Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:
Paper Instructions:

No Introduction or Conclusion paragraphs necessary! In art history, artworks are often discussed in pairs to stress their similarities and differences from different periods and styles.  For your comparison paper, you will write a 3 page compare/contrast essay.  The paper must be typed using Times New Roman font, 1” margins, double-spaced. For this compare/contrast essay, you will analyze in terms of three main areas: the formal, the historical and the iconographic. 
1) Formal:  A formal analysis is a verbal description of a visual object.  This information can help you determine the identity of the artist, the time period, or the place where a piece was made. This includes the color, the use of line and shape, its size, the use (or lack of) a perspective, the use (or lack of) a canon, the materials used in the piece, the technique the artist choose, and other visual information. Use the descriptions given in your text and note what is considered relevant. Often, the notable formal elements relate to the other two areas.
2)  Sociological and Historical significance. All works of art reveal something about the historical moment and situation in which it was made. Sometimes the artist intended the piece to refer to a specific event, such as the Narmer Palette from the Egyptian Old Kingdom period, c.3200 BCE which commemorates the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.  Sometimes a piece refers to a more general cultural shift, as with pieces from the Amarna period from New Kingdom Egypt, which reflects the change in the religious structure.
3)  Symbolic or Iconographic: many visual elements within an artwork, including colors, materials, objects, and patterns, have conventional symbolic meanings, especially in religious and political pieces.  Some common examples include the removal of shoes to indicate sacred ground or raised arms to indicate prayer. Iconography creates a complex visual language that can be decoded and read to further understand the artist's and patron's intentions within a work.When writing a compare/contrast, begin with the earlier artwork. Using a six-paragraph format, you will cover all three areas of both pieces in the following order:
1)  Formal analysis of piece A;
2)  Historical analysis of piece A;
3)  Iconographic analysis of piece A;
4)  Formal analysis of piece B, making reference to the formal analysis of piece A (i.e., While the cave paintings at Lascaux were rendered naturalistically, the figures on the Palette of Narmer followed a strict canon that limited the realism of the bodies.)
5)  Historical analysis of piece B, making reference to the historical analysis of piece A;
6)  Iconographic analysis of piece B, making reference to the iconographic analysis of piece A.