Choose a painting or artist for your paper with enough material, both primary and secondary, to support your thesis. While choosing a relatively unknown artist may seem like a good idea, it can become difficult to flesh out your ideas if you do not have other criticism to fall back on. Selecting an artist such as Leonardo Da Vinci or a painting such as the "Mona Lisa" will give you a wealth of information to work with. Other possible artists include Raphael, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali.
As with paintings, you'll want to choose a sculpture or sculptor with a good-sized body of work to make it easier to write your paper. In choosing your topic, think about why the artist chose to work in sculpture rather than another medium. A good paper will answer questions about why a particular piece or artist is effective, but also why the piece was made in the first place. Popular sculptors for research papers include Michelangelo and Donatello.
When looking for a musical piece or composer for your art appreciation research paper, find something that speaks to a specific time period. By picking a piece that ties into a particular time, you can write about what the music meant to the people of the era and what the composer was attempting to say about the world around him. Some musicians to consider are Mozart, Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Playwrights often use the stage as a way to comment on their surroundings and the ills they perceive about society. By examining what a writer is trying to say through his work, you can appreciate the play on a different level and give yourself plenty of material for a research paper. Draw specific evidence from the text to prove your points and consider using historical sources from the time to bolster your argument. Some notable playwrights to consider in choosing your topic are William Shakespeare, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.