Arts 150– Final Essay Exam       

 

 

For Final Exam: a Take-home paper!

 

Below are your final essay topics. Choose ONE of the essay topics as your final paper for this course. The content of your essay should reflect material from course readings and class lectures.

 

This is a formal composition, so your written essay should include the following: an introductory statement and thesis (including a clear point-of-view); the content itself upon which your thesis rests (I anticipate this being 6 paragraphs long or more); a concluding and/or summary statement that furthers or expounds upon your findings or the points of your discussion.

 

Essay question

The major contributions of American Artists to the development of Modern Visual Arts are evidenced in the practice of American Impressionists, Realists, Cubists, Photographers, Minimalists, Dada, African American, and Abstract Expressionist artists. Focus your essay on ONE of the topics below. Be as specific as possible for full point credit.

1. Marcel Duchamp’s impact on American art and on photographer Man Ray (discuss, for example, Man Ray’s Duchamp as Rrose Selavy, 1923).
2. American Realism was exclusively rooted in American experience (Winslow Homer) but also revived Western European Painting (Thomas Eakins). Investigate how American Realism combined American experience with French Realism (Courbet and Millet) and even with the pictorial art of Rembrandt.
3. American Impressionist painters borrowed from French Impressionism creatively, developing their own version of Impressionism. Investigate the art of American Impressionists John Singer Sargent, Cecilia Beaux, and Marry Cassatt.
4. Analyze the establishment of photography as fine art in the USA and the influence Alfred Stieglitz exerted on American painters (Max Weber, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe etc). Comment on the depression horrors in the documentary photography of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.
5. Analyze how Abstract Expressionism involved both action panting (Jackson Pollock, de Kooning, etc) and “color field painters” (Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, etc)

 

Writing recommendations:

Consider this essay component of the exam an exercise in rhetoric and academic writing.

 

If possible, choose material that interests or moves you. Care.

 

Generally speaking, as a writer, use your medium to educate your reader. Content (facts and specifics) matters: reasonable content gives you credibility with your reader. Choose and use your words carefully, judiciously, and correctly: this earns your reader’s trust and respect. Flex your authorial “voice” or tone here or there, to inspire, delight, or enhance meaning: in other words, make your reader care.

 

Why not view this essay as a kind of performance? One way to do this is to imagine what you would like your readers to feel after they finish reading your essay. (In my own essay writing, I tell myself: “I hope to help educate my reader with good information and one or two insights, so that, afterwards, the reader thinks to himself/herself: ‘I’m so glad I read that!’”).

 

Arts 150– Final Essay Exam       

 

 

For Final Exam: a Take-home paper!

 

Below are your final essay topics. Choose ONE of the essay topics as your final paper for this course. The content of your essay should reflect material from course readings and class lectures.

 

This is a formal composition, so your written essay should include the following: an introductory statement and thesis (including a clear point-of-view); the content itself upon which your thesis rests (I anticipate this being 6 paragraphs long or more); a concluding and/or summary statement that furthers or expounds upon your findings or the points of your discussion.

 

Essay question

The major contributions of American Artists to the development of Modern Visual Arts are evidenced in the practice of American Impressionists, Realists, Cubists, Photographers, Minimalists, Dada, African American, and Abstract Expressionist artists. Focus your essay on ONE of the topics below. Be as specific as possible for full point credit.

1. Marcel Duchamp’s impact on American art and on photographer Man Ray (discuss, for example, Man Ray’s Duchamp as Rrose Selavy, 1923).
2. American Realism was exclusively rooted in American experience (Winslow Homer) but also revived Western European Painting (Thomas Eakins). Investigate how American Realism combined American experience with French Realism (Courbet and Millet) and even with the pictorial art of Rembrandt.
3. American Impressionist painters borrowed from French Impressionism creatively, developing their own version of Impressionism. Investigate the art of American Impressionists John Singer Sargent, Cecilia Beaux, and Marry Cassatt.
4. Analyze the establishment of photography as fine art in the USA and the influence Alfred Stieglitz exerted on American painters (Max Weber, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe etc). Comment on the depression horrors in the documentary photography of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.
5. Analyze how Abstract Expressionism involved both action panting (Jackson Pollock, de Kooning, etc) and “color field painters” (Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, etc)

 

Writing recommendations:

Consider this essay component of the exam an exercise in rhetoric and academic writing.

 

If possible, choose material that interests or moves you. Care.

 

Generally speaking, as a writer, use your medium to educate your reader. Content (facts and specifics) matters: reasonable content gives you credibility with your reader. Choose and use your words carefully, judiciously, and correctly: this earns your reader’s trust and respect. Flex your authorial “voice” or tone here or there, to inspire, delight, or enhance meaning: in other words, make your reader care.

 

Why not view this essay as a kind of performance? One way to do this is to imagine what you would like your readers to feel after they finish reading your essay. (In my own essay writing, I tell myself: “I hope to help educate my reader with good information and one or two insights, so that, afterwards, the reader thinks to himself/herself: ‘I’m so glad I read that!’”).