Imagine you are presenting at a conference on art and philosophy aimed at college students in California. You decide to present a short paper making the argument about how art and the humanities can be a source of hope and justice in the 21st century. To make this argument, you will present a short, paper or presentation including evidence from course readings and at least two works of art using a variety of sources including quotes and ideas from Our Missing Hearts, quotes and evidence from at least one other written source from our class such as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray or the writings of Olympe de Gouges or Touissant L’Overture, and a work of 20th or 21st century art that suggests the power of art to show resistance, hope, and the pursuit of justice.
Please note: there are two options for turning in this assignment. You can either turn in your essay as a written essay 3-4 pages in length with a works cited page OR you can turn in a slide deck of you presenting on this topic using PowerPoint or Google Slides including a works cited page AND a link to a video of you filming your presentation–just like you would do at a conference. It’s your call whatever method you prefer to submit this.
The Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to see the connections you can make between some of the key ideas from the readings in this unit and others in this class and and contemporary examples of art.
The Details: Imagine that you will be presenting your findings to an audience of your peers. You should write this assignment in a conversational tone like you were talking to a smart audience of students.
Your final assignment should be approximately three double-spaced pages (or a bit more if you include larger images of the art you selected). Or your PowerPoint/GoogleSlide deck should be around 7 slides (title slide, a slide for each category below, and a works cited page slide) and also include a link to a video of you giving your presentation which will probably be somewhere between 7-10 minutes in length.
Whether you write a traditional paper or do a presentation and record it, you need to include the different categories of evidence and ideas below:
Category 1) At least 5 quotations from Our Missing Hearts
Category 2) At least two quotations from another thinker or writer from our class such as de Gouges, and/or L’Overture, Kant, Descartes, or Wilde. Remember that all of the readings from unit one on the Enlightenment from writers like de Gouges, L’Overture, Kant and Descartes can be found linked here.
Category 3) some specific details/information about one of the specific paintings we discussed in class. A complete list of artists and paintings discussed is at the end of this assignment. Some good artists and paintings to use might be David’s Oath of the Horatii or The Tennis Court Oath Turner’s The Slave Ship, Manet’s Rue Mosigner with Flags and lots of others! These are just a few ideas. I talk about Turner and Manet in my video on aestheticism and art linked here and David in my video on the Enlightenment and art linked here.
- Themes (big ideas) and symbols (features/objects connected to themes) the painting portrays
- Who is represented in it? Where are they? Who is the focus of the work?
- Other items/objects in the painting
- What are the color patterns (bold and vibrant, light and pastel, etc.)
- Lines and shapes (bold and strong/fluid bendy etc.)
- Biographical information about the painter
- Historical information that may connect to the purpose of the painting/the time in which it was painted
Category 4) specific information/details (and quotations, if you have them) regarding the work of contemporary art you selected.
- Themes (big ideas) and symbols (features/objects connected to themes) the painting portrays
- Who is represented in it? Where are they? Who is the focus of the work?
- Other items/objects in the painting
- What are the color patterns (bold and vibrant, light and pastel, etc.)
- Lines and shapes (bold and strong/fluid bendy etc.)
- Biographical information about the painter
- Historical information that may connect to the purpose of the painting/the time in which it was painted
Category 5) a statement that answers the following question: How can art and the humanities can be a source of resistance, hope, and justice in the 21st century and beyond? (Your answer to this can go at the beginning of your presentation (a deductive set up) or at the end of your presentation (an inductive set up.)
If, in doing your research, you find another work of art connected to the artists you’d like to discuss instead, check in with me and I can let you know if that will work.
It’s fine to use additional sources (like you might want to use quotes from L’Overture and de Gouges, or maybe you found an additional article about an artist you want to quote from) but you must use evidence from the three different categories. It’s also totally fine to use ideas and information from previous assignments to build on in this project.
Include a Works Cited page (this will be your fourth page) with any sources you quoted from or otherwise used in writing this assignment.
Contemporary Artists and Works of Art to Analyze (Pick ONE for this Assignment or you can also select another that interests you)
Benny Andrews
Benny Andrews Biography: https://www.holmesartgallery.com/bennyandrewsLinks to an external site.
Artwork to Analyze: Flag Day https://www.artic.edu/artworks/154124/flag-dayLinks to an external site.
Artak Gevorgyan/Counterstrike
Biography and Ideas for Art to Analyze: https://www.new-east-archive.org/articles/show/6557/artak-gevorgyan-street-art-yerevan-armeniaLinks to an external site.
Lorna Simpson
Lorna Simpson Biography: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/lorna-simpson-12577Links to an external site.
https://lsimpsonstudio.com/bioLinks to an external site.
Artwork to Analyze: Five Day Forecast https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/simpson-five-day-forecast-t13335Links to an external site.
Guerilla Girls
Background information on the Guerilla Girls: https://themedium.ca/guerillas-in-gorilla-the-feminist-art-activists/Links to an external site.
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/guerrilla-girls/Links to an external site.
Artwork to Analyze: Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met. Museum? https://www.guerrillagirls.com/naked-through-the-agesLinks to an external site.
Frieda Kahlo
Background Information on Frieda Kahlo: https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/m015k04?hl=enLinks to an external site.
Artwork to Analyze: Frieda and Diego Rivera https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/frieda-and-diego-rivera-frida-kahlo/pAGW_uPdEDd_uw?hl=enLinks to an external site.
Barbara Kruger
Background Information on Barbara Kruger: https://daily.jstor.org/the-history-your-body-is-a-battleground/Links to an external site.
https://www.moma.org/artists/3266Links to an external site.
Artwork to Analyze: Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger/untitled-your-body-battlegroundLinks to an external site.
Kehinde Wiley
Background Information on Kehinde Wiley and the Barack and Michelle Obama portraits: https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/m015k04?hl=enLinks to an external site.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehinde_WileyLinks to an external site.
Artwork to Analyze: Former President Barack Obama https://npg.si.edu/Barack_ObamaLinks to an external site.
Complete list of artists and some specific works of art discussed in Humanities 105 from Unit 1 (The Struggle for Truth) and Unit 2 (The Struggle for Beauty)
Jacques Louis David https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jldv/hd_jldv.htmLinks to an external site.
Boucher https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bouc/hd_bouc.htmLinks to an external site.
Jean Honore Fragonard https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/frag/hd_frag.htmLinks to an external site.
he Awakening Conscience, William Holeman Hunt (1853)Links to an external site.
Proserpine, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1874)Links to an external site.
Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, J.M.W. Turner (1844)Links to an external site.
Paris Street; Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte (1877)Links to an external site.
The Rue Mosnier with Flags, Édouard Manet (1878)Links to an external site.
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, Édouard Manet (1863)Links to an external site.
A Rake’s Progress, William Hogarth (1732-1734)Links to an external site.
Ophelia, Sir John Everett Millais (1851)Links to an external site.
Reading Aloud, Albert Joseph Moore (1884)Links to an external site.
The Bath of Psyche, Frederic, Lord Leighton (1890)Links to an external site.
Grading Criteria for Essay # 3
Strength of Ideas Range and depth of arguments; logic or arguments; appropriate sense of complexity of the topic; appropriate awareness of similarities/differences in figures’ viewpoints (7 points possible)
Organization and Development Logical and clear arrangement of ideas; effective use of transitions; unity and coherence of paragraphs/dialogue; strong use of textual evidence and analysis/commentary on evidence; evidence is cited correctly using (page numbers), quotation marks, author’s names/titles of texts (7 points possible)
Clarity and Style Ease of readability; appropriate voice, tone and style for assignment; clarity of sentence structure; gracefulness of sentence structure (3 points possible)
Sentence Structure and Mechanics
Sentences are grammatically correct; errors do not inhibit my ability to understand their meaning; accurate spelling and proofreading (3 points possible)
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/94900794-our-missing-hearts