Essays-ri

Option A

Two pieces in a museum. How a culture sees abstract ideas (masculinity, virtue, old age, divinity, and so on) is often reflected in its artwork. What can two different works of art depicting the same idea, but from different times or places, tell us about how the cultures that produced them?

Compare the two works to explore what their creators/artists believed about the idea they were representing. What insight do these beliefs give us into the cultures the two artists came from?

Option B

The Greek world on film. Every depiction of an historical event, whether in prose, poetry, painting, theater, or film, involves an artist using history to convey his or her own beliefs. What do the creators of these works want you to believe?

Compare the agenda of the filmmakers with the agenda of the authors of the primary source. How did these creators reshape this event for their own purposes? How do these similarities and differences show what this event means to the people who create art about it?

Option A

For the museum option, you need to choose two works of art from the ancient world that (a) represent the same idea or concept but (b) come either from different periods or from different places in the ancient world.

Choosing your subjects:

• Your two works of art must represent the same idea or concept. For example, you can choose two little girls, two warriors, two fertility goddesses, etc.
• Your works of art must be from the ancient Greek world (before 500 CE) and from either two different places or two different periods. The two pieces can be in any visual medium: sculpture, painting, relief, etc.
• You should experience the artwork face-to-face by attending a museum in person. Possible venues include: Metropolitan Museum’s Egypt Collection; Metropolitan Museum’s Greek and Roman Art Collection; Brooklyn Museum of Art’s Ancient Egyptian Art Collection; and Fordham Museum of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Art. You are not limited to these venues or to New York.

Option B

For the film option, you need to choose a film that is set in the ancient world and that is based on ancient primary sources.

Choosing your subjects:

• First, choose and watch any feature-length film or two episodes of a TV series set in the ancient world (3500 BCE to 500 CE).
• Then find the ancient primary source material it was based on and read it. For example, if you chose the movie 300, which is about the Battle of Thermopylae, the primary source would be the main ancient account, Book 7 of The Histories by Herodotos.
• Your primary source(s) must come from the ancient world (before 500 CE).
• Some suggestions for possible films or series and their corresponding sources are below.

Option A

For the museum option, choose three aspects of the works you can discuss for both pieces that seem to reflect how the artist felt about the subject and what the subject stood for.

• Some possibilities include facial expression, dress, use of technique or medium, stiffness/fluidity, apparent strength/weakness, idealism/realism, or any other elements offering some kind of insight into what the artist was trying to convey.
• For each aspect, relate your subjective impressions of how it manifests in the first piece; then how the second piece is similar or different and in what way.
• For example: say you’ve chosen two sculptures depicting different love goddesses, and one has a crafty expression while the other has an innocent expression. The contrast can be used to talk about how each artist might have thought about the goddesses’ relationships with mortals; the nature of love; etc.

Option B

For the film option, choose three moments or depictions from the film and find the corresponding events or depictions in the primary source.

• For each moment or depiction, describe and discuss how it appears in the film and how it is presented similarly or differently in the primary source material.
• For example:
• In the movie 300, Xerxes and the Persians are depicted in a heavy-handed manner; you could use this to discuss what tropes and visual and dialog cues the filmmakers were using to suggest how we should think of the Persians, and why the filmmakers might have turned the story this way.
• Meanwhile, Herodotos’s presentation of the Persians is very different, which you can use to discuss what Herodotos wanted us to think about the Persians and the role he saw them as playing in this war.

Please take note: This essay is about the agenda of the primary source author as much as the filmmakers’. Do not use the source to “fact check” the film and list what it got “wrong”. You must consider the primary source to be at least as skewed, manipulative, and agenda-driven as the film.