Introduction to Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Visual Culture
(Baroque and Rococo Art)
600:144 Spring 2010
T/TH, 5:00-6:15 PM, 270 KAB
Dr. Elizabeth A. Sutton
Email:
Telephone: 319-273-6260
Office: 224 KAB; Office Hours:T/TH 10:00-11:00 AM
Course Website:
Course Description and Objectives:
This course will introduce paintings, prints, sculpture, and architecture of Europe produced in the seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth century. We will explore the historical context and introduce various interpretations of visual culture from the DutchRepublic, Italy, Spain, France, Flanders, and England. You will develop your critical, analytical, rhetorical, and writing skills using artworks and readings as a springboard. This course will be a combination of lecture and discussion. Discussion will be encouraged by a variety of activities to prompt you to critically reflect on the art and the readings, and to help you process and retain the material presented. By the end of this course you should be able to articulate formal characteristics of artworks using art historical vocabulary, to identify major works of the period by at least their creator and country, and to suggest reasons why these works are considered significant both in their historical context and in a contemporary context. My objectives for you are to build your visual acuity and connoisseurship of seventeenth and eighteenth-century visual culture.
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Identify major artists, works, and cultural developments in 17th-18thcentury visual culture
- Explain the significance of these artists and works
- Analyze the visual material using relevant terminology
- Explain key themes of artistic and intellectual engagement in Europe ca. 1575-1789
- Integrate the significance of the art and artists into the larger cultural context
- Evaluate selections of written primary and secondary historical sources
Required text:
- Harris, Ann Sutherland.Seventeenth-Century Art & Architecture, 2nd ed.Upper Saddle River, N.J.:Pearson Prentice Hall,2008.
- Levey, Michael. Rococo to Revolution. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985.
Texts are available and University Book and Supply. Check addall.com too, for cheap used copies.
- Supplemental primary and secondary source readings on elearning and e-reserve.
Suggested text:
- Martin, John Rupert. Baroque.New York: Harper & Row, 1977. (appendices are in this text, and available to download on elearning)
Etiquette and Expectations:
I expect each student to respect the class learning environment. That means:
- No electronic devices that interfere with class. Cell phones, iPods, MP3 players, PDAs, etc. MUST be off and stored before class begins. No texting.
- If you take notes on a laptop, be responsible. If anyone misuses their laptop privileges (ie: websurfing, IMing, etc) laptops will forthwith be prohibited.
- If you use your cell phone improperly, you will be asked to leave.
- Show up to class prepared and on time
- Turn in assignments on time
- Participate consistently and actively in class
- Do your best on creating thoughtful and meaningful work
SDS:
If you have a documented disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please make arrangements to meet with me soon. Please request that a Student Disability Services (SDS) staff send a SAAR form verifying your disability and specifying the accommodation you will need. SDS is located at 103 Student Health Center, (319) 273-2676.
Plagiarism and Cheating:
Cheating or plagiarism of any kind will not be tolerated. It is your responsibility to understand what constitutes plagiarism and cheating. See Academic Ethics and Discipline in the student handbook available at Ask me if you have questions.
Academic Learning Center Resources:
I encourage you to use the Academic Learning Center’s free assistance with writing, reading, and learning stratigies. UNI’s Academic Learning Center is located in 008 ITTC. The Writing Center offers one-on-one writing assistance and the Reading and Learning Center provides consultations on reading, note-taking, and other academic success strategies. Phone 319-273-2361 for more information.
E-learning: Images, Readings, and Announcements
I use the Blackboard course management system and will expect everyone in the class to stay up-to-date by accessing the course website. Imagesfor study will be available on the course website, as will assignment sheets and additional readings. Check the website periodically for timely announcements. You shouldprint out the assigned readings and bring them to class on the appropriate day.
Course Requirements:
ATTENDANCE is MANDATORY.
You are responsible for content from class. If you miss an assignment, quiz, or paper deadline because of a serious family emergency or for medical reasons and you would like a make-up or extension, you will need to provide appropriate documentation verifying your excuse.If you cannot attend a class meeting, you are responsible for obtaining the information presented from a peer or by making an appointment with me.I will not re-teach a missed class for you via email. You will be allowed one missed quiz.
DISCUSSIONS and CLASS ACTIVITIES(variable points)
- Come to class having thoroughly read the assigned text(s)
- Participate actively in discussion and class activities with critical insights, questions, and responses to peers.
READINGSRESPONSES (5 @ 10 pts each)
You will write five one-page typed responses to the assigned articles to prepare for discussion (the Appendices are not articles)
- Use the guided questions on elearning to assist your analysis of the article.
WEEKLY QUIZZES (10 pts each)
- Weekly quizzes will help you gradually process and retain content. Quizzes may take many forms; they may ask for your questions, they may be written analysis of readings, they may ask for term definitions, and/or they may be ID-based.
- ID quizzes will contain images for which you will identify Artist, Title of work, Date, and location (if architecture). As we progress, quizzes will require a comparison essay. Some IDs may be from prior weeks’ quizzes to help you review. All IDs will be from images provided in class.
- Comparisons will ask you to identify the two works shown, and discuss in short-essay form how the images together elucidate certain ideas.
- Questions may be based on content from lecture, the textbook, and readings.
- Quiz review images will be updated weekly and available on elearning.Quizzes must be taken in class; a missed quiz is a ‘0’ for that quiz. Each student will be able to “drop” one quiz score.
- INSPIRATION RESEARCH PROJECT/RESEARCH PAPER (50 points)
The assignment guidelines are available on elearning. You will choose either:
A) Research paper of 7-10 pages or B) Inspiration Research Project.
- A) Research Paper. You will research a focused topic relating to the art produced in 17th-18th century Europe.
- Prospectus and bibliography, due in class February 11
- Paper Rough draft, due in class March 23
- Final draft paper, due in class April 29
- B) Inspiration Research Project. You will choose an artist whose oeuvre inspires you and/or whose working techniques you wish to research. You will create a visual piece according to that artist’s style, technique, and concerns. In order to do this successfully, you will have to research the artist, his/her oeuvre, and his/her production context. Finally, you will write a 5 page analysis of the artist’s work, why it inspired you, how s/he worked, what his/her concerns were, and how you translated his/her stylistic traits, technical innovations, and/or philosophical concerns into your own visual piece.
- Inspiration: Prospectus and bibliographydue in class February 11
- Inspiration: Visual Piece and presentationdue in class April 29
- Inspiration: Paperdue in class April 29
Grading Scale:
94-100% A90-93% A-88-89% B+ 84-87% B80-83% B-
78-79% C+ 74-77% C70-73% C- 68-69% D+ 64-67% D
Schedule of Readings and Due Dates:
Week 1.Tuesday 1/12 / Introductions, assessment. Overview. Discuss “Baroque” nomenclature. Mannerism predecessors to “Baroque.” Practice formal analysis. Groups formed and readings/topics assigned.
Read “Introduction: xii-xxii.
Thursday 1/14 / Italy I.Mannerism and Carracci
Read pp. 3-33
Week 2. 1/19 / Italy IICaravaggio
Read pp. 33-77
Thursday 1/21 / Italy III Caravaggio cont’d; Begin architecture
Read Beverly Louise Brown, “The Black Wings of Envy: Competition, Rivalry, and Paragone,” in The Genius of Rome, 1592-1623, 250-273 (exh. cat: 2001
Week 3.
Tuesday 1/26 / Italy IV.Bernini, Borromini
Read: Read pp. 78-113.
Read Appendix B “Paul Fréart de Chantelou, Bernini in France” in John Rupert Martin, Baroque, 274-279.
Thursday 1/28 / Simon Schama “Power of Art” on Bernini
Week 4.
Tuesday 2/2 / Italy V Painting in Rome and Naples
Read pp 113-141 AND Elizabeth Cohen, “The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History” Sixteenth Century Journal, 47-75 (2000).
Thursday 2/4 / Flanders IRubens
Read pp. 143-174
Read Appendix A “Peter Paul Rubens on the Imitation of Statues” in John Rupert Martin, Baroque, 271-273.
Week 5.
Tuesday 2/9 / Flanders IIVan Dyck, Genres
Read pp. 175-197
Thursday 2/11 / Dutch Republic I. Mannerism, Hals, and Caravaggisti
Read pp. 323-339
PROSPECTUS and BIBLIOGRAPHY for Inspiration/Research Papers due in class
Week 6.
Tuesday 2/16 / Dutch Republic II.Rembrandt and portraiture
Read pp. 339-368, esp. on Rembrandt
Read Appendix C “Arnold Houbraken, Life of Rembrandt” in John Rupert Martin, Baroque, 280-287.
Thursday 2/18
View etchings in dean’s office / Dutch Republic III Rembrandt II
Read Eddy de Jongh “The Model Woman and Women of Flesh and Blood”, in Rembrandt’s Women, ed. Julia Lloyd, 29-35 (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 2001) AND Eric Jan Sluijter “’Horrible Nature, Incomparable Art’: Rembrandt and the Depiction of the Female Nude,” in Rembrandt’s Women, 37-45.
Week 7.
Tuesday 2/23 / Dutch Republic IV.Genre, landscape, still life paintings
Read pp. 368-399.
Thursday 2/25 / Dutch Republic V-continue genres
ReadEddy de Jongh. “To Instruct and Delight,” in Questions of Meaning: Theme and Motif in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Painting, ed. Michael Hoyle, (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2000) 83-103.
Week 8. Tuesday 3/2 / Dutch Republic VI- Dutch Empire
ReadJulie Berger Hochstrasser,"The Conquest of Spice and the Dutch Colonial Imaginary," in Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce and Politics in the Early Modern World, edited by Londa Schiebinger, and Claudia Swan, 169-86 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).
Thursday 3/4 / Simon Schama on Rembrandt
Week 9.
Tuesday 3/9 / Spain I.
Read pp. 199-224
Read Appendix D “Francisco Pacheco, On the Aim of Painting” in John Rupert Martin, Baroque, 288-289.
Thursday 3/11 / Spain II.
Read pp. 224-249 esp. on Velazquez, Murillo
Read Jonathan Brown. “Enemies of Flattery: Velazquez' Portraits of Philip IV,”Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17 (Summer, 1986):137-154.
SPRING BREAK / SPRING BREAK
Week 11.
Tuesday 3/23 / Primary Sources and Methodology
Read Richard Kagan, “Prescott’s Paradigm: American Historical Scholarship and the Decline of Spain,” The American Historical Review 101 (Apr., 1996) 423-446.
Research Paper Rough Drafts due in class
Thursday 3/25 / France I. Architecture and Italian precedents
Read pp. 251-281
Week 12.
Tuesday 3/30 / France IIVersailles, Louis XIV, and Bernini
Read Irving Lavin, “Bernini’s Image of the Sun King,” in Past-Present: Essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso, 138-202 (University of California Press, 1993).
Thursday 4/1 / France III.Development of “Academic” painting—Champaigne, Poussin, Claude Gellée, Le Brun
Read pp. 281-321
Read Appendix E “Philippe de Champaigne, On Poussin’s Rebecca and Eliezer” in John Rupert Martin, Baroque, 290-296
Friday 4/2 Optional Field Trip to Minneapolis / Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Walker Art Center
Week 13.
Tuesday 4/6 / England
Text: Read pp. 401-415 and Epilogue
Thursday 4/8 / Finish England, Review 17th c. Discuss “problems in 17th c. art”
Week 14.
Tuesday 4/13 / Intro to 18th c.
Read in Levey Introduction
Thursday 4/15 / Rococo—Watteau and Boucher
Read in Levey Chapters 1-3 (skim Ch. 1)
Week 15.
Tuesday 4/20 / Reactions to Rococo
Read in Levey Ch. 4
Thursday 4/22 / Neo-Classicism
Read in Levey Ch. 5
Week 16. 4/27
Tuesday / Finish Neo-Classicism
Read in Levey Epilogue
Thursday 4/29 / FINAL PAPER DUE/Last Quiz/Share Projects (continue into Finals week if necessary)