PART 1: This essay fulfills the course requirement to conduct written research on a work of art or architecture. The work of art (or architecture) that you select will also be used to create your Research PowerPoint . This work of art or architecture must be from the eras covered in Modules 1 and 2.  Your topic does not have to be covered in the textbook, but it should have been created during the Prehistoric era through the Ancient Greece (Module 1 through 2).  In your paper, you must provide a clear thesis and demonstrate your support for that thesis in your research. I want to see your thesis stated by the end of your first paragraph. Remember, a thesis is: a statement or theory that you intend to prove by the end of your paper.  Information Literacy You must use this Research Resource Guide (Links to an external site.) to access the following credible academic sources on the basis of your research: books dissertations interviews journals magazines videos Websites and encyclopedic entries will not be counted as appropriate research sources. What is provided for you through the Research Resource Guide are the required, credible, peer-reviewed sources you will need for this assignment. If you are unsure of the legitimacy of any of your sources, please ask the instructor. Demonstrate You must provide a clear thesis, which states what you hope to show about a specific work. For example, you may want to discuss a work of architecture and its relation to social and political ideas of the society that created it. If the artist's biography is known, you may discuss how the work of art might relate to that biography. Provenance is the history of ownership. In addressing provenance, you answer: Was the work commissioned and why? If not, why was it made? What were the artist's intentions? How do factors like the historical context and location shape the meaning of the work? Remember that in discussing style, you are often referring to a period style or regional style. You must also utilize formal analysis in your approach to communicating the work's key features.  Give attention to the materials and techniques the artist used to effectively communicate their ideas. The possibilities are endless, but you must demonstrate that you understand the interpretations of a work of art architecture. This should be responsive to the research you have encountered, and you may be expanding upon or arguing against previous research. You must include MLA (Links to an external site.) citation style, with endnotes and a complete bibliography on two separate pages at the end of the paper. Your endnotes should be on their own page, as well as your bibliography. You don't need to fill these two pages, but they should be on separate pages at the end of your paper.  A full resource guide to MLA citation is also included in the Research Resource Guide. Part 2:  Purpose Using the same work of art (or architecture) that you researched and discussed in your Research Essay, you will create a Research PowerPoint. In this PowerPoint, you will compile the important points of your research into a presentation for your classmates. Directions You will lead a bullet-point discussion on style, context, content, purpose of your chosen work and offer some insight into the use of formal analysis. During your discussion, you should not only introduce the basic facts of the work but give consideration to the following: Provenance: was the work commissioned and why? If not, why was it made? What were the artist's intentions? What are the interpretations of the work? How do factors like the historical context, location, artist biography, shape the meaning of the work? Remember that in discussing style you may refer to a period, region, or personal style. You may also include any other methodology for discussion that you think applies or is interesting, such as a psychological analysis, a feminist response, politics, science, etc. You may choose any application to create your presentation, but it must be in the format of a slide show and saved as a .ppt or .pptx file. Your presentation must include both images and bullet points to explain your artwork. This is an observational project. Your observations should be illuminated by the material from class, but outside research is required and should be utilized through the Research Resource link. Research findings must be properly cited and must be properly credited in your last slide. Please use MLA format. (See https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html (Links to an external site.)) A typical project will spend the first 5 slides describing both the content and the form of the artwork in detail using at least 5 terms learned in class (ie. sculpture in the round, complementary colors, abstraction, etc.) and possibly providing some background about the artist (but not more than 1 slide).  You should address how the form and content are interacting (ie. Does the artist’s choice of medium enhance or detract from the narrative/subject or the message they are sending to the viewer?). The content includes the narrative or story that is conveyed in the artwork. The rest of the project should be spent revealing new insights into the work that goes beyond the textbook. This is the essential findings of your research. In the next 5 slides, you should talk about the work's context. You may want to talk about the work’s significance – how it may be a political statement or shows an innovative style, for example. Feel free to compare your work to other works from this time frame, by the same artist or others.   You can show historical photographs or diagram material that help to illustrate your points.  Feel free to also incorporate videos into your slides. I suggest the following organization: (SAMPLE PRESENTATION) Slide 1: Title slide Slide 2: An image of your selected artwork (with artist, title, date, location) Slide 3: Bullet points describing your artwork Slide 4: More bullet points describing your artwork Slide 5: Image of detail(s)of your artwork, or background of the artist Slide 6: Bullet points describing the significance of the work Slide 7: Image comparison artworks  Slide 8: Bullet points describing the comparison Slide 9: More bullet points describing the comparison Slide 10: Other images (different views of your artwork or historical images related to its context) Slide 11: Bullet points summarizing your major ideas Slide 12: Footnotes/Works Cited