Research an art object made between 1800 and 1980, a seven-page paper about the object and the artist who created it. - 18 points

You will select an art object from between 1800 and 1980 from those you experience on our Washington, D.C. field trip, research the object and the artist, and prepare a seven-page paper that tells a semi-educated viewer/reader what she or he should know about the piece and its context, including relating the artist and her work to issues that we are addressing in class.

You must state a thesis for your paper within the first paragraph and then develop your arguments by combining elements of formal and contextual (content) description, reaction, compare and contrast, and comments about how artist's life may be reflected in the work.. In addition, you are expected to take a critical stance, not liking or disliking but applying judgments of quality, expression, realization of intent (inferred or expressed), addressing important issues in the artist's life and times, and/or relevance to either art history as you understand it or contemporary issues.

Find out and discuss, what is important to you, about this work of art. How does it speak to you? What does it tell you? How does the presence of the object affect you?

It is best not to pick a piece that you intensely dislike, but it is sometimes interesting to investigate work that you are unsure about. No more than one page should be an out-and-out biography. You must focus on an art object that you have personally experienced this semester.