Graduate Art History& Architectural History Course Offerings, Fall 2012
ARAH 5575American Modernisms Thurs. 3:30 - 6 p.m. Elizabeth Turner "American Modernisms" highlights the practice and theories of a small community who gathered and exhibited with Alfred Stieglitz between 1905 and 1946. We will explore the dialogue surrounding the exhibition and reception of works in Stieglitz’s galleries such as: Can a photograph have the significance of Art? What is painting? What is American about American Art? Why live in Europe? A close examination of the strategic relationship between exhibition, publication, and critical reception in Stieglitz campaign of support for American Modernists will be part of our analysis and discussion of the weekly readings. The range of meanings for the terms “American” and “Modern” will be considered—from abstract, formal language of modern inventions to symbolist correspondences and equivalences as well as new metaphors gleaned from popular culture and a way of being the modern world of machines. How does the conversation change over time? Collector/Museum Director Duncan Phillips worked with Alfred Stieglitz from 1926 to 1946 pursuing many right answers to the question of what it meant to be "American" and "Modern" in the twentieth century. Over the course of twenty years Phillips assembled a unique collection of paintings,drawings and photographs. Some artists such as Arthur G. Dove and John Marin, Phillips collected in depth. However his limited selections of Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, Alfred Maurer, Max Weber, and Man Ray are equally compelling. We will emphasize five artists: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin and Marsden Hartley through first hand examination of their objects and by placing them on exhibition at the Phillips Collection, the UVA Art Museum and the Special Collections Library. In addition to formal and contextual analysis, material analysis of paint in the conservation lab at the Phillips will enable us to explore how each artist literally experimented with the medium in his or her individual quest “to reinvent painting.” What were the process and complexities of their research? How do they break from the past? Are there continuities? The class will meet 9 Fridays at the Phillips Collection (in Washington, DC) in order to benefit from thecollections and archives on site. Graduate students will be expected conduct original research on a single object in the Phillips Collection, write a paper and present a public lecture. Advanced undergraduates will be expected to identify and research an appropriate theme and checklist of objects from which to create a virtual on-line exhibition. Evaluation will be made on the basis of weekly class participation, a 30 minute oral presentation, and a 20 page research paper. Lectures and class discussions will stem from the assigned readings; it is important that you come to class prepared to discuss the assigned material. Since the class meets only once a week, attendance is mandatory. An unexcused absence will affect your class participation grade.Expectations for both oral and written reports will be discussed in class. Grading will be calculated as follows: Class participation = 30% ARAH 8051Theory and Interpretation in the Visual Arts Wed. 1-3:30 p.m. Sarah Betzer This seminar provides an introduction to the foundations of art and architectural history and to the methodological and theoretical approaches that have structured the discipline. Our historiographic orientation will take off from early authors Pliny and Vasari before considering the eighteenth-century founding of art history as a discrete discipline. Moving outwards from key eighteenth and nineteenth-century figures and modern practices of stylistic analysis and connoisseurship, we will consider more recent approaches including social history, psychoanalysis, feminism, and queer theory, among others. Throughout, we will be attuned to the diverse methods and strategies by which writers account for art objects, understand them within a historical framework, and attend to the particular relations between objects and makers, as well as between objects and viewers. ARAH 8052Library Methodology (1 credit) Thurs. 9-9:50 p.m. Lucie Wall Stylianopoulos ARAH 9520Architecture and Painting in Renaissance Rome Tues. 3:30-6 p.m. Cammy Brothers Renaissance Rome was the site of remarkable innovation and experimentation in the fields of both architecture and painting. Topics will include the figure of the painter-architect, the culture of antiquarianism, villa and garden culture, and the development of architectural drawing. Figures such as Bramante, Giuliano da Sangallo, Michelangelo, Peruzzi, Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo and Giulio Romano will be central to the course. ARAH 9585Cults of Images and Relics in the Buddhist Tradition Time TBA Dorothy Wong This seminar examines the cults of images and relics in the Buddhist tradition. It examines the formats and materials of images and relics, the architectural and ritual settings in which these objects were venerated, and how they served the patron’ intentions. The seminar also studies the writings about Buddhist icons and relic worship from a variety of sources: liturgies, historical texts, inscriptions, and contemporary writing, and includes comparisons with western medieval traditions. ARAH 9505Age of Augustus Tues., Thurs. 2:00 - 3:15 John Dobbins and John Miller in Classics (LATIN 7559) Study of the Age of Augustus considering all sources and remains, including art and architecture, literature, numismatics, and epigraphical evidence. Examples are Augustus' Res Gestae and Mausoleum, and poetry and art reflecting upon the Battle of Actium, the emergent imperial dynasty, and the Augustan age as a new era in Roman history. Meets with LATIN 7559. ARAH 9570The Arts and Crafts and related movements -Aesthetic, Art Nouveau and etc, in England, Europe and America Mon. 3:30 - 6 p.m. Richard Guy Wilson
Prerequisite This course will examine the works, theories, and contexts of the Arts and Crafts and related movements in the period 1860-1930. Attention will be directed to the designs and the writings of the principle proponents along with later commentary and interpretations. Many issues including social and cultural reform preoccupied the different movements, but several themes seem to emerge: morality, nationalism, tradition, and modernity. For the participants the direct and vital relation of these concepts to the physical making of buildings, objects, and landscapes became central. Image and style, or how buildings, furniture, gardens, landscape, and cities (and other related objects) looked, had moral and national dimensions. Although some aspects of the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau have been interpreted as “modern” there was another aspect that was conservative and looked to tradition. The line between modernity and tradition was frequently very thin, and traditionalism could very easily flow into revivalism. A nationalistic impulse lay at the base of belief for many Arts and Crafts-Art Nouveau designers that could place them in close proximity to many more conventional revivalist designers. Major figures to be considered include: Ruskin, Morris, Webb, Voysey, Ashbee, and Lutyens, from England, Mackintosh and Lorimer from Scotland, Guimard and Sauvage from France, Horta from Belgium, Gaudi from Spain, Saarinen from Finland, and Stickley, Maybeck, Tiffany, the Greenes, Gill, Maybeck, Wright, Cram, and others from the United States. Objectives (Pedagogical Intentions) The class is limited to 15 students. The class will be conducted on a seminar basis. Students are expected to read widely in the period, read the weekly assignments come to class ready to discuss, write several short (2 pages max) papers, make a presentation or an assigned building(s) or object(s) and produce a term paper of significant value which they will share with the class. This course can satisfy either the European Modern, or the American area requirements. Make sure you choose for your term paper a subject that fit into your area. A field trip to Richmond and perhaps another city will be scheduled.    | |||