For the Observational Paper you must choose a work of art from one of the museums listed in "Museum Project General Description."  The only requirement is that the artwork belong to a movement covered in the class. You will write a paper on one original work of art. It must be a minimum of 800 words.  This is not a research paper. Your observations should be illuminated by the lectures, assignments and readings. It is important to choose something that you can discuss without doing further research (unless you would like to do outside research – you are welcome to do so – on the internet, books, etc). If you do use outside sources, they must be properly credited. Please use MLA format.

A typical paper will spend the first two pages (or more) describing the art work in detail using terms learned in class (ie. sculpture in the round, complementary colors, iconography, etc.) and possibly providing some background about the artist (but not required).

In the rest of the paper you will compare/contrast the object to 1 artwork that we discussed in the lectures for the class – talking about how the works are similar and/or different. If you decide to do outside research you may want to talk about the work’s significance – how it may be a political statement or an shows an innovative style, for example.

The paper should be double-spaced and 12-point font in either Times New Roman or Arial and a minimum of 800 words.

Images are absolutely required!