I suggest looking up art movements and printing out a time line.
You should get familiar with Renaissance art (artists like Titian- remember to actually quote artworks they have created), Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Fauvism, Pop Art etc.
First of all get familiar with Indigenous Art! this has been in almost every art exam. Research Papunya and its significance then have a contemporary artist like Michael Riley to compare and contrast with.
Also Ancient Chinese & contemporary art comes up alot too.
Know Feminism; artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Julie Rrap, The Guerilla Girls etc.
With feminism remember to talk about "the gaze", refer to the positions and stances and also how they have changed from traditional times. Compare them to (for example) Titian's work and mention the passive nature of the female in his paintings. Also you can refer to Michaelangelos "David" as a contrast to how the male figure's stance was. Remember to mention that they were portrayed as domineering.
Also get to know the Dada movement.. you can tie this movement in with alot of others, it is very significant. Mention the artist Marcel Duchamp and his readymades esp. "The Fountain".
Robert Rauschenberg is also a good artist to use for Art practice.. he uses found objects in his art making.
Remember these are all suggestions.. if you have a favourite artist and you know them well.. you can tie them into an essay just make sure they are relevant.
For the first section of the paper.. know your principles such as: line, shape, colour, texture.. all of those. Try and mention as much as possible about the pictures relating it to the captions provided & proving the relevance of them eg. if it was the 1916-1920 it could be the Dada art movement & you could make reference to the war happening at the time (remember to make reference to the artwork too!).
There is usually contemporary works in the first section as well so familiarise yourself with installation works and all of that.
Don't stress too much.. just make sure you know your art movements and you can quote artists as well as artworks.. its not really about quantity its about quality. If you can talk about (in-depth) at least a few artists thats just as good if not better than writing about a dozen or more.
Hope I helped.
Oh yes and look up the frames! Cultural, post-modern, subjective & structural
relate them to every work you mention but dont just state this comes under the cultural frame, explain why it does & how.
