Select two artworks in different art forms (for example, a poem and a painting or a film and a novel) and write an essay that will include the following:
1. Information about the author(s), history, and basic formal characteristics of the work (time period, style, medium, etc.).
2. General analysis of the works’ meaning: their subject-matter, the story that they tell (if any), and their respective messages as far as you can tell what they are.
3. Discussion of the works’ aesthetic qualities and moral significance in conjunction with one another.
Your paper will be stronger if you select works that will allow you to draw contrasts, as well as parallels, between them. I strongly encourage you to use the works
that we discussed in class, but it is not required. Whatever artworks you select, try to incorporate course materials (artworks, theoretical articles, and forum
discussions) as much as possible. Remember, the final essay is your best chance to show what you have learned in this class, and how well you have learned it.
Your answer should be twelve pages long (typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides). Indicate your name and the name of the class in the upper left-hand
corner of the first page. Provide references to quoted materials and a list of the works you cite. I do not encourage the use of web sources, unless they are
academically vetted (no wikipedia references, please!).
(focus heavily on the idea of art and morality/ aesthetics vs ethics)
some works used "In class" are (you don’t have to use them but it’s likely for the best)
Triumph of the Will (film available on youtube)
Amiri Baraka’s “Somebody Blew Up America” (Poem available online)
Public Art: Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Jesus of Montreal (film available on youtube)
Plato’s ‘Symposium’
Amadeus (film available on youtube)
Oscar Wilde’s Novel The Picture of Dorian Gray
Rameau’s Nephew. Oscar Wilde