PAPER ASSIGNMENT -- Due Date: December 6

From the following list of paintings in the Metropolitan Museum and the Frick Collection select one and write an analytical paper of approximately 1250-1500 words (five to seven typed pages). Look carefully at each of the paintings on the list before making your choice -- which should be one that appeals to you and that you want to get to know better. Your task is to write a critical analysis of the painting-which means discussion of its formal and technical structures, i.e., of its composition, its color and coloring, its texture as an object -- which should be set within your broader knowledge of style and pictorial culture. Description itself should be analytical and should move quite naturally to interpretation-i.e., to the expressive significance of figural motifs and interaction, of the quality of space in the design on the surface and within the notional world of representation; the significance of color choice, distribution, and handling; the particular qualities of paint application. Your time should be spent in the museum rather than in the library, looking closely and often at the picture itself rather than at reproductions, analyzing, and interpreting the picture rather than rehearsing historical or biographical data. Although you may want to learn more about the artist and/or the subject of the painting chosen, your direct and intimate knowledge of the painting should shine through the paper. You should plan several trips to the museums and familiarize yourself with all the relevant paintings; the other pictures will offer you useful comparisons by which to discern the special qualities of the one you have selected.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Galley 7

Raphael, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (16.30ab))
Andrea del Sarto, The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John (22.75)
Andrea del Sarto, Portrait of a Man (1982.60.9)
Giuliano Bugiardini, Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints Mary Magdalen and John the Baptist ((30.83)
Fra Bartolomeo, Madonna and Child with Young Saint John the Baptist (06.171)
Bronzino, Portrait of a Young Man (29.100.9)
Giuliano Bugiardini, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Sts. Mary Magdalen and John the Baptist (30.83)

Gallery 8

Lorenzo Lotto, Venus and Cupid (1986.138)
Titian, Venus and the Lute Player (36.29)
Veronese, Mars and Venus united by Love (10.189)
Veronese, Portrait of Alessandro Vittoria (46.31)
Tintoretto, The Finding of Moses (39.55)
Tintoretto, The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes (13.75)
Schiavone, The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (1973.116)
Attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo, The Holy Family with Saints and Donors (1973.155.5)

Gallery 9

Dosso Dossi, The Three Ages of Man (26.83)
Correggio, Saints Peter, Martha, Mary Magdalen, and Leonard (12.211 )
Savoldo, Saint Matthew and the Angel (12.14)
Lorenzo Lotto, Brother Gregorio Belo of Vicenza (65.117)
Moretto da Brescia, The Entombment (12.61)
Moretto da Brescia, Portrait of a Man (28.79)
Giovanni Battista Moroni, Portrait of Bartolommeo Bonghi (13.177)
Attributed to Parmigianino, The Annunciation (1982.319)