DEGAS, VAN GOGH, GAUGUIN: 1ST PAPER First paper assignment. DUE IN CLASS ON OCTOBER 4th.

A short description of an original work of art. No Late papers!!! Three pages, double-spaced, regular size type (10 or 12 point), with 1-inch margins. Be sure to write in complete sentences and proofread for typos! You will need to print out four stapled copies of your paper. One for each of the TAs, one to trade with another student, and one for me! On the day your papers are due, we will talk about what you saw in the museums you visited. Art history comprises the analytical skills of looking, reading, thinking, and writing. Your first paper will concentrate on the looking process. In this project, you are to go to a museum or art gallery (see list of local museums and galleries below), choose an object to look at, take notes on, and then describe--in words--what it is that you see. You will want to polish your language before you finish your paper. A basic necessity in this kind of writing is to provide enough descriptive information to make it evident to your reader what the object looks like and why it is that you've chosen to spend the time looking at it. One type of model for writing about art is one in which the author focuses in on several aspects of the painting and explores them in depth while excluding others. Another model might be to create a narrative for the history of the object using descriptive language to help in the narrative format. Still others might be more purely formal (description of subject, technique, composition, how space is developed and rendered in the object, etc.); this is the more traditional art historical mode. You might also try to discuss the symbolics of the object, or even try to imagine yourself as if seeing the object at the historical moment in which it was first shown. Provide the name of the artist, the title of the work, its medium (oil on canvas, bronze, etching, etc.), date it was made if known, and its approximate dimensions. This material is easily included as follows: Artist: Edgar Degas Title: At the Races in the Country (ca. 1872) Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 135 x 100 cm. Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston If the piece is part of a temporary exhibition, please also note this. You can organize a trip with others to New York, Boston, New Haven, Springfield, Hartford, Williamstown, North Adams, etc. to look at some of the finest museum collections in the world. In other words, you do not need limit yourself to the Five Colleges for this project! Remember that most museums and galleries are closed on Mondays, so you will want to check the hours before you go. And finally, please take PENCILS and paper with you into the space where youll be looking at the object. Ink can spill and you will want to take notes on what you see for later use in writing the paper. Good luck! In the 5-College area: Main Gallery and the Liebling Center at Hampshire College; Amherst College, Mead Art Museum; UMASS, Fine Art Center and Herter Gallery; Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton; R. Michelson Gallery, both on Pleasant Street in Amherst and on Main Street in Northampton; William Basczek Fine Art, on Main Street in Northampton. Outside the Five-College Area: Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, the Quadrangle, Springfield, 413-2636800 (only open Weds-Sundays);Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT. 877-600-MAIN, closed on Mondays; MASS MOCA, 87 Marshall Street, North Adams, MA 413-662-2111; Worcester Art Museum; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; Hillstead Museum, Farmington, CT; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA 413-597-2429; The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown.