Word Documents – Your paper should be a minimum of 4 full pages long, double-spaced (without extra spaces between paragraphs), written in Times New Roman 12 point font, and have 1″ margins on the top, bottom, and sides. Museum Papers should be a MINIMUM of 4 full pages in order to receive any credit for the assignment. (Better to spill over to a 5th page to ensure you meet the minimum length requirement).
Your paper should cover the following:

a) The Art. Tell me about a number of specific art pieces you saw. Feel free to write about a great many art pieces. However, if you cover fewer than seven, you will not be able to earn full credit on the assignment.

If you attended the museum’s major featured exhibit, you may definitely include in your paper your reflections about that exhibit but you must also discuss art from other areas of the museum. I want you to be exposed to a variety of art so it’s important that you make sure to see and discuss art created by different artists, made in different media and produced during different time periods. For instance, this means you shouldn’t write exclusively just about paintings or a single artist.

Feel free to tell me your impressions of individual art pieces, but don’t feel obligated to understand everything.

b) The Assigned Reading. Discuss the art pieces you saw as examples of the concepts or ideas set forth in Chapter 2 (i.e., pages 20-35 of the textbook). Specifically, I want to know that you read about, understand and can apply the concepts of the six purposes and functions of art to individual art pieces. For example, if you discuss an art piece that was created to make a statement against oppressing people, you would identify it as art created for persuasion.

It is not necessary to incorporate concepts from the other chapters you’ve read, including Chapter 1, but you may if you like.

What I don’t want:

Please don’t spend time discussing when the museum is open or what objects can or cannot be brought into the building or where patrons may park, etc. Just assume for this paper that I already know the basics about the museum. I want to hear your reactions to the museum and the art and not just a long list of everything you saw section by section.

Please don’t tell me how a featured artist is untalented or that his/her art is not worthy of display. Just remember that this is an art appreciation course so do your best to try to appreciate the art you see even if you don’t understand or like some of it. Assume for purposes of this assignment that each piece at the museum has some validity.

No “generic happy talk” please. I’m glad if you had a positive experience at the museum and if the art impressed or inspired you. That said, just skip all those superlatives for this paper and instead talk about the ideas I mentioned above.

This paper is not designed to be a research paper and I do not want you to use any outside research sources. But, if you can’t get around quoting something from the museum, by all means, cite the source. Of course, plagiarism is forbidden. If you plagiarize, don’t expect to get any credit for this assignment. Further, students submitting plagiarized work will receive an automatic “F” for the assignment and may be reported to the school for disciplinary action. Enough said.

What I do want:

I want to hear your own ideas and reflections about the museum, the art and the concepts addressed in the assigned reading. If someone else read your paper, I would hope it would inform them about the subject matter and might even give them some insight if they’ve never been to an art museum before.