American Art

  American Art A 3-4 page visual and critical analysis of a 2-page spread from a 1930s photobook called “You Have Seen Their Faces” (1937) by Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke White. (I have already uploaded, please check it) Paper should included: 1. A thesis statement. The introduction to your paper should be direct, it should identify the photo-book and 2-page spread you’re investigating, and include a thesis statement. You should write the introduction AFTER you have figured out your thesis. It is up to you to come up with a cogent, creative and thoughtful thesis for this assignment. But it could be something that has to do with the relationship of the captions to the image. Or it might have something to do with how the images represent the Great Depression, or how they represent labor, or architecture. Your thesis might address a formal issue. For instance, maybe you want to argue that Margaret Bourke-White’s photographs resemble in their dramatic lighting Hollywood film stills, and therefore are compelling photographs, but not necessarily good examples of Depression-era documentary or effective representations of hard labor…note: this is just a random example, not an argument I think you should make. This is not an in-depth research paper, it is a speculative analysis. 2. Three quotations. Your text must include at least three cogently chosen quotations from Alan Trachtenberg’s “Signifying the Real: Documentary Photography in the 1930s,” and Terri Weissman’s “Berenice Abbott, Elizabeth McCausland and the ‘Great Democratic Book.’” Both texts are already uploaded, and you must include at least one quotation from each (2 from one text; 1 from the other). The quotations you pick should be chosen for how they help you make an argument, so think about how an analysis of one image can help you interpret another, different image. Do not pick quotations that state fact. Include a parenthetical page citation and a “works referenced” sheet at the end of your paper. 3. A formal desсrіption of the photo-book you’ve chosen (Questions to consider include: how big is the book? Are the images small or do they bleed to the edges? Are there more images, or is there a lot of text? How do the captions look? Whose voice are the captions in?) Your observations should be marshaled as evidence in support of your argument. 4. A detailed desсrіption and formal analysis of the photograph/s reproduced on the pages you’ve chosen. Be sure to connect this analysis to the argument you want to make. Connect the form you see with the content (the subject matter) you conceptually understand. 5. A detailed analysis of how the caption functions with the photograph. Think about what the caption says and how that language directs the way you see the image. Does it change the way you view the photograph? Does it enhance the way you see the image? Or does it limit your seeing somehow?