Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
For the Observational Paper you must choose a work of art from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. You can choose any work of art from MOMA's collection for your project. The only requirement is that the artwork belong to a movement covered in Modules 1-7. Personally go to MOMA and view the work of art you have chosen for your project.
You will write a paper on one original work of art. It must be a minimum of 800 words. This is not a research paper. Your observations should be illuminated by the lectures, assignments and readings. It is important to choose something that you can discuss without doing further research (unless you would like to do outside research - you are welcome to do so - on the internet, books, etc). If you do use outside sources, they must be properly credited. Please use MLA format. If you are unsure about how to cite your sources.
A typical paper will spend the first two pages (or more) describing the art work in detail using terms learned in class (ie. sculpture in the round, complementary colors, iconography, etc.) and possibly providing some background about the artist (but not required).
In the rest of the paper you will compare/contrast the object to 1 artwork that we discussed in the lectures for Modules 1-7 - talking about how the works are similar and/or different. If you decide to do outside research you may want to talk about the work's significance - how it may be a political statement or an shows an innovative style, for example.