Papers should be typed and double-spaced. Use Times New Roman typeface and a 12
point type size. Margins should be one inch on all sides. Paragraphs should be indented at the
beginning; do not place extra blank lines between paragraphs. No images of the objects are
necessary. The front page of your paper will be a title page with your name (no ID number), the
title of your paper (in italics), the course number and meeting time, and my name. The following
pages should be numbered at the upper right, beginning with page “1” on the first page of text.
The title page should not be numbered.
If you reference a source you should use parenthetical notation, following the MLA
format (Brown, 2). If you use any external source, including your text book or the accompanying
wall text of your object, you are required to include a “works cited” page at the end of your
paper. Follow MLA formatting for the works cited page. Short quotations are to be put in
quotation marks. Longer quotations (of more than three lines) should be offset with a wider
margin and single-spaced within the body of the text (without quotation marks).
The ukiyo-e landscape tradition of Japan offers a complex look at the conversation
between the Japanese, Chinese, and Dutch cultures in the 17th
and 18th
centuries. The
incorporation of Dutch aesthetics found in the 17th
century landscape prints exported
from Amsterdam and Antwerp, and the rejection of traditional Chinese landscape
painting traditions by ukiyo-e artists is then re-assimilated into Western aesthetics
through the exportation of ukiyo-e back to Europe in the 18th
century (Brown, 1).
Be cautious in your use of quotes. Do not over rely on the words of others to write your paper.
Keep block quotes in particular to a minimum.
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Acquaint yourself with HCC’s rules concerning plagiarism. Any interpretation, argument
or line of reasoning derived from another source must be cited with precise bibliographic
reference. If you include any of the original wording of that source, you must also use quotation
marks, indicating that you have not only derived content from that source, but the language in
which it was expressed. A parenthetical notation in your text without quotation marks indicates
means that the content of that sentence is taken from the source, but the writing is completely
your own. Any significant resemblance in phrasing in this case with the source would constitute
plagiarism, changing a few words here and there does not help. There is no such thing as
“accidental plagiarism.” Do not plagiarize.
A few basic things for writing about art: use the past tense to describe actions that
happened in the past. You would say: “Leonardo painted the Last Supper in 1495-98.” But when
you are describing things visible in, or qualities about an extant work of art, the tense will shift to
the present because you are describing a physical object that still exists. Thus: “In the Last
Supper, the disciples are represented with a variety of poses, gestures and facial expressions as
they react to Christ’s words.” Note also that titles of works of art must be italicized: do not use
quotation marks. When you mention works of art for the first time, give the name of the artist,
the full title of the work, the date, and where the work currently resides (e.g., name of museum
and city) in parentheses: “…the Master of the Straus Madonna’s Virgin and Child (Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston) of c.1395-1400…”. Subsequent references to the same work can employ a
shortened version of the title if the latter is rather long: for example, “the Straus Virgin and
Child” or “the Straus painting”, or “the Virgin and Child” as long as it is clear what painting you
are referring to. Note that the definite article is sometimes used and sometimes not:
thus “Leonardo’s Last Supper” but (without the artist’s name) “the Last Supper” or “the Last
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Supper of Leonardo”. This is because, prior to the modern era, artists did not generally stipulate
the exact wording of any kind of verbal description of the paintings. In the Renaissance and
prior, objects of art do not really have “titles” so much as “subjects”. When one is dealing with a
real title, as determined by the author-of either a book or a painting-then it is necessary to retain
the definite article: thus, “Dostoyevski’s The Idiot,” but “Leonardo’s Last Supper”.
Papers will be graded equally on both writing and content. Be attentive to grammar and
spelling: if you are not sure about the spelling of a word, consult a dictionary (spell check is your
best friend). Do not use contractions in a formal paper. Proofread your paper carefully: If you
need help with your writing, write a draft of your paper ahead of time and make an appointment
with a writing tutor at the writing center on campus. Remember that writing quality includes
issues of grammar and spelling, but also subtler aspects of style and exposition, for example:
First, the organization of the entire paper should be clear and logical. Begin with an introductory
paragraph that culminates in a thesis (usually the last sentence of the first paragraph), which is
the main idea or argument that you will be discussing in the paper. For the small, non-research
papers in this course, the “thesis” need not be terribly original or complex (though if you want to
try for that, by all means do!). Something like this might serve: “In this paper, I will demonstrate
how this painting exemplifies stylistic features characteristic of its period and artistic culture.”
(This will be the only acceptable use of the first person in your paper. Write in the third person
only.) The thesis sentence tells the reader what the paper will be about; the object you have
chosen, but also what your conceptual approach to it will be-how you will be discussing it, and
what you will be trying to explain about it.
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Second, the body of the paper will then consist of a series of paragraphs. Paragraphs exist
for a reason: a paragraph is or should be “about” a definable topic or issue that is a subset of the
larger subject of the entire paper. Paragraphs should be of a reasonable size. If a paragraph
consists of only a couple of sentences that suggests it does not contain enough information
to justify it standing alone as a paragraph: perhaps it should be tacked on to the end of the
preceding paragraph, or the beginning of the next. If a paragraph goes on for a couple of pages,
then consider that you might be cramming too much into it and that it would better be broken up
into smaller paragraphs. There should be a logical “flow” from one sentence to the next, and also
from one paragraph to the next, a logical structure to your argument and how it progresses from
beginning to end. The last paragraph of the paper will then summarize your main points and
contain a conclusion of some kind: this will refer back to your thesis sentence in some way and
show the reader how your paper has answered what you set out to investigate.
Writing well is difficult but is worth the effort, because polishing your words
forces you to refine the thinking behind them. Good writing demands more than learning a set of
grammatical do’s and don’ts. To write well, you must read well-read serious and well-written
literature, whether fiction or non-fiction-because a sense of what really constitutes good diction,
a well- constructed argument, concision of thought, and graceful writing needs to be fed by
encountering those qualities in other texts. There are a few minor conventions here and there to
keep in mind when writing art history, but for the most part if you write well, then you will be
able to write well about art. There is no secret to thinking about art. We are looking at physical
objects made by human beings, and trying to explain how they came about, why they look the
way they do, why they represent what they do, how they functioned in the context of their
own culture, what meanings they had and still have for their viewers. A lot of this can only be
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got by deeper research into the historical contexts of the works: for the papers you will write in
this course, however, the only “contextual” material you are expected to have is what you read in
the textbooks, and what we have discussed in lecture. The emphasis is on close looking at the
objects in the museum, and training your eye to see what is visually significant about them. I am
interested in your own close visual observation of and thinking about these objects, but of course
you will be expected to demonstrate the general validity of what you are saying. The papers in
this course are NOT primarily about whether you like or dislike the works of art. Avoid making
broad judgments about the quality, or what you think the quality is-good or bad-of the works.
The more time you spend trying to understand works of art rather than judging them, the better,
and the more likely it is that those judgments, when you do make them, will be well-informed.
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