Description
Art and Artifact
Select a work of art or a cultural artifact that expresses the mythology of its culture. You will find thousands of possibilities on museum websites, as many are developing or enhancing their digital collections. For example:
• Google Arts & Culture allows you to “walk” through museums and has great curated collections
• The Metropolitan Museum
• The British Museum
Take a Field trip! You can go to any local museum that allows you to take photos of their collection
In your paper, include at least one image of the artwork you chose – but don’t count the image toward your page count! (See “Requirements” below.)
Your assignment is to spend no more than 1-pg summarizing the myth that this artwork or artifact engages, and then using the remaining 5 pages to analyze the art and its story using some of the approaches and lines of inquiry. It will be helpful to choose a theme: the portrayal of the Hero and/or Trickster, the virtues or vices that underly the story and how the artist conveys them, the artist’s use of symbols to tell the story without words, etc. Let your artwork/artifact of choice be your guide.
