Getting started. It seems to me that the hardest part of writing an art history paper is the beginning. It might make it easier to conceptualize the project if you think about describing a work of art in the same way you might describe a book to someone who hasn’t read it. Just as you wouldn’t start in the middle of the plot of a book, so too you shouldn’t start by describing the finer details of a work of art before your reader knows what they are looking at. Provide a thumbnail sketch of the work in the first couple of paragraphs to orient your reader. Once you’ve given the reader a general sense of the work, you can then elaborate upon details in subsequent paragraphs.
Take this paragraph for example, which not only provides the reader with an introductory “snapshot” of a painting, but also gives the reader a clue as to how it is to be read (i.e., “a composed state event”):
Page from a dispersed series of the Ramayana
Punjab Hills, ca. 1700-1710
“One a flat ground of bright yellow, a composed state event transpires. Young Rama has won the hand of Sita, daughter of Janaka of Mithila, by accomplishing of bending—and breaking in two—the huge bow of Shiva, given to Janaka by the gods. Janaka has sent an envoy to Rama’s father, King Dasharatha of Ayodhya, requesting that he come immediately to Mithila to seal the arrangement and perform the marriage ceremony. This scene shows Janaka greeting Dasharatha as he arrives with his Brahmins, courtiers, and soldiers.” [1]
Or the following example, which not only vividly describes a painted portrait of a horse, but gives the reader a sense of its qualities and personality in the description itself. Note here how the description is filled with lively adjectives that bring the work to life.
Attributed to Wajid
Rajasthan, Isarda, c.1685
“A powerful, frisky beast, Sadaji fills the painting with energy, looking out at the viewer with a wary eye. The prancing hoof and great curves of his neck and haunches convey his enormous power. His stiff front legs reveal a slightly obstinate character. He wears gold trappings and a dark green and red blanket with saucy red and gold tassels at the corners. The tiny groom grasps the stallion’s lead with both hands, but he seems unable to control the huge animal as his hooves dance into the red border….” [2]
To get to your thesis, start with the big picture. Every work of art provides you with an opportunity to shape your analysis along specific lines, depending on how much information is available. But before you delve into specifics, you must first direct your reader toward what is the most important issue of the work you are considering. Provide your reader with some context for your own inquiry. Is style the most important issue? the identity of the artist? the treatment of a specific theme? the method of narration? the subject chosen? etc.
Here’s an example of an analysis that gets us from the general (introduction of Mughal style into Indian painting) to the specific (the artist Bhavanidas) in a very skillful manner—and in one paragraph!:
The Stallion Kitab
Attributed to Bhavanidas
Rajasthan Kishangarh, c.1735
“Indian painting was greatly changed by the Safavid sensibilities and training of the sixteenth-century Iranian master artists directing the work of the indigenous artists at Akbar’s court as the Mughal style of painting was formed. With the succession of Mughal emperors, whose tastes and needs in painting varied, artists left the imperial court and moved to provincial ones, bringing their imperial Mughal style and conventions of painting to the provinces……Some Rajput paintings are in fact so close to Mughal pictures in style and subject that they have been understood to be Mughal. However, in the case of the artist Bhavanidas, who made this portrait of one of the stallions in the Kishangarh stud, his migration from the center to a smaller court is documented.” [3]
The Hourglass. It might also help if you think of the shape of your paper as a top-heavy hourglass: you start in the beginning with the big picture, your overall thesis, and the general contours of your analysis. In the middle section, your paper narrows down to analyze specific details more closely. The final section returns to the reader to the broader context, cementing your artwork’s place in that context.
Use great verbs and great adjectives. Let’s go back to the sentence quoted earlier: “A powerful, frisky beast, Sadaji fills the painting with energy, looking out at the viewer with a wary eye.” A less skilled writer might have described the horse: “A large horse stands facing forward in the center of the painting. It seems to be looking at the viewer.” Not bad, not wrong, just not interesting. Challenge yourself to craft sentences that sing—and that have as much artistry as the visual images you are trying to translate into verbal form. That being said, however, scrutinize your paper for excess verbiage. More is not better! Watch for words that drag your paper down. Make everything count!
[1] Darielle Mason, Intimate Worlds: Indian Paintings from the Alvin O. Bellak Collection (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), p.86.
[2] ibid., p.118.
[3] Darielle Mason, Intimate Worlds: Indian Paintings from the Alvin O. Bellak Collection (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2001), p.120.