AHIS 369—Modern Art II: 1851-1940
Spring 2011 Prof. Catherine E. Anderson
T/Th 9:30-10:50 am Office Hours: Wed. 12:00-1:30
VKC 260and by appointment
4 units Office: VKC 346/ (213) 740-2428
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Street, Berlin, 1913
This course examines European and American painting, sculpture, design, and print culturefrom 1851 to 1940. This is an exciting era encompassing many diverse and seminal developments in modern art, including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism. We will study the social, cultural, and historical context of artworks in order to gain a richer understanding of artistic styles and themes. Particular attention will be paid to issues of gender and representation. We will also consider the relationship of colonialism, urbanism, and rising industrialism to the visual culture of the period. Our in-depth exploration of images and objects will be accompanied by close analytical readings of primary texts, including artists’ manifestos and contemporary criticism, and discussions of recent scholarly articles that complement lecture topics.
Required textbooks, all available at the USC bookstore:
George Heard Hamilton, Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1880-1940
Charles Harrison, Francis Frascina, and Gill Perry, Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century
Briony Fer, David Batchelor, and Paul Wood, Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art between the Wars
Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Additionally, you will need to purchase the course reader, available at University Graphics (a.k.a. Magic Machines), 3309 S. Hoover St.
Course requirements and grading (all requirements must be completed to pass the course):
Midterm I (Tuesday, February 8)15%
Midterm II (Tuesday, March 29)20%
Museum Visit Write-Up (due Tuesday, April 5) 5%
Research project and group presentation (April 19-21)30%
Final Exam (Tuesday, May 8, 8:00-10:00 am)20%
Participation in class discussions10%
Your regular attendance and active, engaged participation are crucial to your success in this course. Please come to class having completed the assigned readings, and be prepared to ask and answer questions on the day’s topics. Throughout the term, we will have “discussion days” where we will examine certain readings in depth; on those days everyone will be expected to contribute to the in-class dialogue.
Exams will consist mainly of essay questions; you will also be required to identify images on the exam by artist, title, and approximate date (within 5 years). We will review material and discuss readings before each test. Note that the final exam is NOT cumulative.
For your research project, you will be working in groups to design a “virtual” exhibition that covers the period of this course. Your group must come up with a theme that in some way encapsulates ideas crucial to the period, select images appropriate to that theme, research those images, write “wall text” for each image, and choose articles for a (hypothetical) exhibition catalog. Your group will then present its work to the class during week 14 (April 19-21). Each group member must research images and articles, and submit a 6-8 page essay including your rationale for choosing the images you selected and the “wall text” for those artworks (due on the date of your presentation).
Groups must speak with me about their topics and ideas during class on Tuesday, March 1, when I will set aside time to meet with everyone.
To help prepare for your group’s “exhibition,” you are required to visit a local museum (LACMA, The Getty Center, etc.) to study how artworks from this period are presented, either in special exhibitions or displays of the museum’s permanent collection. A 2-page write-up of your visit (with documentation such as a ticket stub or parking receipt) is due Tuesday, April 5. Further details on this assignment and the group project will be distributed later.
Note: There will be NO make-up exams and NO work accepted late, except in the case of a legitimate and documented emergency.
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Schedule of topics and readings:
All readings may be found in the required texts and course reader, except as indicated below.
*Please note that assigned readings should be completed before each class where they are listed.*
Week 1______
Tuesday, January 11: Course Introduction
Video:Art of the Western World: A Fresh View—Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
Thursday, January 13:Manet and the Art of Modern Life in Paris
Read: James H. Rubin, “The Artist as Subject: The Paris of Edouard Manet,” from Impressionism(1999): 51-90 (available on Blackboard)
Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life” (1863)
Week 2______
Tuesday, January 18:Monet and Early Impressionism: Landscape, Leisure, and the Modern City
Read: Rubin, “Naturalism in Plein-air: Claude Monet’s Landscapes of Leisure,” from Impressionism 93-132 (available on Blackboard)
Hamilton 34-41
Thursday, January 20:Pissarro and Degas: Realist Impressionists?
Read:Hamilton 21-27
Rachel Ziady DeLue, “Pissarro, Landscape, Vision, and Tradition,” Art Bulletin 80.4 (Dec. 1998): 718-36
Eunice Lipton, “At the Ballet: The Disintegration of Glamour,” from Lipton, Looking into Degas: Uneasy Images of Women and Modern Life (1986): 73-115
Week 3______
Tuesday, January 25:Renoir: Orientalism and “Painterly Plenitude”
Read: Hamilton 27-34
Tamar Garb, “Painterly Plenitude: Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Fantasy of the Feminine,” from Bodies of Modernity: Figure and Flesh in Fin-de-Siècle France (1998): 145-77
Thursday, January 27:Gendering Impressionism: Morisot, Cassatt, and Caillebotte
Read:Griselda Pollock, “Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity,” from Vision and Difference (1988): 50-90
Garb, “Gustave Caillebotte’s Male Figures: Masculinity, Muscularity and Modernity,” from Bodies of Modernity: 25-53
Week 4______
Tuesday, February 1:Art in Victorian Britain—The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Followers
Read: Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, “Art in Victorian Britain, 1837-1901,” from Nineteenth-Century European Art, second edition (2006): 323-351
Hamilton 57-62
Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Lawrence Alma-Tadema and the Modern City of Ancient Rome,” Art Bulletin 84.1 (March 2002): 115-29
Thursday, February 3:Discussion of readings and review for midterm I
Week 5______
Tuesday, February 8: MIDTERM I
Thursday, February 10: TBA/work on group projects
Week 6______
Tuesday, February 15:Post-Impressionism: Cézanne
Read:Hamilton 41-49
Thursday, February 17: Neo-Impressionism: Seurat, Signac
Read:Hamilton 49-57
Félix Fénéon, “The Impressionists in 1886 (Eighth Impressionist Exhibition)” and “Neo-Impressionism” (1887), from Linda Nochlin, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: Sources and Documents (1966): 107-112
Linda Nochlin, “Seurat’s La Grande Jatte: An Anti-Utopian Allegory,” from Politicsof Vision (1989): 170-93
Week 7______
Tuesday, February 22:Post-Impressionism and Symbolism: Gauguin
Read: Hamilton 75-94
Harrison et al. 3-45
Thursday, February 24:Van Gogh and Symbolism
Read:Hamilton 94-118
Lauren Soth, “Van Gogh’s Agony,” Art Bulletin 68.2 (June 1986): 301-13
Week 8______
Tuesday, March 1:TBA/Meet with groups in class to discuss exhibition ideas
Thursday, March 3:TBA
Week 9______
Tuesday, March 8:Expressionism in France: Matisse and the Fauves
Read:Hamilton 157-176
Harrison et al. 46-62
Henri Matisse, “Notes of a Painter” (1908)
Video: Art of the Western World: Into the Twentieth Century
Thursday, March 10:Expressionism in Germany: Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter
Read: Hamilton 180-222
Harrison et al. 62-82
Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1912)
Spring Break: March 14-20______
Week 10______
Tuesday, March 22:Cubism
Read: Hamilton 235-267
Harrison et al. 87-102, 135-148, 156-175
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, excerpts from The Rise of Cubism (1916)
Georges Braque, “Thoughts on Painting” (1917)
Thursday, March 24: Discuss readings and review for midterm II
Week 11______
Tuesday, March 29:MIDTERM II
Thursday, March 31:Futurism and Suprematism
Read: Hamilton 279-291
Harrison et al. 229-249
F. T. Marinetti, “The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism” (1908) and “Futurist
Painting: Technical Manifesto” (1910)
Mark Antliff, “The Fourth Dimension and Futurism: A Politicized Space,” Art Bulletin 82.4 (December 2000): 720-733
Week 12______
Tuesday, April 5: De Stijl
*Museum Visit Write-Ups Due*
Read:Hamilton 319-331
Harrison et al. 194-206, 250-262
Piet Mondrian, “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art” (1937)
Thursday, April 7:Dada
Read:Hamilton 365-388
Fer et al. 31-47
Rudolf E. Kuenzli, “The Semiotics of Dada Poetry” from Stephen C. Foster and
Rudolf E. Kuenzli, eds., Dada Spectrum: The Dialectics of Revolt (1979):
52-70
Week 13______
Tuesday, April 12:The Bauhaus
Read:Hamilton 331-349
Walter Gropius, “Bauhaus Manifesto” (1919)
Thursday, April 14:Surrealism
Read:Hamilton 388-420
Fer et al. 47-61, 171-231
André Breton, excerpt from Nadja (1928)
Week 14______
Tuesday, April 19:Group presentations
Thursday, April 21:Group presentations
Week 15______
Tuesday, April 26: Woman as Artist and Muse in Surrealism: Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington
Read:Fer et al. 231-247
Leonora Carrington, “The Debutante” (1941)
Whitney Chadwick, “Leonora Carrington: Evolution of a Feminist
Consciousness,” Woman’s Art Journal 7.1 (1986): 37-42
Thursday, April 28: Guernica and “Degenerate Art”
Read:Hamilton 453-462,486-487
Discuss readings and review for Final Exam
Study Days: April 30-May 3
Final Exam: Tuesday, May 10, 8:00-10:00 am
Please note: this schedule is subject to change in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
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Statement for Students with Disabilities
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.
Statement on Academic Integrity
USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A: Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at:
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