Libraries: Tutoring: ART

Handouts

Always discuss some elements of art and principles of design in your assignments.

Fact versus Opinion
This handout is reprinted from https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/co300man/pop12d.cfm)
"When forming personal convictions, we often interpret factual evidence through the filter of our values, feelings, tastes, and past experiences. Hence, most statements we make in speaking and writing are assertions of fact, opinion, belief, or prejudice. The usefulness and acceptability of an assertion can be improved or diminished by the nature of the assertion, depending on which of the following categories it falls into."
The Formal Elements and Principles of Art and Design
Always refer to the Elements and Principles in your first and subsequent essay drafts.
Objective versus Subjective
This handout is reprinted from http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-objective-and-subjective/ This explains and gives examples of objective and subjective writing.
Writing About 2D Art
Use this handout when you make notes about two-dimensional art at a museum and later when you write your essay.
Writing About 3D Art
Most of the same considerations for analyzing two-dimensional artworks also apply to three-dimensional works, but some unique topics might be addressed.
Writing About Antiquities
Use this handout when you make notes about antiquities at a museum and later when you write your essay.
Writing About Architecture
This has some basic guidelines for writing about architectures. It includes questions you should ask / answer and what to consider in a formal analysis.
Writing About Art
A general guide to approaching your writing assignment.
Writing an Analysis of Artwork
This explains the difference between a summary and analysis of an artwork and structuring your essay.
Writing for a Museum Visit
The museum visit is the most common assignment in any art course. This handout gives tips on planning your visit, how to make notes at the museum, and writing your final essay.

Some Houston Museums

Here are the most common museums *in Houston* HCC tutors see required for the museum essay. As usual, follow the professor's instructions about which museums you can or cannot use.

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
CAMH Mission: "Contemporary Arts Museum Houston presents extraordinary, thought-provoking arts programming and exhibitions to educate and inspire audiences nationally and internationally."
The Menil Collection
"Known for displays that allow the objects and works of art to speak for themselves—there are no “didactics” on the wall or media in the galleries—the Menil philosophy is to foster each individual’s direct, personal encounter with works of art. The display of carefully chosen artworks in sympathetic settings are Menil hallmarks."
Museum of Fine Arts Houston
From the director: "When you plan your visits, take advantage of the ever-changing calendar of events brimming with activities for all ages throughout the Museum, including the Glassell School of Art and our two house museums: Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens and Rienzi."

Websites and Videos

Art History -- UNC Writing Center
"This handout [website] discusses several common types of art history assignments, and talks about various strategies and resources that will help you write your art history papers."
Elements of Art -- The J. Paul Getty Museum
The site includes a downloadable PDF of this list. "The elements of art are components or parts of a work of art that can be isolated and defined. They are the building blocks used to create a work of art.
The list [on this site] describes each element of art."
How to do visual (formal) analysis in art history (Khan Academy)
The narrators use Giovanni Bellini's, _Madonna of the Meadow_ to model a formal analysis of a painting. Consider reading the transcript while playing the video to help you understand how to structure your sentences in your essay.
Khan Academy Art History
For art history and art appreciation.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Home
"The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum lives in three iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer, and The Met Cloisters. Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online."
MoMA Learning
"MoMA Learning is your destination for engaging with modern and contemporary art. It reflects the profound shift toward digital learning since the Museum launched its first curriculum website in 2006—a transition not only from print to digital, but towards customizable, interactive, self-guided, anytime-anywhere learning. MoMA Learning aggregates a wealth of content produced by the Museum and links to exemplary content from other sites, encouraging a thematic exploration of art and offering downloadable and customizable slideshows, worksheets, and many other resources for use in the classroom or for independent study."
Principles of Design -- The J. Paul Getty Museum
The site includes a downloadable PDF of this list. "The principles of design describe the ways that artists use the elements of art in a work of art.
[On this page] are a few examples of principles of design, which are illustrated in works of art in the Museum's collection."
Smarthistory Homepage
Information about artworks, art history, and terminology.
Titles of Works -- Punctuation Guide
How do you format the titles of books versus articles? How do you format titles of artworks? You can find out this and much more in this website!
Writing About Art History (from the Writing Center at UNC Chapel Hill)
From the department, "This handout [website] discusses several common types of art history assignments, and talks about various strategies and resources that will help you write your art history papers."

Arizona State Museum Collections
"Among ASM's vast holdings, three specific collections have been federally recognized and designated American Treasures. So far as we know, ASM is the only institution in the country to be so honored, a fact that emphasizes how important its collections are to the nation’s shared cultural history. ASM’s collection of Southwest Indian pottery, some 20,000 whole vessels dating back 2,000 years, attained American Treasure status in the year 2000. The basketry and fiber arts collection, 35,000 examples dating back 7,000 years, followed suit in 2011. ASM's collection of 525,000 photographic prints, negatives, and transparencies, and 250 movie films documenting 13,000 years of human history in the Southwest, joined the prestigious ranks in 2018."
The Guggenheim
"Featuring over 1,700 artworks by more than 625 artists, the Collection Online presents a searchable database of selected artworks from the Guggenheim’s permanent collection of approximately 8,000 artworks. The selection reflects the breadth, diversity, and tenor of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’s extensive holdings from the late 19th century through the present day. The Collection Online is continually expanded to include a larger representation of the museum’s core holdings as well as recent acquisitions."
The J. Paul Getty Museum
"The collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum comprises Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art from the Neolithic to Late Antiquity; European art—including illuminated manuscripts, paintings, drawings, sculpture, and decorative arts—from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century; and international photography from its inception to the present day."
The Met Collection
"When The Met was founded in 1870, it owned not a single work of art. Through the combined efforts of generations of curators, researchers, and collectors, our collection has grown to represent more than 5,000 years of art from across the globe—from the first cities of the ancient world to the works of our time."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art from Google Arts & Culture
A virtual tour of some of the museum.
Museum of Fine Arts Boston - Collections
Search the MFAB's collections and read summaries of the galleries. Not sure where to begin? Click on the "Highlights" thumbnails to see a few images from individual collections and departments.
The Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago - Visit Us Virtually
Includes links to explore the collection, interactive features, videos from the museum's YouTube channel, and audio tours.

14 Paris Museums Put 300,000 Works of Art Online: Download Classics by Monet, Cézanne & More
"'Users can download a file that contains a high definition (300 DPI) image, a document with details about the selected work, and a guide of best practices for using and citing the sources of the image,' writes Di Liscia."
The British Museum [Google Arts & Culture]
"The British Museum’s remarkable collection spans over two million years of human history and culture. Over 6 million visitors every year experience the collection, including world-famous objects such as the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures, and Egyptian mummies."
The Byzantine and Christian Museum
NOTE: HCC's Online Tutoring is neither prioritizing nor advocating a religion. This museum is included for its artwork and cultural significance in the Western World.
From the website: "The Museum has over 30,000 artefacts. They date from the 3rd century AD to the 21th century AD: icons, wall-paintings, manuscripts and works on paper, works of minor arts, ceramics, textiles, paintings, mosaics, copies."
The Dalí Theatre-Museum
"Welcome to the Dalí Theatre-Museum. By means of this virtual visit, we invite you to take a tour around some of the museum's rooms and see some works and objects exhibited there by means of panoramic pictures. Bear in mind, though, that there's much more to discover in the Dalí Theatre-Museum."
Discover The Palace of Versailles
This site includes the museum collection. "The Palace of Versailles, whose origins date back to the XVII th century, was successively a hunting lodge, a place of power and from the XIX th century museum. Composed of the Park and gardens as well as the Trianon castles, it covers 800 hectares."
Florence As It Was: the Digital Reconstruction of a Medieval City
"Welcome to Florence As It Was, a digital project that aims to reconstruct the city the way it appeared at the end of the fifteenth century. Here you can review, inspect, tour, and visit the streets, palaces, churches, shops, and offices that formed the fabric of one of Europe’s most vibrant cities. Here you will find images, people, payments, relationships, literary references, contemporary descriptions, and sometimes even music related to the individual structures that shaped a Florentine’s daily experience in 1500. Here you can read, in English, the Italian and German interpretations of these people and places that were written by critics and scholars in the 17th, 18th, and 20th centuries. See the seat of government and power in the late Middle Ages. Walk through the streets and buildings where Cosimo de’ Medici spent much of his time. Examine the most important cult painting in the city and the tabernacle that framed it. Zoom in close, fly high above, or approach these places from below. Search for names, places, dates, and events, and see how links and connections can be made in unexpected ways. Above all, imagine."
Louvre Online Tours
This is the site in English. "Visit the museum's exhibition rooms and galleries, contemplate the façades of the Louvre...
Come along on a virtual tour and enjoy the view, thanks to the sponsorship of Shiseido."
The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza - Collection
"The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza houses one of the most important painting collections assembled in the 20th century. Although originally the collection was owned by the Thyssen-Bornemisza family, after its acquisition by the Kingdom of Spain in 1993, just one year after the museum opened in Madrid in October 1992, it became part of the Spanish heritage. In 2004 a significant part of the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection was added to the museum...As if it were a textbook, the collection includes works from all the artistic movements of Western art from the 13th to the 20th centuries, highlighting the exquisite taste of Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (1875–1947) and his son Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (1921–2002)." [https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/history]
SMARTNEWS Keeping you current You Can Now Download 1,700 Free 3-D Cultural Heritage Models
From March 2, 2020: "Last week, Sketchfab announced plans to allow organizations to waive all copyright and dedicate their digital models to the public domain. To mark this milestone in museum digitization and accessibility efforts, the 3-D portal has released a new virtual collection of 1,700 models available for the public to download, print or manipulate however they see fit."
The Vatican Museums
Collections and virtual tours of the many museums of The Vatican.
Westminster Abbey Virtual Tour
"In this virtual tour, you can take your pupils on a 360 degree journey around the nation’s coronation church.
You’ll explore some of the burial and memorial sites of royalty and other notable figures, as well as locating important religious spaces within this working Church."

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