Introduction to Western Art
Renaissance to Present

Part I - Essentials

1.
Architecture
Terms and Concepts on Architectural Terms and Systems
Vocab and grammar of architecture - Quiz on:
2.
Compositional analyses
Terms and Concepts on Composition
geometry, shape and experience - Quiz on:
3.
Truth types
Terms and Concepts on Truth Types
Approaches to image-making with integrity - Quiz on:
4.
Optical illusions
Terms and Concepts on False Picture Plane and on Jumping Colors
Blurring the boundaries between art and reality - Quiz on:
5.
The paradigms and meta-commentary
Terms and Concepts on The Paradigms, and on Classicism, Classical Beauty and Idealization
Their chronology and relationships to each other and to society; audience confusion - Quiz on:

Part II - The Classical Paradigm

6.
Problems of Classical Beauty in painting
Terms and Concepts on linear perspective; HF; 376-380; last para of 391-396
Intellectual background: The reconquest of Spain and the rediscovery of Classicism; Pliny and art history (realism, development and progress); Social background: New Republics, St Francis and church reform
Giotto and the problem of Classically Beautiful realism (sacrifice of unified scale); Brunelleschi, Donatello and linear perspective (creation of Ideal space); Masaccio and the problem of Classically Beautiful realism (sacrifice of completeness) and the problem of foreshortening (distortion)

7.
The impact of non-classical agendas
HF 396-401; 431-442 (5th ed: 430-437; 473-476)
Flemish painting: Van Eyck, Grunewald; Leonardo, sfumato and tenebrism

8.
Problems in Classical Architecture
HF 388-91; 402-5; 442-6 (5th ed: 422-425; 430-435; 476-479)
Brunelleschi, Old Sacristy, Pazzi Chapel and visual compromise; Alberti on Beauty and Ornament, Sta Maria Novella (impossible façade); Bramante and logical/structural problems, Tempietto, St Peter's (impossible structures)

9.
Transcending the problems: The High Renaissance
HF 442-453 (5th ed: 480-488)
Raphael, Disputà (Classical Beauty in action); School of Athens (artist in control); Michelangelo, Sistine Ceiling (expressing emotions through the body); David (artist in control)

10.
Mannerism - cleverness and complexity, elegance and finish
Terms and Concepts on greatness; HF 455-6; 466-71 (5th ed: 491-494; 504-509)
Michelangelo, St Peter's (nested structures); Giacomo della Porta, Il Gesù (corbels) Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long Neck; Cellini, salt cellar

11.
Mannerism - women as a classicizing phenomenon
Pliny 171 (xerox); Vasari 325-335 (xerox)
Their emergence and reception, Vasari on Properzia de Rossi and Sofonisba Anguissola

Part 3 - Sensual Paradigm

12.
Recognizing the potential of Sensualism
Terms and Concepts on the Paradigms, and on Sensualism, Sensual Beauty and the Romanticization; HF 456-61 (Venetian Renaissance) (5th ed: 495-501)
Quiz on: Giorgione, Castelfranco Madonna (enigma, sense, color composition); Titian, Assuntà and Rape of Europa (spiritual passion, sensual rapture), Murillo, Immaculate Conception (Sensual Beauty, Romanticization and audience longing)

13.
New issues arising from Sensualism (stylistic diversity and knock-on effects)
Terms and Concepts on style; practice: Lotto (HF 458, 5th ed: 496) Titian (HF 459, 5th ed: 497) Rembrandt (HF 557, 5th ed: 601) Hals (HF 555, 5th ed: 599)
Castiglione on style; Titian, Veronese, Rubens, Velasquez: stylistic individuality, artistic presence, collectability, connoisseurship

14.
New issues arising from Sensualism (artist-audience dialogue on life)
Terms and Concepts on Classical and Dutch Landscape; HF 549-551; 561-3 (5th ed: 592-595; 605-609)
Social background: A fractured world - Classical/Christian schism; Catholic/Protestant schism; the beleaguered Empire and war in Europe
Classical and Dutch Landscape as meditations on the human condition

15.
New issues arising from Sensualism (artist-audience dialogue on artistic practice)
HF 551-554; 565-566 (5th ed: 595-598; 609-610)
Tintoretto and gesture; Sofonisba, Velasquez, and Vermeer on the art and nature of painting

16.
New issues arising from Sensualism (excess? or the sensual experience of power?)
Terms and Concepts on Classical Beauty and Idealization; HF 538-539; 543-548 (5th ed: 582-583; 587-592)
Bernini, St Peter's Baldacchino, St Theresa in Ecstasy; Borommini, S Ivo; Pozzo, S Ignazio

17.
New issues arising from Sensualism (Good Taste, The Canon, Academic Art History) Terms and Concepts on taste, devaluing beauty, academic art history; HG 570-580; 587-588 (5th ed: 614-423; 630-632); also read Terms and Concepts on Kant and Schopenhauer
Rococo taste, sentiment and manners - Fragonard, The Swing; Hoare, Stourhead Park; The Canon and Revival; The home - Chiswick House, Adam; Walpole, Strawberry Hill

18.
New issues arising from Sensualism (appropriateness: style as meaning in architecture)
HF 620-623 (5th ed: 669-671)
Classical Revival - Smirke, The British Museum, London; Jefferson, State Capitol, Washington
Gothic Revival - Barry; Houses of Parliament, London; Upjohn, Trinity Church, Boston
Baroque Revival - Garnier, the Opéra Paris, Paris

19.
New issues arising from Sensualism (appropriateness: style as meaning in painting; moral purpose of art)
HF 593-595; 598-609 (5th ed: 637-639; 642-657)
Copley in America and England; Goya at court;
David, Goya and protest, Géricault, Delacroix

20.
The Acme of the paradigm - Romanticism and the Sublime
Terms and Concepts on Romantic Landscape, and on the sublime (Schopenhauer); HF 609-16; 632-637 (5th ed: 657-664; 680-683; 684-685) (not Homer)
Romantic Landscape: Friedrich, Turner, The Hudson River School

Part 4 - The Quietist Paradigm

21.
The visible precursor of Quietism: the all-powerful machine, God vanquished?
Terms and Concepts on the Paradigms and on Quietism; HF 682-683 (5th ed: 732-733)
Civil Engineering vs architecture - bridges, factories, railways: Abraham Darby III, The Ironbridge, 1779; Telford, Menai Bridge 1819, Brunel, Maidenhead Bridge 1837, Stephenson, Britannia Railway Bridge 1850, Paxton, Crystal Palace 1851; Roebling, Brooklyn Bridge 1869-83; Eiffel, Tower 1887-89;
Sullivan and the skyscraper (1880s); the International Style

22.
Quietism arrives: establishing the external scope, the use of non-beauty
Terms and Concepts on Temporal Plainness, Objectified Figure; HF 625-630; 617-620; 632-642; 661-668 (5th ed: 673-679; 665-668; 680-691; 711-718)
Quiz on: Photography 1850s ff (machine and the withdrawal of the artist); Manet, Olympia, Déjeuner 1862-3; Homer, Long Branch 1869 (plainness and detachment, paradox and meditation); Degas 1870s (objectified figure, social acquiescence)

23.
Quietism expands: the mechanical encounter between internal and external reality - image as convergence point, meta-language of image-making and image-perception
Terms and Concepts on jumping colors, Quietist paradox, HF 656-662; 684-668; 730-737 (5th ed: 700-711; 735-739; 786-793)
Impressionism 1870s (pseudo-scientific optical effects); Cezanne 1870s, Cubism 1908 (image as perspectival paradox, planar technique, jumping color effects - multiple-vision)

24.
The conscious encounter between internal and external reality
HF 673-678 (5th ed: 723-729)
Gauguin 1880s ff, van Gogh 1880s ff, Munch 1890s ff, Rodin 1880s (personal psychology)
Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism - all 1908 (examined emotion)

25.
The meditative encounter between internal and external reality
HF 772-773 (5th ed: 831-832)
Brancusi, Arp, Moore, Hepworth (connoted form)

26.
Purely internal reality: analysing the image of consciousness itself
HF 727-729; 741-742 (5th ed: 783-785; 797-799); Kandinsky, Reminiscences (xerox); also read HF 776-784 (5th ed: 835-842) (Abstract Expressionism)
Abstraction, Kandinsky, Composition VII (no 2) 1913, Malevich, Black Square on White Ground 1913, White on White 1922

27.
Rendering futility, anti-art and happenstance
HF 745-749; 753-760 (5th ed: 801-804; 809-816); also read HF 785-90 (5th ed: 846-860) (Pop)
Dada & Surrealism; Duchamp, Fountain 1917, de Chirico, Mystery and Melancholy of a Street 1914, Arp, Collage with Squares arranged according to the Laws of Chance 1916-17, Schwitters, Merz 83 (Drawing F) 1920

28.
The Avante Garde in crisis, and the end of Art
Terms and Concepts on the end of art; HF 791-827 (5th ed: 850-886)
Fischer, Danto, Belting declare an end to art, to history and to art history (1980s)
Anything goes? Conceptual art, Earth art, archetypal identity (gender, ethnicity, sexuality), digital art, video. PostModern architecture - style without meaning

Part 5 - Addressing the meta-commentary

29.
Personal or communal spirituality: the experience of war
Terms and Concepts on Coventry and Vence, HF 776-783; 783-784 (5th ed: 835-842)
The Rothko Chapel 195-; Assy consecrated 1950, Coventry dedicated 1962

30.
The interest of illusion
Art History Browser, "Yes, but is it Art" - browse!
Instant illusion: reflections, concave mirrors, false picture plane, jumping colors, op art, wiggle pictures, holograms
Assisted illusion: flick books, stereo pairs, magic eye, virtual reality

31.
Evaluating art (1): Whistler vs Ruskin, Giuliani vs Boston Museum of Art
Why were Ruskin and Giuliani so angry? What did they expect to find in art (and why)? What did they believe they actually found? Is it the purpose of art to provide what Ruskin and Helmes were looking for, or have they confused its traditional modus operandi with its goal? What is its goal?

32.
Evaluating art (2): beauty and use
Terms and Concepts on Kant
In translation, Schopenhauer suggested that natural and artistic beauty are beautiful only in so far as they aren't useful. By "useful", he seems to imply a direct relationship to the physical function of the object. Classical and Sensual thinkers would argue that beauty is indeed useful. What do they think it can achieve? Which position is most easily supported by "scientific" reason, and what is the logical result in terms of art patronage? What is the purpose of science? If we value its proofs above spiritual imperatives, have we confused its modus operandi with its goal?

33.
Evaluating art (3): sponsorship
If art is not necessarily beautiful, does unbeautiful art have a spiritual function? Unravel this popular contemporary double-think: art should be beautiful, but beauty has no function, therefore art has no function, therefore it is a waste of public money and should be paid for by private individuals to suit their own tastes.

34.
What is reality?
Can reality be collaboratively discovered and made visible? Does reality have any purpose for the human soul? If reality cannot be packaged and has no intentions is there anything for artists, critics, historians to do?

35.
The most wanted art: packaged, benign reality with a prospect of a happy ending
The World's Most Wanted
Komar and Melamid poll the people of the world.