Modernity and Modernism

Professor: Clark Buckner

San Francisco Art Institute

Fall 2009

Meeting time and place: Wednesday, 1 – 3:45, Lecture Hall

Office hours: Wednesday, 11 – 12, Café

Teaching Assistant: Ian Paul

Phone: 415.336.2349Phone: 831.818.1432

Email: mail:

What makes a work of art “modern” and/or “modernist”? This course explores the diverse ways of answering this question and, in the process, aims to expand students’ critical and creative resources through a survey of central artistic movements – primarily in Italy, the Netherlands, and France – between 1400 and 1940. Our study will include broad considerations of the historical development of the modern world, but we will focus primarily upon artworks, artists, and the changing conditions most immediately important to them – including the structural dynamics of the art market, the social role played by art and artists, and the theoretical understanding of art. We will study artworks as articulations of distinct ways of knowing and seeing the world with particular attention to the centrality of autonomy in the modern worldview. And we will consider critiques of modern art and the canon based upon its defining values, which have emerged from feminist, psychoanalytic, and post-colonial critical theory.

Course Objectives:

  1. To provide students with a rich appreciation of the problems of modernity and modernism in art history.
  2. To familiarize students with a broad sweep of representative artworks, artists, and art movements from the period spanning 1400 to 1940.
  3. To cultivate a critical vocabulary for distinguishing and evaluating styles of modern art.
  4. To introduce students to a variety of art historical methodologies and their underlying theoretical premises, including formalism, social history, feminism, psychoanalysis, and post-colonialism.

Required Texts:

- The Story of Art, by E.H. Gombrich

- All other assigned texts, including excerpts from Modern European Art, by Alan Bowness, and Nineteenth-Century Art: A Critical History, ed. By Stephen Eisenman, will be made available at:

Course/Grading Requirements:

• attendance and in-class participation10%

• quizzes20%

• short paper10%

• midterm examination30%

• final examination30%

In-class participation:involves regular attendance, respectful and attentive demeanor in the classroom, and involvement in class discussions.

Quizzes and Exams: During the course of the semester, you will be given three quizzes, one midterm exam, and one final exam. Quizzes and exams will consist of slide identifications, definitions of terms, short-answer questions, and short thematic compare/contrast essays. They will encompass material covered in lectures and in assigned readings. All works that will appear on quizzes and exams, except "unknowns," will have been included in assigned readings, provided to you in additional materials, or shown in class. (There will be no surprises!!)

Attendance policy: You are allowed one absence. Additional absences will lower your grade by one letter grade (B+ to B, B to B-, and so on). Three or more absences will result in a failure (F) for the class.

Reminder: All work done for this course must be your own. Any case of plagiarism (uncredited copying from any source) will result in a failure (F) for the course.

1Introduction (Sept. 2nd)

Part I: The Renaissance (1450 – 1600)

2Early Renaissance(Sept. 9th)

Reading

Gombrich, pp. 223 - 285

Ch. 12, The Conquest of Reality, The Early 15th - Century

Ch. 13, Tradition and Innovation I, The Later 15th – Century in Italy

Ch. 14, Tradition and Innovation II, The 15th – Century in the North

3High Renaissance(Sept. 16)

Reading

Gombrich, pp. 287 – 359

Ch. 15, Harmony Attained, Tuscany and Rome, Early 16th Century

Ch. 16, Light and Color, Venice and Northern Italy, Early 16th Century

Ch. 17, The New Learning Spreads, Germany and the Netherlands

4.Revisiting the Rennaissance: After Mannerismfirst quiz!(Sept. 23)

Reading

Gombrich, pp. 361 - 385

Ch. 18, A Crisis of Art, Europe, later 16th Century

Jerry Brotton, from The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction,

“Ch. 1, A Global Rennaissance,” pp. 19 - 37

Part II: The Reformation, Genre Painting, and the Baroque (1600 – 1720)

5The Baroque I(Sept. 30)

Reading

Gombrich, pp. 387 - 434

Ch. 19, Vision and Visions: Catholic Europe, First half of the 17th Century

Ch. 20, The Mirror of Nature, Holland 17th Century

6TheBaroque II/ Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and Art History(Oct. 7)

Reading

Gombrich, pp. 435 - 455

Ch. 21, Power and Glory I, Italy Later 17th and 18th Centuries

Ch. 22, Power and Glory II, France, Germany, and Austria, Later 17th and 18th Centuries

Griselda Polock, from Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art History

“Ch. 5, The Female Hero and the Making of a Feminist Canon: Atemisia Gentileschi’s Representations of Susanna and Judith,” pp. 97 – 127

Monday, Oct. 12th: Exam Review with Ian – 7:30 pm on Chestnut Campus, Room TBA

7MidTerm Exam(Oct. 14)

Part III: From Rococco to Realism (1720 - 1860)

8Rococo / NeoClassicism / Romanticism / Realism(Oct. 21)

Reading

Gombrich, pp. 457 – 533

Ch. 23, Age of Reason

Ch. 24 Break with Tradition

Ch. 25, Permanent Revolution

9Romaniticism, Realism, and the Social Origins of the Avant-Garde(Oct. 28)

Reading:

From Nineteenth-Century Art: A Critical History, ed. By Stephen Eisenman

Ch. 3, The Tensions of Enlightenment: Goya, pp. 78 – 97

Ch. 8, The Generation of 1830 and the Crisis in the Public Sphere, pp. 188 – 206

Ch. 9, The Rhetoric of Realism: Courbet and the Origins of the Avant-Garde, 206 - 224

Part IV: From Impressionism to Abstraction (1863 – 1940)

10Impressionismsecond quiz!(Nov. 4)

Reading:

Bowness, pp. 9 - 46

Ch. 1: Manet and le Salon des Refuses: The Birth of Modern Art

Ch. 2: Impressionism

11. Japonisme / Post-Impressionism(Nov. 11)

Reading:

Bowness, pp. 47 – 72

Ch. 3: Post-Impressionism

Klaus Berger, From Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse,

Ch.1: “The Background,” pp. 1 – 9

Ch. 3: “The Pre-Impressionist Pioneers, “pp. 20 - 64

12. Symbolism and Expressionism(Nov. 18)

Reading:

Bowness, pp. 73 – 104

Ch. 4: Symbolism

Ch. 5: Expressionism

13Cubism and Black African Sculptureshort paper due!(Nov. 25)

Reading:

Bowness, pp. 105 – 129

Ch. 6: Cubism

Video (shown in-class): African Art through African Eyes, Directed by Aminatta Forma

14Abstract Art, DADA, and Surrealism(Dec. 2)

Bowness, pp. 105 – 129

Ch. 7: Abstract Art

Ch. 8: Surrealism

Monday, Dec 7th: Exam Review with Ian – 7:30 pm on Chestnut Campus, Room TBA

15Final Exam(Dec. 9)