TIMELINE PROJECT

One of the most difficult aspects of studying art history is that as we proceed through the millennia during which human beings have been creating art, the field itself becomes more and more complex. The more people create, the more there is to know, to interpret, and to understand.

Because I am approaching this course within a topical format (one centered on big ideas rather than a set number of objects), I ask my students to create a personal timeline to keep track of historical sequence. How each of you completes this assignment is up to you; my primary requirement is that you pursue it consistently and that you keep up with the topics and works we consider each week.

The newest version of Microsoft Word makes it possible to create a visual timeline relatively easily; if you're fluent with Word, you should be able to use this tutorial: Create a Timeline in Microsoft Word 2010. A similar tutorial shows how to use Microsoft Excel 2007. Students with expertise in Illustrator, InDesign, or other design software programs are welcome to use one or more of these. Students with few technical skills can create a timeline that relies primarily on hand skills. The most important aspect of this project is that it serve as a tool to help you understand how ideas and images relate to one another over time.

The timeline can be completely digital, saved on a CD or DVD or uploaded to a website; or, it can be completely rendered on paper. It's quite possible to create a three-dimensional version as a museum or an artist's book (both of these are topics we will consider later in the course). The more imaginative your solution to this assignment, the more fun you'll have. I fully expect students to share their developing timelines with the rest of the class, especially when they're assessed for the first time for midterm grade purposes week 5.

Since this assignment entails the visual representation of information, I strongly suggest that you conduct some research on how to do so effectively. One of the best sources for valuable ideas in this regard is Edward Tufte (famous for having coined the phrase, "Power corrupts; PowerPoint corrupts absolutely" in his article on the cognitive style of PowerPoint--discussed in the November 2009 issue of Wired). The Kelley Library holds several of his books.

This assignment contributes up to 20 points to the 100 available in this class, and takes the place of quizzes and examinations to help me measure your progress. Open-ended projects like this can be daunting at first, but once you develop your strategy, you should be able to create an effective learning tool. Please feel free to discuss ideas or questions with me in class, via e-mail, or during my office hours.

Resources & Suggestions:

Your timeline should include points that coincide with periods, movements, and objects we discuss in class. You should feature images along the sequence that represent ideas related to our discussions. In some way you should also show why the object is important or how it reflects why you think it represents a particular period or idea.

The simplest way to do this is to write a paragraph that explains its presence on your timeline, and include all of the descriptive paragraphs on a summary sheet separate from the timeline itself. Be sure that the summary is composed entirely in your own words. Include the name of the object, when it was made, and by whom (artist and/or culture or provenance). For example, an image of Menkaure's tomb at Giza could be summarized as "Menkaure's Tomb, Giza, Egypt. Old Kingdom; 26th century BCE. The smallest of the 'great pyramids' on the Giza plateau, Menkaure's tomb is flanked by three smaller pyramids (two stepped and one true) that may have been the burial places of his three main consorts. Menkaure's pyramid was partly constructed of pink granite, unlike the other tombs which were built of limestone." Your description does not have to be elaborate, but it should provide some idea of why you think it's worth including.

What you include on your timeline is up to you. You may find yourself moving forward and backward in time as we move through the quarter, because the various themes we cover (such as museums) may include objects from periods throughout history. Featured objects need not come from lecture material, either. You will be conducting research, both individually and in groups, and anything you locate is fair game if you think it's interesting or important enough to represent a particular "moment" on your timeline.

The best resource, bar none, for this assignment is the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website.TOAH (as it will be abbreviated throughout the quarter) includes images and essays that cover most of what we discuss in class. Treat this site as a digital textbook, and look to it first (instead of using Wikipedia or conducting random web searches). The home page of SmArtHistory also includes a basic timeline with some useful divisions. For purposes of this assignment, choose broad categories (such as Prehistory, The ancient world, The Middle Ages, The Renaissance,18th and 19th century Europe and America, Modernism) that describe large enough expanses of time to include non-Western art during the periods when the West became aware of it (such as Mesoamerican pyramids "discovered" by Europeans during the Renaissance).

A helpful strategy for beginning a timeline is simply to start putting particular objects (such as pyramids) into a chronological sequence. Patterns and periods should start showing up within the first couple of weeks of class, so that by the first assessment of your timeline (week 5), you should be able to set up a sensible flow, and have some representative objects in place.

I realize that this is an unusual assignment, and that it may be difficult to make things make sense at first. But you should, by the end of the quarter, have developed a general awareness not only of art through time, but of how ideas are related, and how art in one period affects art in a later one.