The Goal:  The self-portrait is arguably the most “familiar” of all genres in art: it seeks, after all, to portray the self, that which one knows best. And yet, self-portraits, and the artists who paint them, have had a richly unfamiliar history. How to explain that, until the 18th century, artists were listed just above pastry chefs in royal courts? that artists very often doubled as diplomats? What is the link between the definition of the artist and self-consciousness? and representation itself? We will be answering these questions and more as we seek to re-contextualize the ever-shifting definitions of the artist (and arguably art itself) through the genre of self-portraiture. The course has three parts:
1) the emergence of the concept of the artist (Middle Ages to French Revolution, 1400-1800),
2) the coherence of the artist’s identity (the Romantic period of the 19th to 1918 – end of WWI)
3) and the implosion of the idea of self-portraiture (and of the artist?) (the 20th-21st centuries) back to top


The Classroom: You will note below that class participation is a significant part of the grade – this situation is so because it has been demonstrated time and again that good writing is connected to good reading and to good discussion. Participating in class by engaging in analysis of the images, readings and concepts found therein will allow you to test your ideas as you write. Free writings and writing prompts (to be explained) in class will also be the basis of discussion. I invite you to stay involved not only in the class, but in your writing throughout the semester. back to top


The Readings: The readings for the course are articles which can be found in Blackboard under one of 3 folders: e-Reserves, JSTOR, and PDFs. Your will have an opportunity to do more research for your writings through the Grove Dictionary of Art, the BHA (Bibliography of the History of Art) and JSTOR and of course any other means of research you use. Our exchanges over writing will be done electronically – I ask that you use Word and that you submit your writings through the Digital Drop Box in Blackboard. I will write comments using the editing tool in Word – in order to view my comments, your “View” mode will have to be set to “Page Layout.” All of your work with images will be done through LUNA, which can only be used on a networked computer and shuts down from 6 p.m.-6 a.m. every Friday night to Saturday morning. It is a wonderful way to look very closely at images and to really interact with your artist – I recommend at least 2 or 3 sessions a week.To equip your computer with LUNA, follow the directions to be found at http://www.depauw.edu/library/vrc/ (scroll down to "downlaods") back to top


The Final Exam: In order to concentrate on our writing and its development, this class will have one final, cumulative exam. This exam will give you the important opportunity to synthesis materials and ideas learned in class, and to exercise your writing skills in a concentrated situation. Two statements will help here: 1) I recommend that you take copious notes on the reading as well as during class because 2) the exam will be an open-notes exam. Cumulative exams are rare at DePauw, so we will take some precautions: there will be practice essay questions (similar to those which will appear on the exam) throughout the semester, and we will discuss various strategies of note-taking that will have you the most prepared for the exam. back to top


The Writings: The “W” component of this class will be comprised of 5 writings of 4-6 pages each focused on 1 artist. These writings will build on each other in terms of complexity (use of concepts explained in class, incorporation of research, and more) and voice (from descriptive to analytical). At the beginning of the semester, you will choose one of the artists from our syllabus (on a first-come, first-served basis), and work with him or her throughout the semester, developing both your analytical writing skills and your relationship with said artist. Your resources for your initial choice and your continuing writing will be LUNA, our DePauw research resources, and a bibliography for each artist that you can build upon. Towards the end of the semester, you will have an opportunity to rewrite one of the papers – you can always turn drafts in to me before a paper a due. Here are the five writing topics (further description in class discussion and on the web site will follow):

• react to a self-portrait by looking at it for 15 minutes – write a description of the image, striving to give character to the person you see before you, using all of the visual information within (but only within) the frame of the work of art

• interact with an original writing by the artist or of his/her time by isolating an issue within their writing – write a letter to your artist addressing this issue, referring to other works of art and self-portraits by the artist to do so

• explore the relationship of biography to art by examining an episode or circumstance in your artist’s life that you wish to argue affected his or her art – be sure to draw from both historical and visual evidence

• identify an audience of the self-portraits by examining the impact of the self-portraits upon its original viewers – you may have to infer some of your conclusions based on evidence not immediately found in audience testimonials.

• describe the purpose of your artist’s self-portraits by re-reading all of your past essays, looking at the big picture (visual, textual, biographical, and contextual), and arguing for your own conclusions – as ever, be aware of a need to convince your reader by using evidence
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The Grades

Class participation: 20%
5 in-class writings: 10%
5 major writings: 50%
Final Exam: 20%

N.B.: your final grade goes down 1/3 of a letter grade after your second absence.
Also included in your class participation grade is attendance at four (4) departmental Punch Card Events - they are fun and easy to attend: dates, times, and place can be found on the departmental web site.

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The Class Calendar

Thursday, August 25 – Introduction

The concept, the "W" component, the technology, the syllabus

AGE OF EMERGENCE

Tuesday, August 30 – Jan van Eyck (Flemish, 1390-1441)

Harbison, Craig. "van Eyck's Realism,""The Artist's Place at the Burgundian Court," and "An Italian Courtier's Story," in Jan van Eyck, the Play of Realism.  London, Reaktion Books, 1991: 13-47. e-Reserves

Thursday, September 1 – Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528)
In-class writing 1

Bialostocki, Jan. "The Artist's Divinity," from Dürer and his Critics, 1500-1971.  Baden-Baden: V. Koerner, 1986: 91-144. e-Reserves

Bob Scribner. "Ways of Seeing in the age of Dürer," from Dürer and His Culture. ed. Dagmar Eichberger and Charles Zika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998: 93-117. e-Reserves

Tuesday, September 6 – Michelangelo Caravaggio (Italian, 1571-1610)
1st WRITING DUE

Carrier, David.  "The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: Caravaggio and his Interpreters," Word and Image 3:1 (Jan-Mar 1987): 41-73. e-Reserves

Sohm, Philip.  "Caravaggio's Deaths,"Art Bulletin 84:3 (September, 2002): 449-68. e-Reserves

Thursday, September 8 – Artemisia Gentileschi (Italian, c. 1593-1653)

Garrard, Mary D.  "Artemisia and Susanna," in Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany. ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard.  New York: Harper and Row, 1981: 147-171. e-Reserves

Garrard, Mary D. "The Burghley House Susanna," in Artemisia Gentilleschi around 1622: the Shaping and Reshaping of an Artistic Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001: 77-113. e-Reserves

Tuesday, September 13 – Sofonisba Anguissola (Italian, 1530-1625)

Garrard, Mary.  "Here's Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the problem of the woman artist," in Reclaiming Female Agency: feminist art history after post-modernism.  ed. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard.  University of California  Press, 2005: 27-48 e-Reserves

Jacobs, Fredeika.  "Woman's capacity to create: the unusual case of Sofonisba Anguissola," Renaissance Quarterly 47:1 (Spring 1994): 74-101. JSTOR

Thursday, September 15 – Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665)

Keazor, Henry.  "Esprit cartesien? issues concerning the influence of Descartes on the works of Nicolas Poussin," Word and Image 19:3 (July-Sept., 2003): 151-165. PDFs

Unglaub,  Jonathan.  "Poussin's Reflection," Art Bulletin 86:3 (September, 2004): 505-528. e-Reserves

Tuesday, September 20 – Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640)

Morford, Mark.  "Towards an intellectual biography of Justus Lipsius: Pieter Paul Rubens," Bulletin de l'Institut historique belge de Rome 68 (1998): 387-403. e-Reserves

Rosenthal, Lisa.  "Paternal and Painterly Authority in Rubens's self-portrait with his wife, Helena Fourment and their son, Peter Paul," Dutch Crossing 23:2 (winter, 1999): 131-.62. PDFs

Thursday, September 22 – Rembrandt (Dutch, 1606-1669)
In-class writing 2

Braider, Christopher.  "The fountain of Narcissus: the invention of subjectivity and the Pauline ontology of art in Caravaggio and Rembrandt,"Comparative Literature 50:4 (1998): 286-315. JSTOR

Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr.  "Rembrandt Inventing Himself," in Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt. ed. Alan Chong. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.  Zwolle: Waanders Publishers, 2000:13-23. e-Reserves

Tuesday, September 27– Velazquez (Spanish, 1599-1660)
2nd WRITING DUE

Foucault, Michel.  "Las Meninas," from The Order of Things; an Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Vintage Book Editions, 1970: 3-16. e-Reserves

Snyder, Joel.  "Las Meninas and the Mirror of the Prince," Critical Inquiry 11 (June 1985): 539-572. JSTOR

Steinberg, Leo.  "Velazquez's Las Meninas," October 19 (Winter, 1981): 45-54. JSTOR

Thursday, September 29 – Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun (French, 1755-1842)

Radisich, Paula Rea.  "Que peut definir les femmes?: Vigée-Lebrun's Portraits of an Artist," Eighteenth-Century Studies 25:4 (Summer, 1992): 441-67. PDFs

Sheriff, Mary D.  "Woman? Hermaphrodite? History painter? : on the self-imaging of Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun," Eighteen Century 35:1 (1994): 3-27. PDFs

AGE OF COHERENCE

Tuesday, October 4 – Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)

Ciofalo, John J.  The Ascent of Genius in the Court and Academy, in The Self-Portraits of Francisco Goya. Cambridge University Press, 2001: 14-57. e-Reserves

Gedo, Mary Mathews.  "The Healing Power of Art: Goya as His Own Physician," in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art. ed. Mary Mathews Gedo.  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1985: 75-106. e-Reserves

Thursday, October 6 – Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)

Chu, Petra Ten Doesschate.  "Portrait of the artist as a young man: self-invention and promotion in the early self-portraits of Gustave Courbet," in Images de l'artiste = Kunstbilder.  ed. Pascal Griener. Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1998: 59-74. e-Reserves

Nochlin, Linda.  "Gustave Courbet's Meeting: A Portrait of the Artist as a Wandering Jew," Art Bulletin 49:3 (Sep., 1967): 209-22.  JSTOR

Tuesday, October 11 – Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)

Mathews, Patricia.  "Aurier and Van Gogh: Criticism and Response," Art Bulletin 68:1 (Mar., 1986): 94-104. JSTOR

Zemel, Carol.  "Self-Portraits: the Construction of Professional Identity," in Van Gogh's Progress: Utopia, modernity, and late nineteenth-century art.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997: 135-169. e-Reserves

Thursday, October 13 – Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903)
In-class writing 3

Jaworska, Wladyslawa.  "Christ in the garden of olive-trees by Gauguin: the sacred or the profane?"Artibus et historiae 19:37 (1998): 77-102. e-Reserves

Jirat-Waiutynski, Vojtech.  "Paul Gauguin's Self-Portrait with Halo and Snake: The Artist as Initiate and Magus,"Art Journal 46:1 (Spring, 1987): 22-28. e-Reserves

FALL BREAK

Tuesday, October 25 – Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944)
3rd WRITING DUE

Berman, Patricia G.  "Edvard Munch's Self-Portrait with Cigarette: Smoking and the Bohemian Persona," Art Bulletin 75:4 (Dec., 1993): 627-46. JSTOR

Heller, Reinhold.  "Edvard Munch's Night: the aesthetics of decadence and the content of biography," Arts Magazine 53:2 (October 1978): 80-105.  PDFs

Thursday, October 27 – Egon Schiele (Austrian, 1890-1918)

Comini, Alessandra.  "Great Expectations," from Schiele in Prison.  New York Graphic Society, 1973: 17-37. e-Reserves

Knafo, Danielle. "The Self-Seer," from Egon Schiele: a self in creation: a psychoanalytic study of the artist's self-portraits.  Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1993 71-91. e-Reserves

Tuesday, November 1 – El Lissitzky (Russian, 1890-1941)

Bois, Yve-Alain and Peter Nisbet.  "El Lissitzky: radical reversibility," Art in America 76:4 (Apr 1988): 160-81. e-Reserves

Galvez, Paul.  "Self-Portrait of the artist as a monkey-hand," October 93 (Summer, 2000): 103-37. e-Reserves

Thursday, November 3 – Ludwig Kirchner (German, 1880-1938)

Grisebach, Lucius. "The Critical Years," in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1880-1938.  New York: Taschen, 1999: 127-151. e-Reserves

Springer, Peter.  "The Artist as Exemplary Sufferer," and "Kirchner as a Follower of Dürer," in Hand and Head; Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Self-Portrait as Soldier. trans. Susan Ray. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002: 63-75, 111-114. e-Reserves

AGE OF IMPLOSION

Tuesday, November 8 – Otto Dix (German, 1891-1969)

Makela, Maria.  "A clear and simple style: tradition and typology in new objectivity," Museum Studies 28:1 (2002): 38-51. PDFs

McGreevy, Linda F. "The Image of War: 1914-1918," in Bitter Witness: Otto Dix and the Great War.  New York: P. Lang, 2001: 129-182. e-Reserves

Thursday, November 10 – Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950)
In-class writing 4

Buenger, Barbara C.  "Max Beckmann and the First World War," in Ideological Crisis of Expressionism.  eds. Rainer Rumold and O.K. Werckmeister.  Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1990: 237-79. e-Reserves

Evans, Arthur and Catherine.  "Max Beckmann's Self-Portraits," in Art International 18:9 (1974): 13-21. PDFs

Tuesday, November 15 – Ivan Albright (American, 1897-1983)
4th WRITING DUE

Exhibition catalogue. "Ivan Albright in Context," in Ivan Albright.  organized by Courtney Gaham Donnell. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1997: 53-81. e-Reserves

Thursday, November 17 – Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954)

Grimberg, Salomon.  "Frida Kahlo: the self as an end," in Mirror Images: women, surrealism, and self-representation ed. Whitney Chadwick.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. e-Reserves

Lindauer, Margaret. "Unveiling Politics," in Devouring Frida: the art history and popular celebrity of Frida  Kahlo.  Hanover: University Press of New England, 1999: 114-149. ­e-Reserve

Tuesday, November 22 – Joseph Beuys (German, 1921-1986)

Kuspit, Donald.  "Joseph Beuys, the body of the artist," Artforum 29:10 (summer, 1991): 80-6. e-Reserves

Strauss, David Levi.  "American Beuys:  I like America and America likes me," Art Criticism 8:1  (1993): 1-12. PDFs

von Graevenitz, Antje. "The old and the new initiation rites: Joseph Beuys and epiphany," in Robert Lehman lectures on contemporary art. ed. Lynne Cooke and Karen Kelly.  New York: DIA Center for the Arts, 1996: 63-78.  e-Reserves

Thursday, November 24 - THANKSGIVING

Tuesday, November 29 – Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)

Bronfen, Elisabeth.  "The knotted subject: hysteria, Irma and Cindy Sherman," in Generations and Geographies in the visual arts: feminist readings.  Routledge, 1996: 42-57. e-Reserves

Johnson, Ken.  "Cindy Sherman and the anti-self: an interpretation of her imagery," Arts Magazine 62:3 (Nov., 1987): 47-53. e-Reserves

Thursday, December 1 – Piero Manzoni (Italian, 1933-1963)
In-class writing 5

Costantini, Anna.  "Piero Manzoni: The Body Infinite," in Piero Manzoni ed. Germano Celant.  London: Serpentine Gallery, 1998. PDFs

Silk, Gerald.  "Myths and Meanings in Manzoni's 'Merde d'artiste'," Art Journal 52:3 (1993): 65-75. JSTOR

Thursday, December 6– Gilbert and George (Italian, b. 1943, English, b. 1942)
5th WRITING DUE

Nawrocki, Dennis Alan.  "Gilbert and George," Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Art 65:1 (1989): 4-21. e-Reserves

Thursday, December 8 – Insights and Review

Friday, December 16 – 8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. – FINAL EXAM

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