Tuesday, May 26, 2015

New York City Landmarks




The Brooklyn Bridge





The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Island)
Yes, you must visit the Statue if you choose this subject.
No, you don't have to visit the crown.






The Empire State Building (34th street and 5th Avenue)
You are NOT required to visit the observation deck.





The Chrysler Building (42nd Street and Lexington Avenue)





Rockefeller Center (5th Avenue and 51st Street to 48th Street)
You do NOT have to visit the observation floor.





Saint Patrick's Cathedral (5th Avenue and 51st Street)






Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street)






Trinity Church (Wall Street and Broadway)






Federal Hall Memorial (Wall Street and Nassau Street)







Grand Central Station (Park Avenue and 42nd Street)




The Guggenheim Museum (5th Avenue and 81st Street)





The Seagram Building (Park Avenue and 52nd Street)





The Woolworth Building (Broadway at Barclay Street)
This building is no longer open to the public; however, you can take a tour of the first floor lobby (The tour is optional for this paper).






The United Nations (1st Avenue at 43rd Street)
I want a paper on the BUILDINGS, not the institution.
The UN campus is not open to the public, but you can take a guided tour.






McGraw Hill Building (330 42nd Street)






Lever House (390 Park Avenue)





General Electric Building  (570 Lexington Avenue)






The Flatiron Building (175 5th Avenue at 23rd Street)






ATT (Sony) Building (550 Madison Avenue)





#1 World Trade Center
You are NOT required to visit the observation floors.






World Trade Center Transportation Hub (World Trade Center on Church Street)
This is now completed and fully open.





The National September 11th 2001 Memorial (World Trade Center)
I want a paper on the memorial and its design, NOT on the events of September 11th.







#8 Spruce Street





New York Times Building (8th Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets)




The Daily News Building (220 East 42nd Street)






Bayard-Condict Building (65 Bleecker Street)





Islamic Cultural Center of New York, (1711 Third Avenue)





Cooper Union New Academic Building, 41 Cooper Square (Third Avenue and East 7th Street)




Saturday, May 23, 2015

Extra Credit

If you wish, you may do some projects for extra credit on your final grade at the end of the semester.

An extra credit paper is good for 1 to 5 extra points on your final grade for the course.  You may do as many of these papers as you wish up to 20 points.

You can turn in an extra credit paper any time up to the final exam.  Please write "Extra Credit" in the heading of your paper before you turn it in.

Papers should be 3 pages long, double-spaced, with 12 point type.
Handwritten papers will not be accepted.

--A paper on a work of art (painting, sculpture, photo, installation, etc.) from the  Metropolitan Museum of Art.  You may also do works of art from the Museum of Modern Art, The Frick Collection, The Guggenheim Museum, The New Museum, or the Whitney Museum of American Art.  These can be works from the permanent collections, or from special exhibitions.

Write a 3 page paper, typed, double-spaced, 12 point type.  Your paper must include a description of the work of art (it's always good to begin a paper on a work of art with a description), and an analysis.  Tell something about the artist. If you wish, you may give an opinion or make an argument about the work of art provided you make the case for your opinion with evidence.  Include a reproduction or photo of the work of art you are discussing plus proof of your visit with museum ticket and receipt with your paper.

Here are links to the websites of all of these museums:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (pay what you want, even a dime, but you must pay something)

The Frick Collection (Note:  The Frick does not allow small children into the museum)

The Museum of Modern Art (you can get into MoMA for FREE with your student ID)

The Guggenheim Museum

The New Museum

The Whitney Museum of American Art (you may have to buy a ticket online in advance; the museum is newly relocated and rebuilt and very popular now)

For those of you who are enterprising, you may also write about a show at a commercial gallery.  There are a lot of them in the Chelsea, Lower East Side, and Soho neighborhoods of Manhattan.  There are also some notable ones on 57th street and on the Upper East Side.  For the really adventurous, there are a lot of galleries in Brooklyn, especially in the Williamsburg and Bushwick areas.  I strongly suggest you do some research before you start exploring commercial galleries.  A good resource is Time Out's Gallery Guide; another is The Gallery Guide.

You can also do a paper on a living artist that you know personally.  They don't have to be famous or have work in a museum, but please see me first.


--A building in New York City.
Pick a building from the list below. You are required to visit the building at least once. Walk around the building, go inside, if you can. What is it like to look at it from the street; to see it from a distance? What is it like to enter the building (if you can)? Pay attention to the neighborhood around the building and how it relates to its surroundings (or doesn’t). Do materials like brick or glass or stainless steel or something else make a difference to the overall effect of the building? Does color play a role?
 Find out what you can about the building, its history, why it was built, especially why it was designed the way it was.
 Write a 3 page typed double spaced paper, 12 point type. Tell something about its history, about the architect, about who ordered it built and why. Above all, why does the building look the way it does? Why do you think this building was designed this way? Describe your experience visiting the building. What do you think of it?

You must turn in a snapshot of yourself with the building as proof of your visit.

You can see pictures of all the buildings on the list here.

The List


-The Brooklyn Bridge, John, Washington, & Emily Roebling

-The Statue of Liberty, Fredric Bartholdi, Gustave Eiffel, & Richard Morris Hunt (Liberty Island)

-The Empire State Building, Shreve & Lamb (34th Street and 5th Avenue; you are not required to visit the observation deck)

-The Chrysler Building, William Van Allen (42nd Street and Lexington Ave)

-Rockefeller Center, Raymond Hood, Wallace Harrison, etc. (5th Avenue from 52nd to 48th Streets; you are not required to visit the observation deck)

-Saint Patrick's Cathedral, James Renwick, (5th Avenue & 51st Street)

-Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Ralph Adams Cram (Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street)

-Trinity Church, Richard Upjohn (Wall Street and Broadway)

-Federal Hall Memorial, Alexander Jackson Davies (Wall Street & Nassau Street)

-Grand Central Station, (Park Avenue & 42nd Street)

-The Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright (5th Avenue at 81st Street; it would be nice to take a look inside, but they will charge you $25 admission, no exceptions; so visiting the inside is encouraged, but not required.)

-The Seagram Building, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (Park Avenue and 52nd Street)

-The Woolworth Building, Cass Gilbert (Broadway at Barclay Street, across from City Hall; the lobby of this building is no longer accessible; the upper 30 floors of what was once a public building are now being turned into luxury housing.)

-The United Nations Buildings, Oscar Niemeyer, Le Corbusier, Wallace Harrison, etc. (1st Avenue and 43rd Street; NOTE, I want a report on the BUILDINGS, NOT the organization).

-MacGraw Hill Building, Raymond Hood, (330 42nd Street)

-Lever House, Gordon Bunshaft & Natalie de Blois (390 Park Avenue)

-The General Electric Building, John Cross (570 Lexington Avenue)

-The Flatiron Building, Daniel Burnham (175 5th Avenue, at 23rd street)

-AT&T Building (now the Sony Building), Phillip Johnson (550 Madison Avenue)

-#1 World Trade Center, John Childs (The lobby of this building is finished and the observation deck is supposed to open later in 2015; I'm still not sure how accessible the building is yet)

-World Trade Center Transportation Center, Santiago Calatrava, (This building is almost finished and scheduled to be open later in 2015)

- The National September 11th 2001 Memorial, Michael Arad (World Trade Center; You are not required to visit the museum; the Memorial is free; I want a paper on the the Memorial and its design, not on 9/11)

-8 Spruce Street, Frank Gehry, (8 Spruce Street in Lower Manhattan just south of City Hall Park)

 -New York Times Building, Renzo Piano (8th Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets)

-Bayard-Condict Building, Louis Sullivan (65 Bleecker Street in Lower Manhattan)

NOTE: If you have a building in mind that is not on this list, but you would really like to write about it, please see me.



Saturday, September 13, 2014

Comparisons: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Paper

Main entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue and 82nd Street



The Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian Wing


The Petrie European Sculpture Court


The Greek and Roman Galleries



The 19th Century European Art Galleries



The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the greatest encyclopedic museums in the world with major works of art from almost all cultures and time periods.  Its only rivals for size and scope are the Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London.  Tourists come from around the world to see this museum.  All you have to do is to take a subway to get there.
For this assignment, you are required to visit the Metropolitan Museum at least once and to turn in proof of your visit.

Choose one of the following comparisons to visit, to find, to see for yourself, and then to describe, analyze, and compare for the semester.

The Metropolitan Museum is very big, so you will need a map.  Go here for online maps and to download a PDF of the museum map.




Comparisons






Left:  Coffin and mummy of Khnumhotpe, Egypt, Middle Kingdom
Right:  Coffin and mummy of Kharushere, Egypt, New Kingdom
both first floor, Egyptian Galleries

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Left: Column from the Temple of Pharaoh Sahure, Egypt, Old Kingdom, Egyptian Galleries
Right:  Column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis, Greece, Hellenistic Period, Hellenistic and Roman Galleries
both first floor

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Top:  Coffin of Khnumhotpe, Egypt, Middle Kingdom, Egyptian Galleries
Bottom:  Endymion Sarcophagus, Rome,  Hellenistic and Roman Galleries
both first floor



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Left:  Pharaoh Hatshepsut seated, Egypt, New Kingdom, Egyptian Galleries
Right:  Emperor Caracalla, Rome, Hellenistic and Roman Galleries
Portraits of two absolute Rulers of Empires
both first floor

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Left:  Pharaoh Hatshepsut Standing in Devotional Attitude, Egypt, New Kingdom, Egyptian Galleries
Right:  The New York Kouros, Greece, Archaic Period, Greek Galleries
both first floor

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Left:  The New York Kouros, Greece, Archaic Period
Right:  Standing Figure, Greece, Hellenistic Period
both first floor

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Left:  Aphrodite, Greece, Hellenistic, first floor
Right:  Auguste Rodin, Eve, Europe, 19th century, second floor, 19th Century Galleries


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Left:  Head of an Athlete, Roman copy of a Greek original
Right:  Portrait bust of a Roman citizen, Rome
both first floor

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Left:  Ciborium, 12th century, from a church in Rome, first floor, Medieval Galleries
Right:  Mihrab, 14th century, from a mosque in Isfahan, Iran, second floor, Islamic Galleries
Both of these served as focal points for congregational worship.  They focused the prayers of worshippers from two different religions with very different religious beliefs and practices.  How did those differing beliefs and practices shape these two structures?

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Left:  The Jaharis Byzantine Lectionary, Byzantine, first floor Medieval Galleries
Right:  Quran Manuscript from the Ottoman Empire, second floor, Islamic Galleries

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Left:  Virgin and Child Reliquary, 12th century
Right:  Virgin and Child by Claus de Werve, 14th century
both first floor Medieval Galleries

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Left:  Petrus Christus, Portrait of a Carthusian Monk
Right:  Rembrandt, Portrait of a Woman Holding a Pink Carnation
both second floor European Painting Galleries

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Left:  Jacob Ruisdael, Wheat Fields, 17th century, European Painting Galleries
Right:  Vincent Van Gogh, Wheat Fields With Cypress Trees, 19th century, 19th Century Galleries
both second floor

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Left:  Frans Hals, Portrait of a Man, 17th century, second floor, European Painting Galleries
Right:  Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Gertrude Stein, first floor, 20th Century Galleries

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Left:  Jan Vermeer, Woman with a Water Pitcher, 17th century, second floor, European Painting Galleries
Right:  Edvard Munch, Saint-Cloud, 19th century, second floor, 19th Century Galleries


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Left:  Titian, Venus and Adonis, 16th century
Right:  Peter Paul Rubens, Venus and Adonis, 17th century
both on the second floor, European Painting Galleries

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Left:  Willem Kalf, Still Life with Fruit, Glassware, and a Wanli Bowl, 17th century, second floor, European Painting Galleries
Right:  Pablo Picasso, Pipe Rack and Still Life on a Table, 20th century, first floor, 20th Century Galleries

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Left:  Caravaggio, The Denial of Peter, 17th century, second floor European Galleries
Right:  Franz Joseph Navez, Massacre of the Innocents, 19th century, second floor, 19th Century Galleries

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Left:  Caspar David Friedrich, Two Men Contemplating the Moon, 19th century, second floor, 19th Century Galleries
Right:  Vincent Van Gogh, Cypresses with the Moon, 19th century, second floor, 19th Century Galleries

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Left:  Jean-Francois Millet, Haystacks, Autumn, 19th century
Right:  Claude Monet, Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun), 19th century
both are on the second floor in the 19th Century Galleries



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Left:  Henri Fantin-Latour, Still Life with Flowers and Fruit, 19th century
Right:  Paul Cezanne, Apples and Primroses, 19th century
both can be found on the second floor in the 19th Century Galleries


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Left:  Claude Monet, Vetheuil in Summer, 19th century
Right:  Georges Seurat, Gray Weather, Grand Jatte, 19th century
both are found on the second floor in the 19th Century Galleries

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Left:  Jean Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 19th century
Right:  Auguste Rodin, The Burghers of Calais, 19th century
both large sculptures are on the first floor in the Petrie Sculpture Court


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Left:  Paul Klee, Variations (Progressive Motif), 20th century, first floor, 20th Century Galleries
Right:  folio from the "Blue Quran," 10th century, second floor, Islamic Galleries

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