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Summary:

From the Publisher: This best-selling text has guided tens of thousands of art students through the writing process. Students are shown how to analyze pictures (drawings, paintings, photographs), sculptures and architecture, and are prepared with the tools they need to present their ideas through effective writing. For art courses where there is a writing component.

Table of Contents:

• 1. Writing about art
• What is art?
• Why write about art?
• The writer's audience as a collaborator
• The functions of critical writing
• Some words about critical thinking
• A sample critical essay
• "Whistler's Japanese mother" / Douglas Lee
• The essay analyzed
• A note on outlining
• What is an interpretation, and are all interpretations equally valid?
• Interpretation and interpretations
• Who creates "meaning", artist or viewer?
• When we look, do we see a masterpiece, or ourselves
• The relevance of context : the effect of the museum and the picture book
• Arguing an interpretation : supporting a thesis
• Expressing opinions : the writer's "1"
• 2. Writing about art : a crash course
• Standing back : kinds of writing
• Close-up : drafting the essay

• Checklist of basic matters
• 3. Analytic thinking
• Seeing and saying
• Subject matter and content
• Form and content
• Getting ideas for essays : asking questions to get answers
• Basic questions
• Drawing and painting
• Sculpture
• Architecture
• Cautionary words about slides and reproductions in books an don the World Wide Web
• Photography
• Video art
• Another look at the questions.
• 4. Formal analysis and style
• What formal analysis is
• Formal analysis versus description
• Opposition to formal analysis
• Style as the shaper of form
• Sample essay : a formal analysis
• "Formal analysis : Prince Khunera as a Scribe" / Stephen Beer
• Behind the scene : Beer's essay, from early responses to final version
• Some useful software programs for writers
• Postscript : thoughts about the words "realistic" and "idealized"
• 5. Writing a comparison
• Comparing as a way of discovering
• Two ways of organizing a comparison
• Sample essay : a student's comparison
• Rebecca Bedell : "John Singleton Copley's early development : from Mrs. Joseph Mann to Mrs. Ezekial Goldthwait"
• Checklist for writing a comparison
• 6. Writing an entry in an exhibition catalog
• Keeping the audience in mind
• A sample entry
• Checklist for writing a catalog entry
• 7. Writing a review of an exhibition
• What a review is
• Drafting a review
• A note on reviewing an exhibition of non-Western art
• A note on reviewing a highly controversial exhibition
• Checklist for revising a review
• Three sample reviews
• "Mark Rothko" / Phyllis Tuchman
• "Mark Rothko" / Ken Johnson
• "Mark Rothko" / Anonymous.
• 8. How to write an effective essay
• Looking closely : approaching a first draft
• Revising : achieving a readable draft
• Checklist for revising a draft
• Peer review
• Checklist for peer review
• Preparing the final version
• 9. Style in writing
• Principles of style
• Get the right word
• Denotation
• Connotation
• Concreteness
• A note on the use of "this" without a concrete reference
• A note on technical language
• The writer's voice : tone
• Repetition
• The sound of sense, the sense of sound
• Write effective sentences
• Economy
• Wordy beginnings
• Passive voice
• Parallels
• Variety
• Subordination
• Write unified and coherent paragraphs
• Unity
• Coherence
• Introduction paragraphs
• Concluding paragraphs
• Checklist for revising paragraphs
• Note on tenses
• 10. Some critical approaches
• Social history : the new art history and Marxism
• Gender studies : feminist criticism and gay and lesbian studies
• Biographical studies
• Psychoanalytic studies
• Iconography and iconology
• 11. Art-historical research
• Connoisseurship
• History and criticism
• Some critical values
• Arguing about values
• Historical scholarship and values.
• 12. Writing a research paper
• A concise overview
• Primary and secondary materials
• From subject to thesis
• Checklist for a thesis sentence
• Finding the material
• The library catalog
• Browsing in encyclopedias, books, and book reviews
• Indexes and subscription databases to published material
• Other guides
• Art research and the World Wide Web
• The Internet and the Web
• Where to start
• Web search engines
• Web subject directories
• Art-related directories
• Museum directories
• Finding, viewing, and downloading images
• Evaluating Web sites
• Checklist for evaluating Web sites
• Referencing Web pages
• Checklist for electronic documentation
• Citations for electronic materials
• Posting questions
• Embedding URLs in your paper
• Keeping a sense of proportion
• Reading and taking notes
• Drafting and revising the paper
• Checklist for reviewing a revised draft of a research paper.
• 13. Manuscript form
• Basic manuscript form
• Some conventions of language usage
• The apostrophe
• Capitalization
• The dash
• The hyphen
• Foreign words and quotations in foreign languages
• Left and right
• Names
• Avoiding sexist language
• Avoiding Eurocentric language
• Spelling
• Titles
• Italics and underlining
• Quotations and quotation marks
• Acknowledging sources
• Borrowing without plagiarizing
• Fair use of common knowledge
• "But how else can I put it?"
• Checklist for avoiding plagiarism
• Documentation
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Kinds of notes
• Footnote numbers and positions
• Footnote style
• Chicago manual of style
• Books
• Journals and newspapers
• Secondhand references
• Subsequent references
• Interviews, lectures, and letters
• Electronic citations
• Bibliography (list of work cited)
• Bibliographic style
• Art Bulletin style
• Preparing the manuscript
• Text (including text of footnotes)
• Text references, footnotes, and frequently cited sources
• Captions
• Corrections in the final copy
• 14. Writing essay examinations
• What examinations are
• Writing essay answers
• Last words
• Credits
• Index
• Frequently asked questions.

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Author/Creator:

Barnet, Sylvan

Languages:

English

Language Notes:

Item content: English

Main Work:

A short guide to writing about art [by Barnet, S.]

Related Series:

Short guide series

Subjects:

Art criticism — Authorship

Art criticism — Methodology

Art criticism — Study and teaching

Art criticism

General Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 364) and index.

Physical Description:

xxi, 378 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm.

Call Numbers:

N7476 .B37 2008

ISBNs:

0136138551
9780136138556

Library of Congress Control Numbers:

2006051560

OCLC Numbers:

72799925