4. Course 3: The Expository Essay

COMMUNICATIVE PURPOSE: to theorize/speculate about:

-causes + /- effects
-particular meanings
-artist's choices
-possible developments, etc


Theorizing = performing an inferential type of mental activity (moving from particular items to general ideas), whose result is a thesis that must be supported by several points of proof


DISCOURSE STRATEGIES (that can be used when developing points of proof):

• explaining viewer's reactions
• formal analysis
• comparing works/artists/features
• historical/anecdotal narratives
• exemplification
• quoting/paraphrasing
• paradox, etc

STANDARD MOVE-STRUCTURE:

MOVE I: introducing the subject, thesis, list of points of proof



Step 1: Introducing the subject (title of work, artist, context of creation)

Step 2: stating the thesis: one complete, unified statement, limited to one aspect only, general enough to ask for support, defensible, not too obvious

Step 3: stating the points of proof (2-3) intended to be used in order to support the thesis



MOVE II: developing the points of proof


Step 1: developing the first point of proof

Step 2: developing the 2nd point of proof

Step 3: developing the 3rd point of proof

MOVE III: concluding by evaluating the measure in which the points of proof have demonstrated the thesis

MOVE IV: Works cited (whenever one uses bibliography)

Task 1.    Comment on the way the theses and the points of proof were formulated and developed in the two texts we have read in class (1. The African Influences in Brancusi's Work by Paul Stoie  and 2. Idea for Sale by Oana Boca). Which of them appears to you more convincing and why?
Task 2. Try to formulate a thesis and a list of points of proof on a subject of your choice.

Deadline: December 20

Creature Design, Feng Zhu Tutorial

Feng Zhu, part 2

BRANCUSI

The Beginning of the World

Newborn

The First Cry 

The First Step

3. Course no. 2: The Critical Essay. The Formal Analysis

The artistic discourse community:

- a socio-rhetorical group of people who share common goals directly related to art; certain mechanisms of communication (eg. art magazines); specific vocabulary, grammar, semantics, rhetoric; specific GENRES

- genre: type of texts that share the same communicative purpose



The Critical Essay = a genre whose communicative purpose is to offer a personal opinion on a specific subject. Therefore we can consider it subjective writing. Nontheless, subjective does not mean total lack of evidence for what we claim.



The Formal Analysis
- a type of critical essay

- to analyse = to take a thing apart; to decompose it in order to see what its components are and how they work together as a whole => to analyse a work of art = to deconstruct it into smaller elements such as : subject-matter; formal elements; principles of design; style; purpose, etc.
- purpose: to describe, interpret and/or evaluate a work of art, that is, to analyse a work of art
- prerequisite: direct access to the real work or to a good reproduction
- each such important element is then analysed in order to see what role it plays in the whole

- the standard move-structure of a text belonging to the subgenre of formal analysis:

MOVE I: Introducing the work and the artist

• step 1: identifying the work (some details about the title, author, theme, subject-matter, medium, dimensions, period of creation, current location, purposes of creation)
• step 2: identifying the artist: only that biographical information considered relevant for the work analysed

MOVE II: Transition:


- usually offers a personal first response to the work


MOVE III: Analysing de-constructed elements:

• step 1: analysing first element : describing the first element + interpreting the first element + /- evaluating the first element (e.g. a character in the work)
• step 2: analysing element 2 (e.g. the principle of the perfect symmetry)
• step 3: analysing element 3 (e.g. the dominating colour)

MOVE IV: Concluding:


- offering a final interpretation +/- evaluation of the whole work, based on the previous analyses


TASKS:

- study the texts:

1. The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and Jeanne Cenami by Jan van Eyck, written by Erwin Panofsky

The text you are supposed to read is really Panofsky's text (which can be found in the book Anda-Elena Cretiu: Discourse and Communication in Visual Arts, Casa Cartii de Stiinta, 2014, or in 

Genre-Structured Discourse in Art Texts, Presa Univ. Clujeana, 2003) (in our library). The links below are only commentaries on the text and may help you better understand it. 

Erwin Panofsky and his interpretation of art woks
another version of the text
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait

2. Ten Lizes by Andy Warhol by Anca Teodora Pora


- comment on the analyses made by the authors, that is, on the descriptions and interpretations and/or evaluations offered; did they convince you?; can you find other possible interpretations to those elements?; are there other elements you would have chosen instead? which? why?

3. Access the video material below. What elements are there analyzed? Although no interpretations are assigned to the formal elements analyzed here, can you think of 2-3 partial interpretations and an on-the-whole one? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM2MOyonDsY

DEADLINE: November 13