Topic:
Titian’s Late Paintings – Finished or Unfinished?
This paper can either weigh the various theories of modern scholars against each other, or it can consider the various explanations of the time, according to Vasari, Ridolfi, or Boschini.
Please indicate that your argument and used strong evidence to support your idea, and according to Vasri, Ridolfi or Boschin. In some cases, it might be best to focus on a single image, monument, or building that you think is most representative of your topic/argument.
Please read these article for the relative source, But I need to other 5 sources to support to your idea.
- David Rosand, “The Old Man’s Brush,” in Titian: Materiality, Likeness, Istoria, edited by Joanna Woods-Marsden (Turnhout, 2007), 1-4.
- David Rosand, “Titian and the Eloquence of the Brush,” Artibus et Historiae 2, 3 (1981): 85-96.
- Philip Sohm, “Titian Performs Old Age,” in The Artist Grows Old: The Aging of Art and Artists in Italy, 1500-1800 (New Haven and London, 2007), 83-103.
- Jodi Cranston, The Muddied Mirror: Materiality and Figuration in Titian’s Later Paintings (University Park, Pa, 2010).
- David Jaffé, ed., Titian (London, 2003), especially the essay by Charles Hope, “Titian’s Life and Times,” 9-28.
- Paula Carabell, “Finito and non-finito in Titian’s Last Paintings,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics28 (1995): 78-93.
This assignment gives you the opportunity to study a more narrowly defined topic than is covered in the lectures. You will be graded on three main criteria:
1) the quality and relevance of your selected sources (no internet sites);
2) the breadth and detail of your understanding of the sources (no quotations!);
3) the clarity and creativity of your writing.
Format
Please follow this format closely:
- 6 to 8 pages of text (not including bibliography).
- No title page, just three lines at the top of your paper to provide the following: 1) the title of your essay in bold; 2) your name and student number; and 3) the course code, course title, and date.
- Font and size of body text: Times New Roman, 12 point.
- Spacing: double spaced.
- Margins: 1 inch for the top and bottom margins; 1.25 inches for the left and right margins.
- Each page should be Numbered and accompanied by your Last Name.
- Footnotes, with accurate and specific page numbers, following the Chicago Manual of Style: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
- Footnote format: Times New Roman; 11 point; single spaced.
- Only include copies of images that we did not discuss in class. For each image, please provide the artist, title, date, and source of the image.
Objectives
- This assignment is primarily meant to help you develop your research and reading skills.
- Keep in mind that an important skill when doing research is the ability to recognize unstated themes and/or unanswered questions and to develop a discussion around that them and/or question. So you will need to come up with a nuanced and refined thesis that will give direction both to your research and your discussion.
- Since the main objective is research, you should consult a minimum of FIVE academic sources for your paper.
Best Research Practices
- At this stage, we expect you to be able to identify an appropriate academic source.
- Extensive footnotes are one good indicator.
- Guidebooks, basic surveys, or series meant for coffee tables do not count as academic sources, though they can be useful for quick reference.
- With few exceptions, websites do not count as a source; but most journals and books that you can access from the University of Toronto online library catalogue should be safe. If you have any doubts about the suitability of a source, don’t hesitate to ask.
- You want to go beyond the ‘google search’ method of doing research. Do more than look for comments and keywords directly pertaining to your work. Instead, read more for overall understandings of your artist, subject, and theme.
- One of the best, and underutilized, research databases is Kubikat, which is compiled by German institutions dedicated to art history. You can link to it here: Kubikat English Search. You might find it more efficient to filter your searches to English language only. If you are still struggling to find sources, come and see me for help.
- Try to read up on contexts that are indirectly related to your work (e.g. books on political history, literary history, social history) and relate those contexts directly to the subject matter, to the space, or to the style of your chosen work.
- Access to resources in English is limited, and not that much is online. The sooner you start, the sooner you can make sure you get the sources you need! To help alleviate the demand, I have provided a large variety of possible topics in another document, so that the resources will be better distributed. Talk with each other and be willing to share as best you can. If you are really stuck, ask me, as I may have a copy of what you need. Feel free to come see me with an idea and an early bibliography, as I am happy to offer suggestions for further reading and to steer you away from less useful sources.
- High grades will have demonstrated an ability to incorporate sources and will have been able to acknowledge those sources in a variety of ways, including in summaries and in citations using footnotes.
- This is not a book report. Think about the overall argument of the source, not just basic and arbitrary pieces of information or the most interesting sentences. It is usually quicker and more effective to read a source quickly once without notes, and then reread it more thoroughly a second time if it seems relevant.
- Try to synthesize your sources, interweaving your references throughout the essay.
- For summaries of broad arguments or sections of a reading, instead of adding a footnote to each sentence, acknowledge the name of the source in the body of your text and continue to indicate that you are summarizing an opinion: “According to David Rosand,”; “The concept of disegno versus colorito, Rosand further claims,…”; “In his view, then, colorito was the defining characteristic of Venetian style…”
- Make sure there is a clear thread of ideas. When writing, do NOT simply plug in your bullet point notes from your reading.
- Avoiding a few pratfalls will help you to frame the argument in your own words and will, hopefully, ensure that the point you are citing is not taken out of context:
- When you want to record the ideas that you find in a source, avoid copying down sentences word for word. Instead, put the source down and out of eyesight. Then summarize what you read in your own words and in a way that makes sense to your own understanding. Reread the passage(s) from the source to help you fill in important details that you might have missed in your initial summary.
- Simply writing out the sentence(s) from your source while moving, adding, or deleting a few words is not enough to be considered paraphrasing and is considered plagiarism. Often these kinds of adapted sentences are confusing for your reader anyway. Best practice is to summarize in your own words.
- Avoid using quotations as a substitute for your own words. Quotations aren’t considered proof of an idea. They only prove that someone has presented the idea before. We also aren’t interested in how well someone else can explain a complicated concept no matter how eloquent the passage. We want to know how well you understand the concept. So as a general rule, always explain the idea yourself and then cite where you got the idea from.
- Please note carefully: you should only cite sources that you yourself have consulted directly. When you come across information that you find relevant and the reading cites another source for that information, you cite only the reading, not the cited source. You are of course welcome, indeed encouraged, to find that cited source in the library and read it for yourself. Then and only then, you can cite that source. Be sure to consult the section on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism in the syllabus for further guidelines.
- When you want to record the ideas that you find in a source, avoid copying down sentences word for word. Instead, put the source down and out of eyesight. Then summarize what you read in your own words and in a way that makes sense to your own understanding. Reread the passage(s) from the source to help you fill in important details that you might have missed in your initial summary.
- Footnotes and a bibliography are preferred. Be consistent and vigilant with your citations. Follow the Chicago Manual of Style. For the formats of different types of sources, consult this link: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html
Writing
Although there will not be a predetermined grade for writing style and grammar, the clarity and organization of your ideas will inevitably play a role in your grade.
- Introductions can sometimes be dashed off as an afterthought, but they can be the most important section of your writing, because it is here that you establish not only what your topic is about, but why your reader should care about it. Try to give your reader a sense of what other scholars have said about the topic generally and where your paper fits into that discussion.
- Organization: Each paragraph should revolve around one clear idea, but it should also be clear how the ideas of your different paragraphs or sections relate to each other and to the bigger picture of your paper (i.e. the introduction).
- Subheadings: although not necessary, subheadings can be a very effective way to keep both you and your reader focused on the specific topics that you’ve organized into sections. You still want to try to give your reader a sense of how each section relates to the others and to the bigger picture.
- Grammar: Ideally, you want a combination of simple and complex sentences, but clarity should always be your main goal and that means following basic rules of grammar. In the folder for this assignment on Blackboard, you will see a guide to the most common errors that your graders encounter in undergraduate writing.
- Vocabulary: You do want to be precise with your vocabulary, because proper word choice can make your writing more sophisticated without sacrificing concision.
- Sometimes it is worth taking that extra moment to find that word on the tip of your tongue. And sometimes you need to use a thesaurus to figure it out and to vary your language. But be careful. When you’re using words you don’t use every day, make sure you are using them in the right context and with the right associations.
- You’re not a stuffy old academic, so don’t try to sound like one. Who says “whilst” anymore? How often do you say “upon”? And semicolons (;) aren’t common either, and that’s why students rarely use them properly. Except in the rarest of circumstances, just use a period.
- But please keep some sense of formality in structure. That means, don’t use colloquial contractions like “don’t”, which should be “do not”.
