Annotated Bibliography

Topic: Analysis of the Painting ‘Summer Days’ by Georgia O’Keeffe
(https://whitney.org/collection/works/7539)- The link of the painting
The painting chosen for the assignment is ‘Summer Days,’ by Georgia O’Keeffe. Summer Days is one of the most famous works of O’Keeffe. It features a deer’s skull in a desert background adorned with various wildflowers. The painting divulges into a barren and harsh desert with vibrant flowers to showcase the Freudian ideology of Thanatos and Eros. It symbolizes the cycles of life and death and the natural surroundings of the artist. The painting depicts how O’Keeffe‘s unique fusion and abstraction influenced her subject matter, which was nature.

Williams, K. Georgia O’Keeffe, 1887-1986: Flowers in the Desert. Taschen Publishing Board, Second Edition, 2005, pp. 27-53.
The first resource is a book published by Taschen Company and revised by Karen Williams in 2005. Taschen is an art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. The book generally examines the events that occurred in Georgia’s life. It specifically focuses on how the painting depicts the summer days and drought that killed animals in New Mexico in the 1930s.

Marder, L. “How to Recognize a Georgia O’Keeffe Painting.” 26 Mar. 2018, Research Journal of Custom Culture. http://www.rjcc.or.kr/journal/article.php?code=41240.
The second resource is an article extracted from the journal of custom culture. It examines the structure of the ‘Summer Days’ paint, and its uniqueness in terms of the vibrant colors, conventional style, and subject matter.

Kim, H. Y., & Younhee, L. “Knit Fashion Design by Application of a Flower Image of Georgia O’Keeffe Painting.” The Research Journal of the Costume Culture, vol. 24, no. 2, 2016, pp. 180–197., doi:10.7741/rjcc.2016.24.2.180.
The third resource is a case study from the research custom culture journal. Its authors, Kim and Younhee, examine the structure of summer days painting. The study is based on the artistic changes encompassed in the world of painting during the 19th century. It presents the decoration techniques, knitting’s and fabrics that imparted the fashion design industry during the ‘summer days’ painting.

Scott, B.K., Susan E. C., Anne, D., &Irene, L., Women in Culture: An Intersectional Anthology for Gender and Women’s Studies. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2017. Print
The second last resource is a book by Scott et al. Here, the authors explore a detailed timeline of feminists and their influence in the fashion design industry. Since Georgia was a woman, the book criticizes her obstruction and representation of the two dominions of nature (life and death) in Summer Days painting.

Moscow, N, ‘On Creating A Brush with Georgia O’Keeffe,’ (2008). International Journal of Scientific Research and Management. https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws%3A7079/datastream/PDF/view
The article is a doctoral thesis from the University of Western Sydney extracted from the International Journal of Scientific Research and Management. It examines the historical accuracy and creativity in the summer days painting. Moscow immerses herself into the artist’s lifestyle to determine what intrigued her to paint deer’s skull adorned with various wildflowers

The purpose of this assignment is to have you demonstrate that you have compiled relevant research on a topic related to the understanding of visual culture. While I do not expect your bibliography and thesis statement to remain exactly the same in the final version of your essay, I do require that they remain substantially similar. In other words, you cannot submit a bibliography and thesis about one topic, and then for the final paper write about something else entirely.
The essay must 6 to 7 pages in length, or approximately 1,800 to 2,100 words. You must follow MLA formatting conventions.

For this assignment, you must include at least 4 relevant citations in the form of academic secondary sources. Secondary sources should primarily be peer-reviewed academic books or articles. A magazine or newspaper article, for example, is not an academic source. You may cite your textbook, but this does not count as one of the 4 citations. The point of the assignment is to have you research the academic study of visual culture.
Working Thesis (https://www.mgccc.edu/learning_lab/writing/thesis%20development.pdf): “A working thesis gives you enough focus and direction to proceed with your essay, critical analysis, or research paper, but also freedom to change as you go. The thesis is your argument, your opinion, and your point.”
Remember that the annotated bibliography must contain relevant research that supports the working thesis. You are looking for a “conversation” in the academic literature. This is the “they say” portion of your essay, to which you will add your own opinion to form a thesis.
The essay topic can be an analysis of a painting, photograph, advertisement, or meme. I want you to pick an object of study that interests you. For this assignment, I will not allow moving pictures (television, film, etc.). You may choose to write about genres of images not typically considered “artistic”: maps or brochures, for example.
You may wish to focus on the “materiality” of the image (for example, cave art that existed for thousands of years versus the ephemeral quality of memes; or the technological apparatuses used to create certain images).
You may also consider the politics of the image. You might find searching the academic literature by “genre” to be useful: for example, “movie poster art” or “street photography” or “realist painting”.
You do not have to accomplish everything in this paper; that is, I don’t expect you to necessarily talk about the materiality and politics of the image. Consider the length of the essay (6 pages) and the scope of argument that fits that length. Make sure your thesis is focused appropriate to the essay length.

This was the Final Comments after I submitted the Annotated Bibliography. Please take note
Feedback to Learner
Overall, I think you have a good topic and some relevant research. Please note the name of the journal for a couple of your sources is The Research Journal of the Costume Culture, not, as you write, “custom culture.” I’m not sure the last line of your thesis makes sense, because in effect you are saying the painting influenced nature. That’s probably not what you mean. I’m guessing you mean, something about O’Keeffe’s style affects our understanding of the subject matter. For the essay, you will have to develop the thesis into something more coherent. Are you proposing a Freudian reading of O’Keeffe’s painting, for example? If so, you would benefit from finding more specific, Freudian approaches to her work.