GOAL:
You will be using and honing your eyes' ability
to analyze images, your memory's capacity for keeping key details
and the big picture simultaneously as play, and, most importantly,
your ability to interpret the various contexts - social, political,
philosophical, ritual, and literary - of the many works of art we
will be studying together. Art is a manifestation of the human spirit
as much in its creation as in its reception. We will run the gamut
from lofty expressions of said spirit to pragmatic contests for its
attention. The quest sparked by the Renaissance pushed artists and
viewers to constantly redefine what art itself was, and we will explore
many of the resolutions offered up by the participants in this exciting
endeavor.
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CLASS:
Just as I look forward to presenting you with
monuments from seven centuries of art, I am also very eager to hear
your comments on our subjects. Discussion and participation are thus
crucial and on those days when comments just aren't forthcoming, enthusiastic
attentiveness is enough. Because I do conceive of this classroom as
a group, attendance is a must. See the paragraph on Grades for more!
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READINGS:
You will
be reading texts as well as images for this class. Your primary source
for images is Gardner's Art through the Ages, volume 2 - it is available
for you at Fine Print Bookstore (6 East Washington St.). Please take
the time to visually analyze and even memorize the images included
in your reading: visual "literacy" is a must for the class.
Periodically, we will analyze the claims and assumptions of a scholarly
article which focuses on a particular work of art or artist. These
articles are in a reading packet awaiting your purchase at the bookstore.
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WRITINGS:
Art history calls for two types of writing: one, descriptive of the
image itself, and the other, critical of the scholarly literature
that surrounds and informs that image. We will be working on both
tracks together through a series of 5 small (2-3 pages) response papers,
in which you will have an occasion to enliven images with your words
or critique scholars' claims for an image.
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FINAL
PROJECTS: You
will have the opportunity to put together your own image gallery,
as predicated upon a particular theme of your own choosing. The galleries
will be due on Monday, November 19 and will be accompanied by a 3-page
essay defining and justifying your theme in accordance with the images.
These projects will be discussed in greater detail as the semester
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TESTS:
There will be three (3) of them, one at each third of the semester.
I am interested in your visual literacy, your ability to make conceptual
connections between images we will have discussed separately, and
your ideas about these works of art as expressed in essay form.
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GRADES AND ATTENDANCE:
| Grades |
|
Attendance |
| Class
Participation |
15%
|
3
absences are allowed |
| 5
Writing Assignments
|
25%
|
after
the 3rd absence your final grade goes down 1/3 of a letter
grade |
| Final
Projects
|
15%
|
each
punch card event less than the required 4 counts as an absence. |
| 3
Tests |
45% |
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THE WEEKLY SCHEDULE:
Here is a week-by week breakdown of the
class.back
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Eventually, you will be able to click on any "WEEK #" to
go to the images page for that week.
WEEK ONE (8/22-8/24) Moving away from the Medieval
Wednesday, August 22 - Introduction and Giotto
Friday, August 24 - Duccio and Co.
Gardner's 534-557.
WEEK TWO (8/27-8/31) Medieval Continuities in Northern Renaissance
Art
Monday, August 27 - Public Devotion
Gardner's 560-575.
Wednesday, August 29 - Private Devotion DESCRIPTION
PAPER DUE
Gardner's 575-579.
Click
here for VERY HELPFUL detail images of the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait!
Friday, August 31 - Strange Devotion
Gardner's 580-587.
WEEK THREE (9/3-9/7) Fifteenth-Century Florence (mostly)
Monday, September 3 - 15th century Florentine Sculpture and
Painting
Gardner's 590-605.
Wednesday, September 5 - 15th Century Finesse
Gardner's 615-625.
Patricia Simons. "Women in Frames: the Gaze, the Eye, the Profile
in Renaissance Portraiture," in The Expanding Discourse: Feminism
and Art History. ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard. New York:
Icon Editions, 1992: 39-58.
Friday, September 7 - Mantegna and Piero della Francesca
Gardner's 625-632.
WEEK FOUR (9/10-9/14) Fifteenth-Century Milan and Rome
Monday, September 10 - Da Man: Leonardo da Vinci
Gardner's 636-642.
Wednesday, September 12 - Michelangelo the Sculptor
Gardner's 645-648.
Friday, September 14 - Michelangelo the Painter
Gardner's 648-652.
WEEK FIVE (9/17-9/21) The Protestant Reformation
Monday, September 17 - The Isenheim Altarpiece
Gardner's 690-694, 708-713.
Andrée Hayum. "Meaning and Function: the Hospital Context,"
in The Isenheim Altarpiece: God's Medicine and the Painter's Vision.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989: 13-52.
Wednesday, September 19 - Dürer ANALYSIS
PAPER DUE
Gardner's 695-708.
Friday, September 21 - Cranach and Co.
Gardner's 701-704.
WEEK SIX (9/24-9/28)
Monday, September 24 - TEST 1: Renaissance
to Reformation
The
Counter-Reformation - the Southern Baroque
Wednesday, September 26 - Bernini
Gardner's 720-731.
Friday, September 28 - Caravaggio
Gardner's 732-735.
WEEK SEVEN (10/1-10/5) Southern and Northern Baroque
Monday, October 1 - Velazquez
Gardner's 743-746.
Leo Steinberg. "Velazquez' Las Meninas," October 19 (Winter
1981): 45-54.
Wednesday, October 3 -Rubens
Gardner's 746-751.
Friday, October 5 - Rembrandt
Gardner's 751-759, 761-763.
WEEK EIGHT (10/8-10/12) Poussinists vs. Rubenists
Monday, October 8 - Poussin and Paris
Gardner's 768-776.
Wednesday, October 10 - Rococo a-go-go
Gardner's 780-787.
Friday, October 12 - David INTERPRETATION
PAPER DUE
Gardner's 847-853.
Saturday, October 13 through Sunday, October
21 - Fall Break (enjoy!)
WEEK NINE (10/22-10/26) The Romantics
Monday, October 22 - Ingres and Company
Gardner's 859-862.
Wednesday, October 24 - Goya and Gericault
Gardner's 865-869.
Friday, October 26 - Delacroix and Gérome
Gardner's 870-874.
Linda Nochlin. "The Imaginary Orient," from The Politics
of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society. New York:
Harper and Row, 1989: 33-59.
WEEK TEN (10/29-11/2) Realism and Reality
Monday, October 29 - 19th-century Photography
Gardner's 883-887.
Wednesday, October 31 - Manet and Outdoor Dining
Gardner's 895-897.
Friday, November 2 - Caillebotte
Gardner's 904-909.
WEEK ELEVEN (11/5-11/9)
Impressionism
and Post-Impressionism
Monday, November 5 -
Monet and Later Impressionists
Gardner's 910-916.
Wednesday, November 7 - TEST
2: Baroque to Boulevard Painters
Friday, November 9 - Vincent van Gogh
Gardner's 916-918.
Lauren Soth. "Van Gogh's Agony," Art Bulletin 68:2
(June 1986): 301-313.
WEEK TWELVE (11/12-11/16) Post-Impressionism, continued
Monday, November 12 - Thinking Post-Impressionism: Gauguin,
Seurat, Cézanne
Gardner's 918-924.
Wednesday, November 14 - Munch, Fauvism
and Expressionism COMPARISON
PAPER DUE
Gardner's 927, 1002-1011
Friday, November 16 - Picasso
Gardner's 1011-1018.
WEEK THIRTEEN (11/19)
Monday, November 19 - PRESENTATION
OF FINAL PROJECTS
Wednesday, November 21 through Sunday, November
25 -Thanksgiving (enjoy!)
WEEK FOURTEEN (11/26-11/30) Modern-isms
Wednesday, November 26 - Purism and Futurism
Gardner's 1019-1022.
Friday, November 28 - DADA! DEBATE PAPER
DUE
Gardner's 1022-1032.
Friday, November 30 - Neue Sachlichkeit and Surrealism
1032-1043.
WEEK FIFTEEN (12/3-12/7) Into the Great Beyond
Monday, December 3 - Abstraction and Utopias
Gardner's 1046-1055.
Wednesday, December 5 - Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism
Gardner's 1077-1085
Friday, December 7 - Andy Warhol, Laughter and Postmodernism
Gardner's 1090-1097
Harold Rosenberg. "Warhol: Art's Other Self," in Art
on the Edge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975: 98-108.
EXAM
WEEK
Tuesday, December 11 - 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.: TEST
3: Impressionism to Pop
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