Since we've met a total of three times, it only seems natural that I would already have a research proposal due today for my art history class. Right? Because a week is definitely enough time for me to know which art objects in a span of 20,000 years I'd like to research.
All sarcasm aside, the real problem I face is narrowing down the things I want to research. My three possible topics were:
1. Comparing funerary masks of various cultures and the meaning/power that was attributed to them by that civilization.
2. Discovering (for myself--not all of humanity--obviously) what kind of link there is between abstraction in Mesopotamian art, and abstraction and pattern in Islamic art.
3. The iconography (meaning of the symbols) of Egyptian jewelry and cultures it was influenced by/influenced.
The second topic came to light because I asked a question last class period that my teacher didn't have a definitive answer to, so he said, "That would be a great research paper."
The third topic, though... is much more interesting to me. Hmmm, I wonder why...
So, I'm printing out #2 and #3 and taking both of them with me to class.
(Really, I'm turning in the Egyptian jewelry proposal, and keeping the Islamic art proposal as a backup in case my professor doesn't like my first submission. Wish me luck.)
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3 comments:
I definitely vote for #3. Hope it went well for you!
I like the idea of the links in abstractions. From what I understand about Islamic art, there's a strict prohibition against depicting the human form (idol worshiping and all that), so they're somewhat limited in what they can do. I also know that the Islamic art tends to be very geometric and/or script based. Arabic is a beautiful, flowing script that is completely incomprehensible to me, but never ceases to impress me with its complexity and beauty. Isfahan is my favorite (but then, I'm an architecture guy...).
It would be interesting to explore how abstractions are meaningful to all people in similar ways (if in fact they are) and what that says about us as humans - is it an essential part of our nature?
I'm sorry, but I think the last one is a little thin. But that's just me... :-)
Bill, I'm with you--I think it's so fascinating. I'm actually going to start doing that research on the side. But since my class is only 6 weeks, and I would essentially be doing original research for my paper, I just couldn't bring myself to do it--I was too afraid that I wouldn't be able to pull it off in time. But I'm definitely keeping that topic in mind and I'm starting to do some initial readings to get my bearings in the subject matter. :)
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