The purpose of this short paper is to hone your abilities in using words to describe and understand the physical qualities of a work of art. By writing about art, you will take on the responsibility of examining it closely, organizing your perceptions and thoughts about it, and conveying in text an organized and clear summary of your visual analysis.
First, choose a work to examine. There is no limit to which work you may choose, except that it must date from within our time period (the year 1400 of the common era to the present). If you have concerns about your choice, consult the professor. Please do not choose a work that has been discussed extensively in class or in the textbook.
You may choose a work that you can see first-hand in Hong Kong (at for instance the Hong Kong Museum of Art or the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, or a work of public sculpture). If you opt to do this, please identify where the object resides in your paper. If you desire to choose a work from the West or other places not immediately accessible, please find and utilize many reproductions of it, from as many different angles as possible, and with different levels of detail. Please attach relevant images to the end of your paper (do not include them in the text).
After choosing the work, you will then spend considerable time examining it (no less than 30 minutes is recommended). Then, take notes on what you see. Describe the media, principles of design and visual elements that you find in the work. Think about how line, volume, scale, balance, and/or visual rhythm are used in the work, if appropriate. Pay attention to as much of the surface of the work as you can see. Do physical features of the work suggest the purpose of its creation, the meaning it is trying to communicate, or its use or original physical context? What can you infer about the culture that made this object from its physical features?
Finally, compose a 2 to 4