ARTH/WRLD/DIHU 370 Visual and Historical Investigation Assignment
Value: 15% of total course grade Length: 4-5 pages (a 6th is ok…). Use regular margins, 12 point font. Due: November 5, 2021 11:59 pm Purpose: focused viewing of examples of visual narratives presented as paintings in codices (bound books) from the stories we have explored; investigation of related technical, stylistic, historical (including culture and religion) and/or digitization issues, as they are relevant to students’ areas of interest. Assignment: In this visual and historical investigation assignment, you will select and focus on the paintings created for Muslim patrons and viewers from one story that has been featured in lectures and guided viewings. This assignment should be based on your notes from your guided viewings and lectures.
You might look at one of the following: • a single manuscript • a set of folios (from a dispersed manuscript, an album, or a museum collection) • an event from a larger narrative that has been depicted in several different paintings (for example an episode from the Shahnameh) include specific examples of primary source material (the manuscripts, folios and paintings themselves) and secondary source material (lectures, readings, any catalogue information that accompanies the folios and manuscripts) to support your investigation. The lecture images are accompanied by information that you can use to find the manuscripts or the libraries and museums; links have been provided for your guided viewing sessions.
To be certain that I will be familiar with the paintings you are referring to, include a collection/catalogue number and a folio number (for example: Bib. Nat. de France, Turc 190, folio 47r) and a link would be helpful if I haven’t shown the image in class; if you refer to text from the readings, you can use the ‘bracket’ format [for example: ‘Brend looks to the variation of styles used in the demons to establish her chronology (Brend, 22).’]. You are not required to provide a bibliography if you note your sources in this way, although if making bibliographies is your life’s passion, then don’t let me stand in your way. You are also not required to look to sources beyond the course readings, lectures, and the visual narratives on which you choose to focus, although you can double check dates, materials, etc. in the museum and library catalogues.
You can organise your material in a way that reflects your own engagement with the paintings. Here are some guidelines for things to include: • Indicate the story, narrative, theme, or event on which you have chosen to focus
• Provide the appropriate information for the manuscript or folios (date and place of production, patrons and artists if known, materials, current collection and accession/catalogue number)
• Describe, in detail, the visual narratives (consider characters, setting, colour, line, frame, composition, pattern, architecture, clothing, animals, what is happening, labels, etc.)
• Relate the specific visual narratives to the story/text
• Relate the story and visual narratives to historical context (including religion and artistic production as aspects of history) as understood through the course materials
• Compare the visual narratives/paintings to those in another manuscript or story, or to other paintings from the same story/manuscript and discuss whether there appears to be set iconography (ie., a way that the story is clear to us from the way it is presented; an example is the Prophet Muhammad surrounded by angels, rising into the heavens on Burak = the Miraj) or whether different artists and workshops have made other choices
• Consider why the stories that are chosen for book production change or stay consistent over time, why illustrated events and episodes change or stay consistent, and why depictions and compositions change or stay consistent
• Consider how the intended audience/readership contributes to subject matter, artistic style, materials, and other features in historical context
