Field Trip to the Art Institute: I will be going to the Art Institute on October 5th, and you are welcome to go along. We’ll meet at the circle at 9:30am and then walk over together to the College Ave station (or you can meet us there) to catch the 9:57 train. We’ll return on the 2:40pm train which will get back to Wheaton at 3:30. Tickets are $4.50 each way, and the Institute’s entrance fee has unfortunately gone up to $12. If this time doesn’t suit, you might choose to go on a Thursday evening as there is free admission between 5-8pm. From the Chicago station, we’ll travel east on Madison for about ten blocks until you hit Millennium Park. The Institute is just south.
Paper Instructions: Your task for the final paper is to spend significant time in person with a single work of art. By significant I mean around thirty (30) minutes. It may seem very difficult at first, but I encourage you to slow down your pace, and look deeply and intently at the piece.
Take notes. Make sketches. Be as specific and descriptive as possible of what you see. Use plentiful adjectives and active verbs to enrich your writing. Consider the formal elements and principles of design. Is theline quality sinuous and delicate or rough, jagged? Is form created through the depiction of shapes and planes or by build up of texture and mass? Are brushstrokes or the bites of a chisel evident, or have surfaces been smoothed out or “licked”? Does negative space flow in and around the volumes, or is it trapped, dense and solid? What hueshave been chosen, and what is their specific quality (value, intensity, or saturation)? How have the elements been composed or arranged in relation to one another and the audience, and in what manner or style has the subject been visually executed? How does this contribute to the feel or possible meaning(s) of the work?
When you think you have seen everything there is to see, put your pencil down and close your eyes. When you open them, look at the piece again. Look at the title if you haven’t already, and any additional information which might help to give some further context for the piece.
Next, interpret the work in light of at least one of the major themes we have been studying in our text: the Earth as Art, Representations of the Divine, Pilgrimage, the shifting role of the artist in relation to her patrons, the idea of Utopia and Dystopia, and the Spirit World and the Inner Mind. Refer back to a specific work we looked at either in the text, or online in the blog.
And finally, end with some concluding thoughts. The entire paper should be between 500-750 words and fit on a single page. It is better to be short and interesting than rambling and incoherent. On a cover page, include a color image of the work and your name. Due in my box (2nd floor of Adams) by 4:30pm on Tuesday, 12 October.
Click here for a printable pdf of these instructions.
* For those of you who are unable to make it to the field trip or to the Institute on your own, you may choose a work that is here on campus (quite a number are here in the halls of Adams), or at another local college gallery or museum. You might also consider an outdoor piece of sculpture and its context. Benedictine University in Lisle has a wonderful collection of contemporary religious works throughout its campus, and in the architecturally significant abbey: St Procopius.
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