Art historians paper

Details of task: Art historians create ‘arguments’ (ie, informed opinions) about creative practices: their significance, their meanings, their development over time, and their relationship to their historical contexts. Art historical discourse can be understood as a kind of conversation, as different scholars engage with each other’s ideas and offer their own perspectives. In this assessment task, you will practice engaging closely with another scholar’s argument about an artwork, and setting their opinions in dialogue with your own.

Choose one artwork from the selection below, and carefully read the text associated with your chosen artwork. Please note: you should only respond to one artwork and one text for this assessment task.

Write a response which summarises your author’s argument about the artwork, explains whether you agree or disagree with their perspective and why, and presents your own interpretation of the artwork. Why do you find the author’s argument compelling? Or problematic? What have they failed to consider? You should identify the aspects of the artwork that particularly support your interpretation: for example, you might consider its formal, material and conceptual qualities or the context in which it was made. This is not a research task, but you should nevertheless offer an informed argument, based on information provided in lectures and supplied readings as well as other scholarly resources as necessary.

Word limit: 1000 words, +/- 10%.

Criteria for marking: please refer to the marking guide below.

Generative AI tools cannot be used in this assessment task