I sadly do not seem to have time for this essay any more, but I keep it floating around my digital folders just in case one year I am miraculously ahead or I feel my students are very week with contextual analysis. This essay asks students to deeply look at the historical influences on one piece and understand how the context shapes both the content and form of an artwork. Because, no art is created out of context.
Note: at the end of this post I have a list of artworks from the AP Art History 250 that go particularly well with this assignment, but this could also be a fantastic opportunity to go off “the list” and then ask them to find a piece from the 250 with the same or similar historical context (that means you are also working on attribution!)
Essay Guidelines:
You will be writing an essay about how a work of art responded to a historical event either during the artist’s lifetime or prior.
- Connect the artwork to a historical event. Provide relevant background to the historical event (CONTEXT) that helps us understand the CONTENT of the image.
- What specific ideas or perspective about the event did the artist intent to convey? Are there any glaring things they left out? Why do you think that is?
- How did this the historical event influence the artist’s style (FORM) of the artwork?
- How did the audience at the time respond to the work? Why do you think the artwork was received the way it was?
- Provide evidence from both the work of art and another written source (i.e. critics review, artist’s statement/ biography, etc; must cite this source in your text as in in line citation or footnote)
Essay Format:
- Essay should be an appropriate, easy to read 12 font; 1.5 spacing
- Title of the essay: Title of the image AND historical event referenced
- Immediately following your title should a color images of the artwork
- The exact number of paragraphs is up to you however this is the minimum:
- Description of the historical event(s)
- Connection of the historical event to the art image
- Their point-of-view or perspective of the event and an explanation of how the historical event influenced the artist’s stylistic choices.
- Audience/critics’ reactions and why you felt they reacted the way they did.
- At the end of your essay include a list of resources you used, remember be specific if you are using a large book or website (at least 3 sources needed; no specific format needed)
Image Ideas from “the 250”:
- 13. Palette of King Narmer
- 40. Alexander Mosaic
- 45. Column of Trajan from the Forum of Trajan
- 59. Bayeux Tapestry
- 81. Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza
- 86. Henri IV Receives the Portrait of Marie de’ Medici
- 94. Screen with the Siege of Belgrade
- 103. The Oath of the Horatii
- 106. Y no hai remedio (And There’s Nothing to Be Done)
- 108. Liberty Leading the People
- 111. Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On)
- 114. Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art
- 119. The Burghers of Calais
- 133. Self-Portrait as a Soldier
- 134. Memorial Sheet for Karl Liebknecht
- 137. Illustration from The Results of the First Five-Year Plan.
- 141. The Migration of the Negro
- 143. Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park
- 150. Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks
- 165. Painted elk hide.
- 203. Night Attack on the Sanjô Palace
- 212. Chairman Mao en Route to Anyua
- 225. Vietnam Veterans Memorial. W
- 228. Androgyne III
- 233. Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)
- 235. Rebellious Silence, from the Women of Allah series
- 244. The Swing (after Fragonard)
