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Description
This class is a
survey of modern art in the twentieth century. Together we will
approach the terms at hand, “art” and “twentieth century,” with eyes and
minds wide open. In terms of “art,” our focus will include but not be
limited to painting, photography, sculpture, architecture and urbanism.
With respect to time, we will arrive at an understanding of time’s
elasticity. In keeping with such temporal stretchiness we will find
that the logic of art in the twentieth century really began with the
emergence of new technology in the nineteenth. In short, the twentieth
century began almost one hundred years prior, in the early decades of
the 1800s. Our goal is to better understand how industrialization
brought about new modes of perception: how modern life gave birth to
modernism.
Lectures and Readings
You are required to
attend every lecture that is scheduled in the syllabus and complete the
assigned reading prior to class. The reading assignments come from your
textbooks as well as books that are on reserve at Hamon Arts Library.
The following texts
are available for you to purchase at the bookstore:
1.) H. H. Arnason.
History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography.
Upper
Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 2004. Fifth Edition.
2.) Debbie Lewer.
Post-Impressionist to World War II. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2006.
The
following texts are available for you on reserve at Hamon Arts Library:
1.) Marshall
Berman. All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of
Modernity. New York: Penguin, 1982.
2.) William J. R.
Curtis. Modern Architecture Since 1900. London: Phaidon, 2001.
3.)
Ken Frampton. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. London:
Thames & Hudson, 1992.
4.)
Josep Palau i Fabre. Picasso: The Early Years 1881-1907. New
York: Rizzoli, 1981.
5.) Colin
Rowe. Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982.
Written
Assignments: Engaging the Museum, Critical Writing and Reading the
New York Times
There are two short written assignments in this class that require you
to read and model your voice after the art, architecture, book, and film
criticism of the New York Times. With each of your essays, you
must submit a review article from the New York Times as proof
that you have read the newspaper and taken note of writing in a critical
voice. Each written assignment requires you to visit the Dallas Museum
of Art and Nasher Sculpture Center to see the exhibition
Matisse:
Painter as Sculptor.
In terms of writing style, please avoid
the passive voice, hyperbole and cliché. Simplistic and unfounded
descriptions of art, such as “it is beautiful,” “she is a genius,” or
“this is an amazing masterpiece,” are banned from this writing
assignment. Although your textbook will be helpful to you, this is not
a research assignment. The written assignment must be submitted in
paper: I will not accept electronic documents.
The requirements for
both essays are the following:
- identification of the work by title and date (written assignment #1)
- double-spaced, 10 or 12 pt. font
- 1”
margins
- 2-3
written pages + an art, architecture, book or film review from the
New York Times
1.) For the
first written assignment you must go to the exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art
and Nasher Sculpture Center to see the exhibition
Matisse:
Painter as Sculptor.
Choose one work of art by an artist in the show and write a descriptive
analysis. While describing is essential to this writing exercise, your
end product should be synthetic. That is to say, you should make a
statement about the work of art – take a position – and write about the
elements of the work as they relate to your argument. Your description
should be part of your main idea. By “taking a position” your argument
might take up one of the following points:
- what
the work of art means
- why
the work of art is important
- how
the work of art makes meaning
- how
the work of art relates to the artist’s life
- how
the work of art relates to our contemporary world
- how
the materials carry or don’t carry the intent of the artwork
- how
the artwork is or is not political
- how
the artwork functions as “form”
The first written
assignment is due Thursday, February 15.
2.) For the second
written assignment you must return to the museums to write a review of
the entire exhibition. Be prepared to present the show in your writing
to a hypothetical audience of readers (in Dallas and the greater
nation), describing its main idea, the installation of the work, whether
it succeeds or fails and why.
The second written
assignment is due Thursday March 22.
Exams
There are two exams in the course: a mid-term that will be held during regular
class time on Tuesday, March 6 and a final which will be held 11:30-2:30
on Monday May 7. You will receive a review sheet prior to each exam.
The exams will consist of slide identification, multiple choice,
fill-in-the-blank, and short answers. The exam material will be culled
from the lectures, reading assignments, a film viewed in class, and
class discussions. The final exam will be cumulative.
Grading
Written Assignment #1 – 25%
Written Assignment #2 – 25%
Midterm Exam – 20%
Final Exam – 30%
Policy on Make-Ups, Lateness, and Attendance
Students are expected
to attend all class sessions. If you will not be able to attend a
specific session, you must make arrangements with another student to get
copies of notes, etc. You are allowed two unexcused absences, after
which your grade will be lowered one half grade. Assignments must be
turned in on time. There are no make-up exams unless you are a
student participating in an officially sanctioned, scheduled University
extracurricular activity. It is the responsibility of the student to
make arrangements with the instructor prior to any missed scheduled
examination or other missed assignment for making up the work.
(University Undergraduate Catalogue) Religiously observant students
wishing to be absent on holidays that require missing class should
notify their professors in writing at the beginning of the semester, and
should discuss with them, in advance, acceptable ways of making up any
work missed because of the absence. (See University Policy No. 1.9.)
Schedule
Tuesday January 16
Terms: Modernity,
Modernization, Modernism and Reproduction
-Berman, 15-36 (on
reserve)
-Benjamin, “The Work
of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproductin,” in Lewer, ed.,
Post-Impressionism to World War II, 174-188
Thursday January 18
Academic Painting,
Historicist Architecture and Paris Urbanism
-Arnason, 1-14
-Curtis, “The Idea of
Modern Architecture in the Nineteenth Century,” 25- (on reserve)
Tuesday January 23
Realism
-Arnason, 13-24
Thursday January 25
Impressionism
-Arnason, 25-36
Tuesday January 30
Post-Impressionism
-Arnason, 46-71
-Lewer, “Programs and
Manifestos: Introduction,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World
War II, 1-12
-Fry,
“Post-Impressionism,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War
II, 13-18
Thursday February 1
Symbolism
-Lewer, “Spirit and
Subjectivity: Introduction,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to
World War II, 53-68
-Huysmans, “Gustave
Moreau,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II, 69-70
-Aurier, “Symbolism
in Painting: Paul Gaugin,” in Lewer, ed., Lewer, ed.,
Post-Impressionism to World War II, 71-78
Tuesday February 6
Art Nouveau and Arts
and Crafts
-Arnason, 82-96
-Curtis, 87-98 (on
rserve)
-Ver Sacrum
editorial, “Why Are We Publishing a Journal,” in Lewer, ed.,
Post-Impressionism to World War II, 18-20
Thursday February 8
Fauvism
and Expressionism
-Arnason, 108-144
-Matisse, “Notes of a
Painter,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II,
21-27
Tuesday February 13
Picasso, an
Introduction
-Palau I Fabre, pages
TBA (on reserve)
-Arnason, 156-64
-Cottingham, “What
the Papers Say: Politics and Ideology In Picasso’s Collages of 1912,” in
Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II, 349-365
Thursday February 15
Modern Primitivism
and Cubism
-Lewer, “Identity and
Appropriation: Introduction,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to
World War II, 297-303
-Solomon-Godeau,
“Going Native,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II,
304-319
-Arnason, 164-82
-Written Assignment
#1 Due
Tuesday February 20
Futurism
-Arrnason, 193-99;
234-35
-Marinetti, “The
Founding Manifesto of Futurism,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to
World War II, 28-32
Thursday February 22
Soviet Formalism
-Arnason, 199-212
-Kandinsky, “From
On the Spiritual in Art,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to
World War II, 93-127
-Malevich, “From
Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Painterly Realism,” in Lewer,
ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II, 130-145
Tuesday February 27
Soviet Constructivism
-Tatlin, “The Work
Ahead of Us,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II,
35
Thursday March 1
In-class Film:
Man with a Movie Camera
Tuesday March 6
MID-TERM EXAM
Thursday March 8
Dada
-Arnason, 242-58
-Ball, “Dada
Manifesto,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II,
33-34
-Bergius, “Dada as
‘Buffoonery and Requiem at the Same Time’,” in Lewer, ed.,
Post-Impressionism to World War II, 366-380
Tuesday March 13-15
Spring Break: No
Class
Tuesday March 20
Painting and the New
Objectivity
-Arnason, 259-265
-Hartlaub,
“Introduction to ‘New Objectivity’: German Painting Since
Expressionism,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II,
50-52
Thursday March 22
Surrealism
-Arnason, 288-328
-Breton, “First
Manifesto of Surrealism,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World
War II, 36-49
-Ades, “Surrealism:
Fetishism’s Job,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II,
381-399
-Written Assignment
#2 Due
Tuesday March 27
Le Corbusier and
Manifesto Architecture
-Arnason, 333-35
-Curtis, 275-288 (on
reserve)
Thursday March 29
Mondrian and De Stijl
-Curtis, 149-162 (on
reserve)
-Arnason, 213-215
-Mondrian,
“Neo-Plasticism: The General Principle of Plastic Equivalence,” in Lewer,
ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II, 146-154
Tuesday April 3
Bauhaus, Architecture
and the New Objectivity
-Curtis, 183-200 (on
reserve)
-Arnason, 329-333
-Frampton, 130-141
(on reserve)
Thursday April 5
Modern Architecture
in America: Skyscrapers in Chicago’s Loop
-Curtis, 33-72 (on
reserve)
-Rowe, “Chicago
Frame,” in Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays,
89-118 (on reserve)
Tuesday April 10
New York Modernism I:
The Ashcan School
-Arnason, 371-382
Thursday April 12
New York Modernism
II: The Armory Show and Precisionism
-Arnason, 383-386
Tuesday April 17
Regionalism
-Arnason, 387-392
Thursday April 19
The New Deal
-Arnason, 393-401
Tuesday April 24
Totalitarianism in
the Arts: “Degenerative Art” and Fascist Architecture
-Curtis, 351-370 (on
reserve)
-Lewer, “Mass Culture
and Modernity: Introduction,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to
World War II, 155-64
-Kracauer, “The Mass
Ornament,” in Lewer, ed., Post-Impressionism to World War II,
165-173
Thursday April 26
New York Modernism
III: Abstract Expressionism after WWII
-Arnason, 361-365;
403-410
Monday May 7
11:30-2:30
Final Exam
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