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Saturday, December 16, 2017

電気通信大学 AWE II: 5th writing assignment supporting notes & images (Part 1)・作文5の附記、イメージ (Part 1) 

Hello!



How are you? Here are some supporting notes and images for our 5th writing assignment. I hope these will help you with it! 

This is Part 1. Click on here for Part 2 on writing about pieces of music


Examples of task approach and questions to think about

Take a look at the famous painting above. I'm sure all of you know this - the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci

Here is an example of a task approach and some questions to think about. Let's say we want to write about this famous painting. We could start with questions for ourselves like these: 


What kind of message do you think he was trying to express about the woman in the painting? What do you think it might say about the time he lived in - the High Italian Renaissance of the early 16th century? This would have been around 100 years or so before the Edo period in Japan. What kind of society was Leonardo living in? What ideas about it do you sense or feel from it? 


Perhaps you can see, through the painting itself, what kind of mood, or dynamic there was of the time he lived in. Even more - is there a scenario you can get a feeling about through the painting? What kind of woman was the "Mona Lisa"? How did she feel and where was she located in the society of her time? 


Even more than this - in the end, did Leonardo succeed in expressing both the character of this woman and the character of his society and time in this painting? What might he have not been so successful with in your view - and what might he have been successful with? 


Here's how you can organize your writing for this: 


Introduction - show the name of the work of art and who (or whose people) created it, and what it is - a painting, sculpture, architectural structure, poster, or other kind of work of visual art. Find out when the work was created. 


First point - show what the subject of the work is (a person or people, place, a monument or building, and the [possible] purpose of the monument or building). 


Second point - begin bringing in your understanding or idea about the work. What do you believe the artist is expressing through the work? What is the figure (or what are the figures) in the work doing, expressing, or feeling (or perhaps advertising)? If it's an architectural structure like a building or home, what design features do you notice? What importance might the building or home have in relation to the space it is in? 


Third point - here begin to deepen your own idea about what the work means to you - positively or negatively. What kind of scenario might the artwork give you feelings about? What do you imagine as you see and think about the work? If it's a building or other architectural structure, what do you imagine of the time it was built? What do you imagine the design elements express about the society it was built in?  


Conclusion - here, bring in your two-sided argument about the work. In your view - what does the artist succeed in doing or expressing through the work - and what might the artist not succeed in? What positive effect does it have on you - and what do you not respond to about it? It may have things about it you like - and things you do not like about it. What might they be?


These are the kinds of things I would like you to try for in your writing about a work of art


Some task image suggestions
Look at these works of art below. You could choose one of these to write about, though you are not limited to them. As I mentioned in class, you could find other great reproductions of works of art on Wikimedia Commons. 

Here are some works of art:

Edgar Degas, Dancers


Pacific U.S. Native American/Canadian First Nations totem pole

Edvard Munch, The Dance of Life


Katsushika Hokusai, Rainstorm Beneath the Summit (山下白雨)



Antoni Gaudi, Sagrada Familia

George Moscoso, 1960s San Francisco psychedelic rock concert poster, U.S.

Special note: If you would like to try for a comparison of two works of art on the same subject, here is one you can do as well:


Jean Baptiste-Camille Corot's Girl with Mandolin (左) & Juan Gris' Woman with Mandolin (after Corot)(右)

I hope these give you some ideas - and some great inspiration - on what to write about. 


See you next week in the library 1st floor computer room! Take care!



Images: Top - by C2RMF: Galerie de tableaux en très haute définition: image page - Cropped and relevelled from File:Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, from C2RMF.jpg. Originally C2RMF: Galerie de tableaux en très haute définition: image page, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15442524/Dancers - by Edgar Degas - the-athenaeum.org [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5744729/Totem pole. - by Jerzy Strzelecki - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3112590/Dance of Life - by Edvard Munch - http://samling.nasjonalmuseet.no/no/object/NG.M.00941 Nasjonalmuseet/Høstland, Børre, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37709496/Rainstorm Beneath the Summit - by Katsushika Hokusai - http://visipix.com/index.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=313227/Sagrada Familia by No machine-readable author provided. Marb~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=463848/Psychedelic poster - screenshot taken from https://visualartsdepartment.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/moscoso2.png/Corot & Gris paintings - screenshot of Jean Baptiste-Camille Corot's Girl with Mandolin and Juan Gris' Woman with Mandolin (after Corot) (La femme à la mandoline, d'après Corot) - taken from Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot - Saint Louis Art Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40710376 and Juan Gris - [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40490704
All rights reserved on all reproductions of the images. I do not own the rights to these images or reproductions. All images uploaded for classroom purposes only.

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