ARHA273 - Painting in America, 1820-1860

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Academic Year 2004/2005

Painting in America, 1820-1860
ARHA 273 FA

The course will introduce students to the major painters and movements in the United States in the Jacksonian and antebellum periods, with a particular focus on landscape and genre painting. We will explore the ideological dimensions of landscape in the art of Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School, as well as the construction of American identity in the work of artists such as William Sydney Mount, George Caleb Bingham, and Richard Caton Woodville. Some lectures will focus on individual artists or single works of art, others will cover broad issues such as as "the concept and reality of the frontier." Topics considered will include: the pastoral ideal; the city and the wilderness; the rise of tourism and industrialization; the moral, social, and spiritual dimensions of American nature; the interrelationship between art and science; reformism; race, gender, and ethnicity in genre art; sentimentality and meaning in genre painting; and the growth and importance of American art institutions including criticism, schools, clubs, art lotteries, and exhibition spaces.

MAJOR READINGS

Elizabeth Johns, AMERICAN GENRE PAINTING: THE POLITICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE, Yale University Press, 1991.
Angela Miller, THE EMPIRE OF THE EYE: LANDSCAPE REPRESENTATION AND AMERICAN CULTURAL POLITICS, 1825-1875, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.
Barbara Novak, NATURE AND CULTURE: AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTING,
1825-1875, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Several essays in Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy, eds., Reading American Art, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
A course reader

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Midterm and final exams, 8-10 page paper

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

A field trip to New York museums is part of the scheduled curriculum. Fee of approximately $30 for the Arts Bus in early October, 2004 is required.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ART Grading Mode: Graded

Prerequisites: NONE

SECTION 01

Instructor(s): Noble,Nancy J.

Times: ..T.R.. 02:40PM-04:00PM; Location: DAC100;

Reserved Seats: (Total Limit: 35)

SR. major: 8 Jr. major: 7

SR. non-major: 5 Jr. non-major: 5 SO: 5 FR: 5

Special Attributes:

Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-21-2005