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4 pages/β‰ˆ1100 words
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MLA
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Visual & Performing Arts
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English (U.S.)
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Topic:

Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist: A Critique

Essay Instructions:

This paper (4 pages) should analyze the following objects at the Museum of Fine Arts: (I HAVE ATTACHED THE ARTWORK ON THE UPLOADING FILE)
PLEASE PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS :) THANK YOU SO MUCH
*Sandro Botticelli, Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist, about 1500
Your task is to analyze the ways that your chosen artwork uses the characteristic material forms and symbolic language of its medium (oil or tempera) to advance a particular account of its subject. To this end, your paper should carefully describe the formal composition of your chosen artwork and analyze how specific pictorial tactics employed by that work contribute to an interpretation of the subject explored by the work. Papers should address the artwork’s localized details and broader structure, and remain attentive to any elements that may add complexity or contradiction to the artwork’s account of its subject.
PLEASE REMEMBER: This is not a research paper. You should not refer to online other supporting texts (the MFA website, etc.) related to these objects.
You should instead build your interpretation around a detailed and sensitive formal analysis of the artwork derived from your sustained observation of the work. You may also draw on class discussions and/or your textbook to think about the ways that your painting relates to other period artworks
As you look at your chosen painting, you NEED consider:
*pictorial space and form (does the work create a believable illusion of three-dimensional space and/or form? If so, how?)
*the setting/space (where is the scene set? is it an earthly or divine space? Would period viewers have recognized the setting as a contemporary space? If so, how would they have understood the social character of the space? Was it a common or elite space?)
*the colors and/or tones employed in the scene
*handling of light/shadow
*paint handling (is brushwork visible/prominent or concealed? Is the paint tactile/thick or transparent/thin?))
*internal relationships between objects or figures (how do pictorial elements relate to one another? Do figures seem to address/engage each other? Are objects arranged in suggestive relationships?)
*the poses, gestures, and expressions of figures
*bodily materiality (does the work explore the physical qualities of the body—its weight, volume, tactile qualities, etc.?)
*the costume and attributes of figures
*customary symbols or iconographic devices (does your work include traditional religious, moral, social, economic, or political symbols or iconographic emblems? If so, what role do they play in the work? Does the artwork refashion these symbols/emblems in any way?)
*the implied relationship between the depicted subject and the viewer (does the work seem to implicate the viewer in its fictive world? Does it invite us to imaginatively enter the depicted scene? Do the figures or forms seem to spill out toward our space?)

A few hints about building your arguments:
***Look at your selected work for an extended segment of time, and take as many notes while looking as you can—these notes should be the primary ‘raw data’ that you will use to make your case.
***As you develop your interpretation, be sure to support general claims (i.e. “the painting reminds the viewer of the inescapability of death and fleetingness of earthly life”) with specific formal details.
***Try to build a nuanced interpretation of your chosen work—look for any passages of ambiguity, contradiction, or complexity that might complicate the apparent or “surface” meaning of the painting.

Essay Sample Content Preview:

Student Last Name 1
Student Name
Professor Name
Class
Date
Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist: A Critique
1394460266065
Botticelli, Sandro. Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist. C. 1500. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum of Fine Arts, https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31068. Accessed 20 June 2020.
Student Last Name 2
Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist (above) speaks of Florentine art and Botticelli career. Immersed in a spiritual Mary Magdalena and Baby Jesus metaphors, coupled by Florentine luxurious objects, Virgin and Child expresses a late development in Botticelli’s art and, more widely, de Medici’s – and, by extension, Florence's – changing fortunes. Tempera on panel, Virgin and Child is still, moreover, anchored in a Medieval painting convention just prior to an imminent oil revolution mastered by Italian Renaissance masters. The painting, depicting Mary, Jesus and John The Baptist, is Botticelli is rich in symbolic, spiritual and corporeal, statements perhaps accentuated by personal happenings in Botticelli’s late life and, generally, in Florence, particularly as de Medici’s influence declined. Thematically, Botticelli captures a subject all too common in Medieval Ages and infused by later Renaissance embellishments and refinements: The Holy Family as central to Christian worship, piety and redemption. In current statement, i.e. Botticelli’s artistic expression of Christian worldview, The Holy Family, accompanied, or perhaps guarded and watched over, by John The Baptist, patron saint of Florence, is still central to Botticelli’s - and, by extension, Renaissance's – artistic imagination and modes of expressions. Formally, Virgin and Child underscores visually several statements about Mary, Jesus and John The Baptist. The body size of each figure, costume, facial expressions, light and shadow, setting/space and much more interact to create a powerful, albeit subtle, statement only informed viewers could grasp. Perhaps unlike grand depictions of Mary and Jesus in paintings by Florentine artists Virgin and Child is set in a fairly common, if not familiar, homely setting. The cross, stemming out of Jesus and protective over Mary, is, moreover, positioned central to all figures, connecting and blessing all. To put Virgin and Child into a proper visual context, a closer analysis is required of underlying spacial, formative and
Student Last Name 3
color, light-shadow and bodily materiality statements made by Botticelli. This analysis aims,
accordingly, to place Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist into a visual context informed
by Botticelli’s artistic expressions and wider artwork conventions in Florence during
Renaissance.
Spatially, Virgin and Child dedicates much pictorial space to all central figures. In a fairly earthly scene, i.e. portico, all figures are depicted in a fairly common Florentine convention of showing figures in realistic detail. Specifically, Mary, largest of all figures, is depicted in a posture all to common to Christian worldview: modest, pious and submissive. The veil, suggestive of chastity, elevates Mary to spiritual sublimity and adds a realistic detail making Mary ...
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