Research Paper (due Friday, Dec. 5).

Your paper for this course will be based on your analysis of a single Chinese painting from the period 618-1368. Try to choose a painting that you like and want to know more about. I encourage you to come talk to me about possible paper topics. Note that you should turn in a proposal for your paper topic on Friday, Oct. 3; this should be no longer than one paragraph, and the point of turning it in is so that I can make sure that you are choosing a manageable topic.

On Friday, Nov. 7, you should turn in an annotated bibliography of your sources, with printouts of online search results for material in the library catalog or databases. The annotated bibliography should be a list of the sources found by this date that you plan to use in your paper, with a sentence or two explaining why it is useful in your research. (Of course, it is fine to continue to look for sources after the annotated bibliography is due.) It is particularly important that you pay attention to your sources. Although looking for information on the internet is very convenient, internet sources are not always subject to peer review in the same way as books and journal articles. For this reason, I expect the majority of your bibliography to consist of peer-reviewed books and journal articles. Although I cannot stipulate how many sources I expect to see, certainly the more you have and the more academic they are the better: part of the point of doing a research paper is to demonstrate the amount and quality of research you did, and this is done through your bibliography. You will be learning how to find the resources on Chinese painting available through our library at the Library Research Session scheduled for Friday, Sept. 19.

The paper itself should be about 1500-2100 words (roughly five to seven pages of text, not including images or bibliography). I expect to see both a description and an analysis of the picture that you choose. Start by describing the painting, and then use that description to analyze its style, function, and historical context. In addition to looking for written discussions of the painting you have chosen, you may wish to do some reading about the artist, patron, and/or collector (if any of these figures is identified), the subject matter, the period and region, and/or similar paintings to help with your analysis.

Here are some elements that you may want to research:

1. the identity, status, and circumstances of the artist, patron, or collector, if known;
2. the painting’s subject matter and/or function;
3. where and when the painting was made (its provenance and date);
4. what the painting is made of (its medium);
5. whether the painting is inscribed and, if so, what the inscription says.

Remember, if you are searching for proper Chinese names, that there are two romanization systems in common use, Wade-Giles and Hanyu Pinyin, and this means that you should search using both systems (Chang Tse-tuan and Zhang Zeduan are two romanizations of the same artist’s name). Please refer to the conversion sheet attached to your syllabus, or ask me for help.

You should also observe and discuss formal characteristics of the painting (including its composition; the artist’s use of line or color; rendering of space, mass, or volume; perspective; proportion or scale).

These elements might suggest the following questions, some or all of which you should attempt to answer in your paper:

1. what does the subject matter suggest about the object’s significance?
2. how does the object or site fit in its historical context?
3. what do the medium and formal characteristics tell you about the artistic choices of the maker, the status of the owner, or the possible reactions of viewers?
4. does an inscription reveal anything about the circumstances of the object’s creation, or the attitudes of the maker or viewers?

Develop a thesis or an argument around which to organize your writing. (Note: this should not be a vague, inflated claim such as “This painting exemplifies the beauty and grandeur of Chinese art.”) Pay attention to your language: please avoid judgmental words like “good” or “bad,” as well as overused adjectives like “nice” and “interesting.”

Be sure, in addition to including a bibliography at the end of your paper, to cite your sources throughout your paper using either footnotes (preferred in humanities courses) or parenthetical references: see A Pocket Style Manual for details on how to do this. Note that bibliographic and note forms are different.

Please refer to the notes in your syllabus about appropriate formats for written work and about plagiarism. If you need more information about how to write an art history paper, I recommend looking at Sylvan Barnet's A Short Guide to Writing about Art. (The 1985 edition is in the reference section of the Library; the 2008 edition is a recommended text for this class and available in the College Store.) If you have further questions about writing research papers, you might visit the HWS Writes website.