper, your paper should be at least 5 pages long, double-spaced (without extra spaces between paragraphs), written in Times New Roman 12 point font, and have 1″ margins on the top, bottom, and sides. Museum Papers should be a MINIMUM of 4 full pages in order to receive any credit for the assignment.  (Better to spill over to a 6th page to ensure you meet the minimum length requirement).

As for the body of the paper itself, please don’t skimp on content and make your paper longer by utilizing any of the following: a title line; a title page; extra spaces; extra space between paragraphs; my name; the date; images or photographs; headers; footers; large fonts; graphics; and/or wide margins.  Paragraph spacing (before and after) should be set at 0.  If your paper includes any of the above, your paper will not be considered submitted until it’s set up according to my guidelines.  The only identifying information should be your name and section number at the top of your paper.  Feel free to use the above Museum Paper Template when writing your paper to make sure it is formatted correctly.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
When you are ready to submit your paper, use the Assignment link above and upload your word document (.DOC, .DOCX or RTF file). Any other file format will not be accepted. Don’t forget to check the deadline for the paper so you will not be late in submitting it. After you submit your word document, go to My Grades and check if your submission was complete. If it was submitted successfully, a green circle with an exclamation point icon will show (needs grading icon). If you don’t see a green icon, this means the assignment was not submitted. Go back and submit your work again