Introduction to the Humanities
Joanna DelMonaco (Mathematics)
delmonacoj@middlesex.mass.edu
Dona Cady (English/Humanities)
cadyd@middlesex.mass.edu
Middlesex Community College
Main    Course Syllabus    The Golden Ratio    Introductory Lesson    Pantheon Diagram    MFA Museum Assignment    Scavenger Hunt

MFA Museum Assignment

Due December 10, 2007

200 Points

http://www.mfa.org/


Your assignment is to visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, discover and investigate a variety of works, and then write about them. You may choose to either meet me there on December 1st at 10 AM or go on your own at a more convenient day and time. Admission information and driving instructions available on the above MFA website.


Learning about great art is important, but learning what moves you is just as important, and so to that end, you should roam about the MFA, looking closely at art that represents master craftsmanship. You must choose two works of art to discuss from each of the following collections:

1) Art of the Ancient World (Greek, Roman)

2) Art of Europe

3) Art of the Americas

4) Contemporary Art

5) Art of Asia, Oceania, and Africa.


Extra credit: For ten extra points, you are free to choose two other works from any other part of the MFA collection. Fifteen extra credit points if those two works are from any of the special exhibitions currently on view at the MFA.



Now, what do you do once you have chosen? You write.

For as noted art historian Sylvan Barnet states in A Short Guide to Writing About Art:


Writing an essay of any kind ought not to be an activity doggedly engaged in to please the instructor [although it helps!]; it ought to be a stimulating, if taxing, activity that educates you and your readers. The job is twofold – seeing and saying – because these two activities finally are inseparable, for if you don’t say it effectively, the reader won’t see what you have seen, and perhaps you haven’t seen it clearly either. What you say, in short, is a sort of device for helping the reader and yourself to see clearly.


When writing an analysis, then, keep these questions in mind:


  1. What is it and who created it? (painting, sculpture, photograph, drawing, mixed media) Include the title.


  1. Where and when was the work made?


  1. What is my first impression of the work?


  1. Where would the work have originally been seen?


  1. What purpose did it serve?


  1. Does the title help illuminate the work?


  1. In what condition has it survived?


  1. What is the subject matter? Representational, Abstract, or Nonobjective?


  1. What are the elements and principles of composition?

Elements: line, form, color (hue, value, intensity), mass, texture, medium

Principles of composition: arrangement (space and light), repetition (rhythm, harmony, variation), proportion, ratio, and balance (symmetry, asymmetry), unity (open or closed composition), focal area (one or several), perspective (linear or aerial), and chiaroscuro


  1. How do the elements stimulate the senses?

Contrast in color, chiaroscuro

Dynamics of line and shape (horizontal, vertical, diagonal, triangle, curve, broken line, sharp or fuzzy shape)

Trompe l’oeil (effect of changing vanishing point)

Juxtaposition (dissonance or consonance)

Size and Scale


  1. What is the historical, cultural, and stylistic context of the work? How does the

Style or content reflect the characteristics, values, or ideas of its time or the concerns of the artist?


Finally, sum up. Your 200 point essay should at least be eight pages of text but more appreciated and probably needed as you will want to include small pictures from the MFA database.