Professor Michelli
Location: Molinaro 105 Tuesday, Thursday; 8.00-9.15 am	Final Exam: Thursday, December 21st, 2000; 8.00-10.00 am

Required set book:

Edmund Burke Feldman, Varieties of Visual Experience, Prentice Hall and Abrams, Upper Saddle River, NJ, and New York, 4th ed, 1992

BRING THIS BOOK TO CLASS

Introduction

If you're taking this course, the chances are good that you are among that huge majority of the population who cannot see the point or value of modern art, and don't intend to be taken for a fool. If you didn't have this reservation about art, you'd probably have opted to do one of the Foundations in Art History courses instead, schedules permitting. But THIS course ought to give you some good reasons for why modern art is the way it is, and maybe help you to come to terms with it. Otherwise, it will probably confirm your worst suspicions and then you'll really be able to let rip the next time you're talking art with some trendy poseur.

Actually, I hope this course will do both: that by firing your understanding and imagination, it will encourage you to really let rip at that poseur. There is no doubt that modern art is a great deal harder to accept than traditional art - and that is directly the fault of the artists. And then again, it is NOT their fault. They are as trapped in today with all its troublesome issues as you are, and it is their job to give expression to those issues, to make them conscious for the rest of us, and to suggest a way forward. We need to deal with those issues because they are about maintaining and developing our own humanity. Backsliding is not an option. We are NOT going back to the trees (or the swamp)! Staying put is not an option. We are NOT machines. We live, we grow, we become. Are we going to let that happen at random, or at the mercy of politico-business interests? Or are we going to take part in creating our own human destiny?

Now, in order to shape our destiny, we need to know what we are already, and what processes got us here. That is where art appreciation comes in. The processes that got us here are largely (but not necessarily) unconscious, and that is why art highlights them so well. Patrons and artists can control what they make, and what subjects they promote. This tells us a lot about where and who we believe we are. But they can only partially control their style, which therefore tells us something about our subconscious knowledge and intentions (what is developing in us). And they think they can't control their inspiration at all - which means they make visible the things they (and we) think are unknowable (the future?).

How do they do this? Well, in the west we have already undergone two monumental revolutions in the way we think, and these leave typical traces in every field. After learning straight survival, we developed our intellect long and hard for thousands of years: the first major change. We hadn't finished with that when we began to work in earnest on our emotions and physical senses: the second major change. We really haven't finished with those, but now we have been catapulted prematurely into a third monumental change: today, the real developments are in the area of intuition - a faculty we know very little about as yet. It's going to take hundreds of years to work that one out, and we're right at the beginning! What's more, many of us are still working on the older issues of survival, intellect, emotion and sensation. If all this is left unconscious - as it usually is - you can see that the potential for muddle is high. But it doesn't have to be unconscious.

It doesn't have to be left unconscious because of those traces left in everything we do. For this course, we are specifically interested in art and architecture, and here the traces are visible as style and as attitudes to beauty (whether we promote it or abhor it, and how we identify it). Your set book: Varieties of Visual Experience, by Edmund Burke Feldman makes a lot of the traces clear - but it does not link those traces to the thought systems that produced them. So we will go into dialogue with Mr. Burke Feldman - and to achieve that, you need to visit the Paradigmatic History of Art pages of my site. This is going to be really great! A multilogue between Mr. Burke Feldman, Professor Michelli, and ninety-eight students! You'd better be willing to talk!

Obviously, you cannot talk in every class, but prepare for it anyway, because I will call on sections of the class at random to seek their responses. As soon as it can be organized, I will provide you with name tags. If I call on you at any time and you refuse to answer - you will pass me a name tag and I will count it against your name after class. Be ready to risk being wrong! If you're wrong, you keep your tag. If you're right, you keep your tag. If you refuse to speak, or if you're wrong because you clearly haven't prepared for the class - you pass me your tag and your grade suffers. You want to keep your tags.

There are TWO QUIZZES and one FINAL EXAM. All are cumulative: that is, you will be tested on the material covered up to that point in the course. Review pages will be set up to help you. Your grade will suffer if you have to pass me too many tags, and it will suffer if you cut class (for any reason). In terms of quality, the professor's decision on grades is final. If you suspect mathematical or clerical error, however, you may (politely) approach me about it. I keep the grades on a spreadsheet, and you will be invited to compare my record of your grades with your own. So keep all your assignments carefully. Note all your absences and tag surrenders. If you cannot present evidence, I cannot accept any challenge from you about my math!