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Painting
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What is Painting?

Painting is one of the oldest and most studied subjects in the arts, appearing across art history, studio art, humanities, and general education courses. Essays on painting ask students to move beyond casual observation and engage with how visual works are constructed, what they communicate, and how they fit into broader cultural and historical contexts. Works such as Raphael's School of Athens, the Mona Lisa, The Marriage Feast at Cana, and Cimabue's Enthroned Madonna and Child appear frequently as primary subjects because they reward close formal and contextual analysis. Artists including Kandinsky, Peter Paul Rubens, and others represented in student work offer additional angles into how individual style and artistic intention shape meaning.

Student papers on this topic take several distinct approaches. Descriptive and comparative essays examine how painters use light, figure placement, and composition to guide the viewer's eye and establish a scene's mood. Some papers focus on a single work or artist in depth, as with analyses of Kandinsky or Michael Parkes, while others place two paintings side by side to highlight contrasts in technique or subject matter, as seen in comparisons of works like La Grenouillère and Wheat Field with Cypresses. Museum response papers represent another common format, asking students to reflect on direct encounters with original works.

A strong essay on painting anchors its argument in specific formal elements — the treatment of a figure's face, the use of light, the relationship between foreground and background — rather than relying on vague impressions. A focused thesis takes a clear position on what a painting achieves or means. The most common pitfall is summarizing what is visible without explaining why those choices matter to the work's overall effect.

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Paper Undergraduate

Hokusai's "Gamecocks": analyzing aggression and temperament in Japanese art

This paper deals with a painting from an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibit was focused on birds in Japanese artworks. Specifically, the painting discussed is called "Gamecocks." Although looking at it at first it looks like two plain roosters, there is meaning which can be understood on closer examination of the work.

Paper Undergraduate

Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysian principles in The Birth of Tragedy

This paper is about Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Actually Nietzsche was criticizing Christianity which failed to solve people's problems, instead gave an easier solution to suffer through out one's life cursing fate. He called the followers of Christianity, slaves. This life had no meaning. It falsely attached the sufferings with pleasures in the life after death. Nietzsche called it a tragedy whose birth was linked with the arguments of Socrates. His critic on Socrates was a critique on Christianity.

Research Paper Doctorate

Goya's use of myth in Saturn devouring his children

Every society has its myths, stories that explain the time-honored order of things. Humankind does what it does now because of ancient prototypes. As Man does, so did the gods. But what of a society in a state of turmoil?

Research Paper Doctorate

Warren Buffett's transformation of Berkshire Hathaway into a conglomerate

Berkshire Hathaway is one of the most interesting cases of successful investments. Under the inspirational leadership of Warren Buffett, the company's evolution is a great object of study for both scholars and investors.

Research Paper Doctorate

Aristotle's doctrine of virtue, happiness, and human excellence

Aristotle is considered to be the philosopher of philosophers, he virtually wrote about everything, he pioneered most of the disciplines like psychology, biology, meteorology and political science.

Research Paper Doctorate

Federal regulation of billboard advertising in America

Billboard Advertising: "Litter on a Stick?"

Paper Doctorate

Renaissance sculptures of David in Florence: Michelangelo, Donatello, and Verrocchio

One of the many significant figures of the Old Testament is the man David, who was a simple boy who herded sheep, who ultimately led his people and others to triumph over a tyrant warrior, Goliath. David was a young man, armed with a slingshot and brought the vicious leader down. David was quite a popular figure artists depicted during the Renaissance era in the arts, particularly in the area of sculpture. There are three most notable sculptures created in Florence during the Renaissance era. The sculpture created most famously by Michelangelo Buonarotti is a move into the period known as High Renaissance, which the paper will explore forthcoming. The statues of David retain a special connection to the city of Florence as well as to the overall significance to overall art history.

Paper Doctorate

Oppression and conformity in Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman

This paper explores the perceived role of women in a society dominated by male expectations of behavior as reflected in Margret Atwood's novel The Edible Woman. The Logic of Domination is examined as the impetus of this condition and the resultant oppression of women is discussed in this context. The paper concludes with a discussion of feminism and the rejection of the preconceptions that all woman must be gentle, soft-spoken and submissive.

Research Paper Doctorate

Evolution of presidential power from Lincoln to Johnson, 1861-1969

¶ … Cold War, the president of the United States was often referred to as the "leader of the free world." This connotes an image of someone with an unsurpassed amount of power and responsibility.

Research Paper Doctorate

Managing scope, cost, and human resources in a Keppel shipyard project

Project Management: Case Study in Managing a Complex Shipyard Project in Singapore

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