A Writer’s CheCklist: revising A DrAft ❏ Is the title of the essay informative and interesting? Does it indicate the scope and

focus of the essay? (pages 186, 189) Is it in the proper form? (pages 307–44) ❏ Is the opening paragraph interesting, and by its end does it focus on the topic?

(pages 20, 156, 219–22) ❏ Is the work of art identified as precisely as possible (artist, material, location,

date, and so on)? (pages 308–10) Are photocopies of works of art included? ❏ Is the point (thesis) stated soon enough—perhaps even in the title—and is it

kept in view? (pages 19–20) ❏ Is the organization reasonable and clear? (pages 20–21, 184–85) Does each

point lead into the next without irrelevancies? ❏ Is each paragraph unified by a topic sentence or topic idea? (pages 211–12) ❏ Are some paragraphs too long or too short to be read with pleasure? (pages 217–19) ❏ Do transitions connect the paragraphs? (pages 215–17) ❏ Are generalizations and assertions about personal responses supported by

evidence—by references to concrete details in the work? (pages 34, 39–40) ❏ Are the sentences concise, clear, and emphatic? Are needless words and inflated

language eliminated? (pages 203–05) ❏ Is the concluding paragraph conclusive without being repetitive? (pages 222–24) ❏ Are the dates and quotations accurate? Is credit given to sources? (pages 295–96,

327–33) ❏ Are quotations introduced adequately with signal phases such as “Crow offers

a surprising comparison,” so that the reader understands why the quotation is offered? (pages 272, 302–03, 324–25)

❏ Are the long quotations really necessary? Can some be shortened (using ellipses to indicate omissions) or summarized in my own words? (pages 328–30)

❏ Are the titles of works of art—other than architecture—underlined to indicate italics? (page 323)

❏ Are footnotes and bibliographic references in the proper form? (pages 334–44) ❏ Have I kept in mind the needs of my audience—for instance by defining

unfamiliar terms? (pages 10–11, 43–44, 188–89) ❏ Is a likable human being speaking in this essay? (pages 200–01) ❏ Is the essay properly formatted? Does my last name and the page number

appear at the top of each page? (pages 307–08) ❏ Has the essay been proofread? Are spelling and punctuation correct?

ADDitionAl CheCklists ✔ Imagining a Reader, p. 11 ✔ Basic Matters, p. 47 ✔ Writing a Comparison, p. 143 ✔ Writing a Catalog Entry, p. 153 ✔ Revising a Review of an

Exhibition, pp. 164–65 ✔ Revising a Draft, pp. 189, 305 ✔ Peer Review, pp. 190–92 ✔ Revising Paragraphs, p. 224

✔ Thesis Sentence, pp. 19, 274 ✔ Evaluating Web Sites, p. 289 ✔ Electronic Documentation,

p. 290 ✔ Note-taking, pp. 298–99 ✔ Reviewing a Draft of a Research

Paper, pp. 305–06 ✔ Avoiding Plagiarism, p. 333 ✔ Examinations, 350

A Short Guide to Writing about Art

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To the memory of my brother, Howard

I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new golden land: a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of the armour of the people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and darts, wonderful shields, strange clothing, bedspreads, and all kinds of wonderful objects of various uses, much more beautiful to behold than prodigies. These things were all so precious that they have been valued at one hundred thousand gold florins. All the days of my life I have seen nothing that has gladdened my heart so much as these things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled at the subtle talents of men in foreign lands. Indeed, I cannot express all that I thought there.

—Albrecht Dürer, in a journal entry of 27 August 1520, writing about Aztec treasures sent by Motecuhzoma to Cortés in 1519, and

forwarded by Cortés to Charles V

Painting cannot equal nature for the marvels of mountains and water, but nature cannot equal painting for the marvels of brush and ink.

—Dong Qichang (1555–1636)

What you see is what you see. —Frank Stella, in an interview, 1964, published 1966

The surface bootlessness of talking about art seems matched by a depth necessity to talk about it endlessly.

—Clifford Geertz, 1976

Contents

Preface  xi

 1—Writing about art  1

What is art?  1

Why Write about art?  8

the imagined reader as the Writer’s collaborator  9

✓ A Checklist: Imagining a Reader  11 the functions of critical Writing  11

Some Words about critical thinking  13

a Sample critical essay  14

Douglas Lee “Whistler’s Japanese Mother”  14 The Essay Analyzed  18 ✓ A Checklist for a Thesis Statement  19 A Note on Outlining  21

What is an interpretation—and are all interpretations equally Valid?  22

Interpretation and Interpretations  22 Who Creates “Meaning”—Artist or Viewer?  23 A Note about the Word “Art”  26 When We Look, Do We See a Masterpiece— or Ourselves?  27 The Relevance of Context: The Effect of the Museum and the Picture Book  29 Arguing an Interpretation: Supporting a Thesis  32

expressing opinions: the Writer’s “i”  34

 2—Writing about art: the big Picture  37

Standing back: Kinds of Writing (informing and Persuading)  37

close-up: Drafting the essay  42

Generating Ideas  42 Revising a Draft  45 ✓ Checklist of Basic Matters  47

    v

vi    contents

 3—Formal analysis and style  48

What Formal analysis is  48

Formal analysis Versus description  49

Opposition to Formal Analysis  50 style as the shaper of Form  52

sample essay: a Formal analysis  54

Stephen Beer “Formal Analysis: Prince Khunera as a Scribe”  55 Behind the Scene: Beer’s Essay, from Early Responses to Final Version  57

Postscript: thoughts about the Words “realistic” and “idealized”  60

Cautionary Words about Digital Images  67

 4—analytic thinking  69

seeing and saying  69

a sample student essay  71

Jessica Emkay “Michelangelo’s David: An Analysis”  71 The Analysis Briefly Analyzed  73

subject matter and content  74

Form and content  75

getting ideas for essays: asking Questions to get answers  77

Basic Questions  78 Drawing and Painting  80 Sculpture  97 Architecture  109 Photography  119 Video Art  129 Another Look at the Questions  130

 5—Writing a comParison  132

comparing as a Way of discovering  132

two Ways of organizing a comparison  133

sample essay: a student’s comparison  138

Rebecca Bedell “John Singleton Copley’s Early Development: From Mrs. Joseph Mann to Mrs. Ezekial Goldthwait”  138 ✓ Checklist for Writing a Comparison  145

contentS    vii

 6—Writing an entry in an exhibition catalog  146

Keeping the reader in mind  146

a Sample entry  150

The Entry Briefly Analyzed  153 ✓ Checklist for Writing a Catalog Entry  153

 7—Writing a reVieW of an exhibition  154

What a review is  154

Drafting a Review  156 A Note on Reviewing an Exhibition of Non-Western Art  159 A Note on Reviewing a Highly Controversial Exhibition  160 ✓ Checklist for Revising a Review  164

a Sample review  165

Phyllis Tuchman, “Mark Rothko”  165

 8—Virtual exhibitionS: Writing text PanelS anD other materialS  170

Kinds of exhibitions  171

Kinds of Writing assignments  172

 9—hoW to Write an effectiVe eSSay  182

the basic Strategy  182

looking closely: approaching a first Draft  183

revising: achieving a readable Draft  186

✓ Checklist for Revising a Draft  189 Peer review  190

✓ Checklist for Peer Review  190 Preparing the final Version  192

 10—Style in Writing  193

Principles of Style  193

get the right Word  194

Denotation  194 Connotation  195 Concreteness  195 A Note on the Use of “This” Without a Concrete Reference  196 A Note on Technical Language and on Jargon  197 The Writer’s Voice: Tone  200 Repetition  201 The Sound of Sense, The Sense of Sound  202

viii    contentS

Write effective Sentences  203

Economy  203 Wordy Beginnings  205 Passive Voice  206 Parallels  207 Variety  207 Subordination  208

Write unified and coherent Paragraphs  210

Unity  210 Coherence  215 How Long Should a Paragraph Be?  217 Introductory Paragraphs  219 Concluding Paragraphs  222 ✓ Checklist for Revising Paragraphs  224

a note on tenses  225

 11—art-hiStorical reSearch  226

Connoisseurship  226 History and Criticism  228

accounting for taste  229

Arguing about Values  240 historical Scholarship and Values  241

 12—Some critical aPProacheS  244

Social history: the new art history and marxism  245

gender Studies: feminist criticism and gay and lesbian Studies  252

biographical Studies  261

Psychoanalytic Studies  262

iconography and iconology  264

 13—Writing a reSearch PaPer  270

a concise overview  271

Primary and Secondary materials  272

from Subject to thesis  273

✓ Checklist for a Thesis Sentence  274 finding the material  275

The Library Catalog and Delivery and Discovery Services  275 Browsing in Encyclopedias, Books, and Book Reviews  278

contentS    ix

Subscription Databases Indexing Published Material  280 Other Guides  283

art research and the World Wide Web  285

Art-Related Directories  286 Museum Directories  286 Finding, Viewing, and Downloading Images  287 Evaluating Web Sites  288 ✓ Checklist for Evaluating Web Sites  289 Referencing Web Pages  289 ✓ Checklist for Electronic Documentation  290 Citations for Electronic Materials  291

Keeping a Sense of Proportion  292

reading and taking notes  294

✓ Checklist for Note-Taking  298 incorporating your reading into your thinking: the art of Synthesis  299

Drafting and revising the Paper  300

✓ Checklist for Reviewing a Revised Draft of a Research Paper  305

 14—manuScriPt form  307

basic manuscript form  307

Some conventions of language usage  312

The Apostrophe  312 Capitalization  312 The Dash  313 The Hyphen  313 Foreign Words and Quotations in Foreign Languages  313 Left and Right in Describing Pictures  314 Names  315 Avoiding Sexist Language  316 Avoiding Eurocentric Language  317 Spelling  321 Titles  322 Italics and Underlining  323

Quotations and Quotation marks  323

x    contentS

acknowledging Sources  327

Borrowing Without Plagiarizing  327 Fair Use of Common Knowledge  331 “But How Else Can I Put It?”  331 ✓ Checklist for Avoiding Plagiarism  333

Documentation  333

footnotes and endnotes (chicago manual of Style)  334

Kinds of Notes  334 Footnote Numbers and Positions  335 Footnote Style  335 Chicago Manual of Style  335 Books  336 Journals and Newspapers  338 Secondhand References  339 Subsequent References  340 Interviews, Lectures, and Letters  340 Electronic Citations  340 Bibliography (List of Works Cited)  341 Bibliographic Style  341

 15—Writing eSSay examinationS  345

What examinations are  345

Writing essay answers  346

✓ Checklist: Writing Essay Examinations  350 last Words  350

inDex  351

SymbolS commonly uSeD in annotating PaPerS   367

brief guiDe to inStruction in Writing   368

freQuently aSKeD QueStionS   inSiDe bacK coVer

Preface

Another book for the student of art to read? Well, everyone knows that students today do not write as well as they used to. Probably they never did, but it is a truth universally acknowledged (by English teachers) that the cure is not harder work from instructors in composition courses; rather, the only cure is a demand, on the part of the entire faculty, that students in all classes write decently. But instructors outside of departments of English understandably say that they lack the time—and perhaps the skill—to teach writing in addition to, say, art.

This book may offer a remedy: Students who read it—and it is short enough to be read in addition to whatever texts the instructor regularly requires—should be able to improve their essays

• by getting ideas—both about works of art and about approaches to art, from the first five chapters (“Writing about Art,” “Writing about Art: The Big Picture,” “Formal Analysis and Style,” “Analytic Think- ing,” and “Writing a Comparison,”)—and from Chapter 12 (“Some Critical Approaches”)

• by studying the principles of writing—principles of effective description, narration, and especially persuasion—explained in Chapter 10 “Style in Writing” (e.g., on tone, paragraphing, and con- creteness), and Chapters 11, 13, and 14 (“Art-Historical Research,” “Writing a Research Paper,” and “Manuscript Form”)

• by studying the short models throughout the book, which give the student a sense of some of the ways in which people talk about art

As Robert Frost said, writing is a matter of having ideas. This book tries to help students to have ideas by suggesting questions they may ask them- selves as they contemplate works of art. After all, instructors want papers that say something, papers with substance, not papers whose only virtue is that they are neatly typed and that the footnotes are in the proper form.

Consider a story that Giambologna (1529–1608) in his old age told about himself. The young Flemish sculptor (his original name was Jean de Boulogne), having moved to Rome, went to visit the aged Michelangelo. To show what he could do, Giambologna brought with him a carefully finished, highly polished wax model of a sculpture. The master took the

    xi

xii    PreFace

model, crushed it, shaped it into something very different from Giambologna’s original, and handed it back, saying, “Now learn the art of modeling before you learn the art of finishing.” This story about Michelangelo as a teacher is harrowing, but it is also edifying (and it is pleasant to be able to say that Giambologna reportedly told it with delight). The point of telling it here is not to recommend a way of teaching; the point is that a highly finished surface is all very well, but we need substance first of all. A good essay, to repeat, says something, and it says it persuasively.

A Short Guide to Writing about Art contains notes and sample essays by students and numerous model paragraphs by students and by published scholars such as Albert Elsen, Mary D. Garrard, Anne Hollander, and Leo Steinberg. These examples, as well as the numerous questions that are suggested, should help students to understand the sorts of things people say, and the ways they say them effectively, when writing about art. After all, people do write about art, not only to satisfy a college requirement but also to communicate ideas in learned journals, catalogs, and even in newspapers and magazines.

A Note oN the eleveNth editioN

I have been in love with painting ever since I became conscious of it at the age of six. I drew some pictures which I thought fairly good when I was fifty, but really nothing I did before the age of seventy was of any value at all. At seventy-three I have at last caught every aspect of nature—birds, fish, animals, insects, trees, grasses, all. When I am eighty I shall have developed still further, and will really master the secrets of art at ninety. When I reach one hundred my art will be truly sublime, and my final goal will be attained around the age of one hundred and ten, when every line and dot I draw will be imbued with life.

—Hokusai (1760–1849)

Probably all artists share Hokusai’s self-assessment. And so do all writ- ers of textbooks. Each edition of this book seemed satisfactory to me when I sent the manuscript to the publisher, but with the passing not of decades but of only a few months I detected inadequacies, and I wanted to say new things. This eleventh edition, therefore, not only includes eleventh thoughts about many topics discussed in the preceding editions but it also introduces new topics. (All writers—professors as well as undergraduates—should post

PreFace    xiii

at their desks the words from Westward Ho that Samuel Beckett posted at his: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”)

The emphasis is still twofold—on seeing and saying, or on getting ideas about art (Chapters 1–8) and presenting those ideas effectively in writing (Chapters 9–15)—but this edition includes new thoughts about these famil- iar topics, as well as thoughts about new topics. Small, but I think important, revisions—here a sentence or two, there a paragraph or two—have been made throughout the book, as well as some extensive additions. Topics that are either treated at greater length or are entirely new include

• additional checklists • seeing writing as a social act, notably by taking into account the likely

responses of readers, and by being aware that most good writing about art seeks to be persuasive, not merely descriptive or analytic

• writing about virtual exhibitions • thinking about non-Western art • synthesizing material and duly acknowledging all sources • using, in research, library catalog and discovery and delivery ser-

vices. The local library online catalog is giving way to “one-stop” search and retrieval systems that look for books, journal articles, and digitized materials from both local and remote sources. Some of the new matters discussed here are:

1. Library on your iPad Access to the library’s online catalog and resources can be from

any electronic device with an internet connection. (It should be noted that copyright issues regarding illustrations in books are retarding the publication of art books in electronic format. Most books on art are still in print only and require going to the physi- cal library. This, of course, will change with time.)

2. Online reference collections Art dictionaries and encyclopedias are now available online in

collections such as Oxford Reference Online, which has 18 titles of previously published reference works that can be searched individually or collectively.

3. Print indexes to periodicals are gone Very few libraries retain print indexes—they take up precious

shelf space and are tedious to search. Online databases with links to available full text have replaced them. Art and architecture databases, both indexes and reference works, can be searched as a group with cross-searching programs such as MetaLib.

AckNowledgmeNts

I am fortunate in my many debts: James Cahill, Sarah Blick, Madeline Harrison Caviness, Robert Herbert, Naomi Miller, and Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton generously showed me some of their examinations, topics for essays, and guidelines for writing papers. Amy Ingrid Schlegel provided ad- vice about writing labels. I have received invaluable help also from those who read part or all of the manuscript of the first edition, and to those who made suggestions while I was preparing the revised editions.

Several students—they are named in the text—allowed me to reprint es- says they wrote in various introductory courses. I chose these essays because of their excellence—they are thoughtful and clear—but I want to say, emphatically, that almost all students can produce comparable work if they spend adequate time preparing and then revising their material. Some of these essays benefited, I think, from small suggestions that I made after the essays had been submit- ted, but these suggestions—here the correction of a spelling error, there a small change in the title or the addition of a transitional word or phrase—were all of the sort that any peer reviewer might have suggested, or the authors themselves might have thought of the changes had they reread their final draft once more.

The following people called my attention to omissions, excesses, infelicities, and obscurities, and out-and-out errors: Jane Aaron, Mary Clare Altenhofen, Howard Barnet, Peter Barnet, Mark H. Beers, Pat Bellanca, Katherine Bentz, Morton Berman, Sarah Blick, Peggy Blood, Sarah E. Bremser, Lisa Buboltz, William Burto, Ruth Butler, Rebecca Butterfield, James CahilL William E. Cain, Richard Carp, Janet Carpenter, Perry Chapman, Charles Christensen, Fumiko Cranston, Whitney Davis, Margaret Fields Denton, Eugene Dwyer, Karl Fugelso, Glenn Goldman, Gail Geiger, Diane Goode, Carma R. Gorman, Louise K. Greiff, Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Anna Hammond, Maxwell Hearn, Julius Held, Leslie Hennessey, Heidi J. Hornik, Anna Indych- Lopez, Joseph M. Hutchinson, Eugene J. Johnson, Deborah Martin Kao, Lau- ra Kaufman, Samantha Kavky, Leila Kinney, Jane Kromm, Jason Kuo, Susan Kuretsky, Thomas Larose, Jennifer Lerclerc, Annette LeZotte (and her stu- dents), Arturo Lindsay, Yukio Lippit, Sara J. MacDonald, Charles Mack, Janice Mann, Jody Maxmin, Elizabeth Anne McCauley, Andrew McClellan, Melissa McCormick, Sarah E. McCormick, Robert D. Mowry, Robert Munman, Julie Nicoletta, Willow Partington, Jennifer Purtle, Sheryl Reiss, Patricia Rogers, John M. Rosenfield, Leland Roth, James M. Saslow, Allison Sauls, Amy Schlegel, John M. Schnorrenberg, Diana Scott, Annie Shaver-Crandell, Jack J. Spector, Virginia Spivey, Connie Stewart, Marcia Stubbs, Anne Swartz, Helen Taschian, Ruth Thomas, Gary Tinterow, Stephen K. Urice, Stephen Wagner, Jonathan Weinberg, Cole H. Welter, Tim Whalen, and Paul J. Zelanski. I have adopted many of their suggestions verbatim.

xiv    PreFace

I also wish to thank the reviewers whose comments helped me to revise this edition: Janet Carpenter, City College of San Francisco; Surana Singh-Bischofberger, East Los Angeles College; Melissa Dabakis, Kenyon College; Carey Rote, Texas A & M University—Corpus Christi; Rebecca Trittel, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD); Erika Schneider, Framingham State University; Marjorie Och, University of Mary Washington; Johanna Movassat, San Jose State University.