Random Poll of the Day! (652)

[Callid]

Picture. Seriously, if you need to explain a picture, you're using the wrong type of pictures. So, an essay on a picture is either an essay on a stupid picture or too short to be an essay

If you're explaining the picture in such an essay, you're doing it wrong.

What else should you do?

That's pretty much like saying "What do you mean there's more to writing an essay about a story than summarizing it?"

Well, analysing it, obviously
"Why did the author mention that and that, but not that?" "Why does he leave out certain things?"
That doesn't work with a picture. "Why did he paint the sky blue?" shouldn't be a question asked in any essay :x

[Commi-Ninja]

But what if he didn't paint the sky blue?  There are plenty of ways to analyze pictures, just as there are novels, short stories, poems, etc.

Go look at anything by Picasso or Salvador Dali.  Then tell me it's not possible to analyze a picture.

[pofa]

Picture. Seriously, if you need to explain a picture, you're using the wrong type of pictures. So, an essay on a picture is either an essay on a stupid picture or too short to be an essay

If you're explaining the picture in such an essay, you're doing it wrong.

What else should you do?

That's pretty much like saying "What do you mean there's more to writing an essay about a story than summarizing it?"

Well, analysing it, obviously
"Why did the author mention that and that, but not that?" "Why does he leave out certain things?"
That doesn't work with a picture. "Why did he paint the sky blue?" shouldn't be a question asked in any essay :x

It absolutely should. XD If the picture is of, say, a graphic battle scene, then the fact that the painter chose to give the scene nice weather with lovely blue skies might be interesting to discuss. Or even if it's simply a beautiful depiction of nature, why did the artist choose to paint such a thing? What was he/she trying to accomplish? There are lots of social, commercial, political, cultural, and personal motivations to be considered there. Saying that pictures can't produce valid analytic essays is like saying the visual arts aren't capable of communicating or signifying as much as the literary arts are.

Also, Kor, since you're the one who made the poll, I'm surprised at the lack of a music option.

[PT]

I dislike writing essays on poetry, mostly because I kinda fail at understanding a lot of it, except the dark stuff.

@Callid: I agree with everything pofa and Commi said. Aside from just what the artist personally intended, there's also the feelings you get from particular picture that may or may not be what most people get from it. And there are all kinds of things you can write about pictures without just summarizing the picture, in a sense.

[ProfParanoia]

Hard to pic one above the others, it's usually a question of instructions. That, and I overwrite/make innuendos a lot.

[Kor]

Also, Kor, since you're the one who made the poll, I'm surprised at the lack of a music option.

I was mostly unsure whether or not non-music students do essays based on music. The options that I brought are from my own Literature class and I wanted to limit it to the basics.

Anyway, I chose poems. I always have hard time understand them and I can barely think of stuff to write.

@Callid - adding to what the others have said - symbolism exists also in pictures, and perhaps there is a possible message the artist tries to deliver through his picture.

[Vylash]

They all suck

[pofa]

They all suck

Maybe your essays just suck. :x



@Kor: Right, I probably never wrote an essay about music until I took a music class, I guess.

[Kaito Lady]

They all suck

^

but if a have to choose ill pick essays on personal experience...