Tramp Art is a name given to sub-group of American Folk Art. The term refers to the fact that much of this art was made by itinerants during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and research could help identify more of these artists and more about the movement. Tramp Art is made from objects found along the roadside or that had been tossed out as trash. Elaborate paintings might be made on a broken kitchen cabinet door or the objects might have been fastened together to create a sculpture.
The posters of the 1920s and 1930s make for some of the most memorable and collectible art of the 20th century. Most of the artists responsible for these classic examples of Art Deco and Futurist design have been forgotten. A research project could help restore some of the lost fame for artists such as Otto Baumberger, Roger Broders, Paul Colin and Maxfield Parrish.
Medieval sculptures found on churches served more than just an aesthetic role. A research project on art history could look into the importance of sculpture on a church's tympanum. According to the book "Understanding Art," the tympanum was an important site for sculptures because it was an aspect of design impossible to ignore when entering the church.
The focus of a research project into the Dada art movement could try to decipher the inherent contradiction in an artistic movement that claimed art must be destroyed by creating works of art. The Dada movement saw art as a reflection of an absurd world gone insane in the wake of the horrors of World War I. Destruction of that reflection could potentially lead to destruction of the absurdity. Research into whether it was the paradox of creating art to destroy art that led to the destruction not of art, but of the Dada movement itself.
It is often easy to forget that the Nazca Lines are pieces of art that deserve research in light of all the UFO theories that surround them. A research project can take into consideration why these geoglyphs that are best viewed from high in the sky would have been made by an ancient civilization that does not appear capable of enjoying the works in this way. Another angle for a research paper would be to compare how the probable inability of the artists to see their work from the best perspective can be compared to the inability of some contemporaries to fully appreciate abstract art because of a lacking in their own perspective to enjoy art that is nonrepresentative.