For the Visual Analysis Assignment, view Greek artwork ( “Wine Cup with a Woman Playing a Drinking Game”) that either represent women or deal with Greek ideas of gender. This artwork will the focus of their visual analysis paper and will also inform their final research projects. For the Visual Analysis Assignment, students will write an approximately three-page visual analysis of their selected artwork. A visual analysis requires a student to look closely at a work of art and explore questions of what an artwork looks like and why it looks that way. It considers an artwork’s formal elements, iconography, and meaning. It also requires students to place the artwork within its original historical context, considering what the artwork reveals about the culture that produced it. The second page of this assignment includes detailed information about how to write a visual analysis. The main question you are usually considering is why does a work look the way it does? In other words, why were some choices made and what do they reveal about the meaning of the artwork? How did the artist manipulate the composition or artwork to produce a certain impression? In addressing these questions, it is important to consider the broader context of the work.
