Art 343: Modern European Art

Fall 2000, Syllabus

Accident Update (click that link for it)

INTRODUCTION
  1.
Introduction to the course ..............................................................................................................
THE CONCEPTUAL CONTEXT: HISTORICAL APPROACHES TO ART
  2.
Communication through images: visual analysis
A Paradigmatic History of Art, Composition
A Paradigmatic History of Art, Truth Types
  3.
Ways of approaching and rendering reality
A Paradigmatic History of Art, Classicism: the system, Classical Beauty, linear perspective, the Idealization, greatness
  4.
A Paradigmatic History of Art, Sensualism: the system, Sensual Beauty, the Romanticization
QUIZ #1 (cumulative)
  5.
A Paradigmatic History of Art, Sensualism continued: confrontation, taste, dangerous beauty
QUIZ #2
  6.
A Paradigmatic History of Art, Quietism: the system, Temporal Plainness, the Objectification, paradox
QUIZ #3

PART ONE: FORWARD INTO THE FUTURE
  7.
The Nineteenth Century (Mechanization of Society; Freud; )
Eiffel, Sullivan, Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin
Chapter 1, 17-31
  8.
Cezanne, Symbolism, Photography
Chapter 1, 32-46
  9.
The 1900s (Cure for VD; cars; radios; aeroplanes)
European architecture, Art Nouveau, Picasso, the Fauves
Chapter 2, 51-63
10.
Cubism, the Russian Avante-Garde
Chapter 2, 63-75
11.
The 1910s (World War I, 1914-18; Russian Revolution 1917), Abstraction
Factories, Collage and Synthetic Cubism, Der Blaue Reiter and Kandinsky
Chapter 3, 79-92
12.
Futurism, Suprematism, Constructivism, De Stijl, Early Mondrian, Dada (anti-art)
Chapter 3, 93-108

Accident Update


13.

The 1920s
The Bauhaus, le Corbusier, Classical Revival
Chapter 4, 113-125
Note that the professor is back in Class. We will meet on Tuesday for this unit. Be up to date on your course reading! We have missed FOUR classes, so you need to have seen four videos [CORRECTION: two videos - thanks Gena!] and taken about a paragraph to half a page of notes about each. Collect those notes together, and have them ready for me to eyeball, NEXT Tuesday. We'll remake appointments to discuss your papers, and meanwhile you have of course! been very enterprising about developing these! DONE
14.
Middle Mondrian, El Lissitsky, Schwitters
Chapter 4, 125-130
15.
MERGED WITH UNIT 16 (just scan the readings - we are concentrating on the run-up to Surrealism)
Magritte, Lempicka, Brancusi
Chapter 4, 134-147
16.
The 1930s (Spanish Civil War 1936-39; World War II 1939-44)
Totalitarian architecture and painting, Surrealism, Guernica, "open" sculpture
Chapter 5, 151-171
17.
Sculpture (connoted form): Giacometti, Arp, Hepworth, Moore
Chapter 5, 171-179
18.
The 1940s (World War II continues 1939-44; Atom Bombs on Japan 1945;)
CANCELLED, sadly - wouldn't hurt to scan the reading, though
Painting: Dubuffet, Spencer, Sutherland, Bacon
Chapter 6, 183-208
THANKSGIVING RECESS


19.
The 1950s (H-bomb tests begin 1952; civil rights movements 1956)
Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe; Matisse, Art Autre, Bacon
Chapter 7, 215-220; 235-241
20.
The 1960s (Economic boom; youth protests against racism, bomb tests, industrial and domestic pollution, and Vietnam War; moon landings, heart transplants; Woodstock; MLK assassinated)
Pop: Hamilton, Blake, Hockney
Chapter 8, 256-264
21.
MERGED WITH UNIT 22 (just scan the readings - we are concentrating on the changing nature of art)
Substance vs comprehension: Op; New Realism; Assemblage
Chapter 8, 268-279
22.
Time and Motion: Kinetic art, Performance, Happenings
Chapter 8, 280-293
PART TWO: THE AVANTE-GARDE IN CRISIS - THE END OF ART?
23.
The 1970s (Watergate 1972-4; AIDS 1977 onwards)
Political, Hi-Tech, and Post-Modern architecture; problems in the avante-garde
Chapter 9, 297-307
A Paradigmatic History of Art, The End of Art History
24.
CANCELLED, sadly - wouldn't hurt to scan the reading, though
Decline of Painting, Rise of New Media and Issues: light and space, video, feminism, sexuality
Chapter 9, 308-329
25.
The 1980s (Cheap personal computers; Bhopal, Chernobyl and Exxon Valdez disasters; Challenger disaster; Freedom of speech threatened worldwide: Rainbow Warrior, Tiananmen Square, Satanic Verses)
More Post-Modern architecture
Chapter 10, 333-340
26.
The 1990s (USSR disestablished; civil wars in Eastern Europe and Africa; Worldwide Web)
Unstill architecture; Unstill sculpture; Body art
Chapter 11, 365-367; 373-383


FINAL EXAM: Tuesday, December 19th, 2000; 10.30-12.30
This is the absolute last opportunity to hand in your term papers for grading.