TWENTIETH CENTURY ART: 1900-1945 (ARTH 286/686)
FALL 2002
MONDAY-WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY
PROFESSOR: DR. REBECCA BUTTERFIELD
TEACHING FELLOWS: Jennifer Criss (
jcriss@sas.upenn.edu), Jonathan Mekinda (mekinda@sas.upenn.edu)Office Hours for Dr. Butterfield: TBA
Rebecb@sas.upenn.edu
Blackboard
:Please make sure that you have access to blackboard. All class announcements will be made through blackboard and response papers must be posted and read there. Blackboard also contains a direct link to the images shown in lectures.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The art of the Twentieth century is characterized by a radical break with all preceding art. Or is it? In this course, we will study the art produced in Europe between 1900 and 1945. We will examine its innovations--in style, materials, subject matter, and philosophy--and its continuing relation to artistic traditions.
The lectures, readings and discussions focus on six major themes: 1) The relationship between art and politics (class, gender, nationalism); 2) Abstraction versus realism or "outer" versus "inner" vision; 3) Primitivism and the search for origins, innocence and freedom from societal constraints; 4) Reactions to modernity, including attitudes toward originality, tradition and the rise of technology; 5) The relation between "high" art and popular culture; and 6) The role of artists and art in a modern society.
Are artists political revolutionaries? Spiritual leaders? Working-class producers? Or the spoiled lap-dogs of the moneyed classes? Is art politically or spiritually meaningful or is it merely expensive decoration? Can it transcend the mundane world or is it mired in particular economic and social relations? Are art and artistic values universal and eternal or are they personal and mutable? These are the questions and issues we will address.
Please note, it is important that you read the assigned chapters and articles before coming to class that day.
Class Texts: Available at the Pennsylvania Book Center, 130 South 34th St. These books are also on reserve at the Fine Arts Library.
C. Harrison, F. Frascina & G. Perry, Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century.
B. Fer, D. Batchelor & P. Wood, Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars.
Herschel B. Chipp, ed. Theories of Modern Art.
S. Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art.
Bulk Pack (BP), available at Campus Copy, 3907 Walnut St.
COURSE SCHEDULE
Fri. 9/6 Introduction and Overview
Mon. 9/9 Post-Impressionism: Primitivism, Abstraction, Spontaneity, Modernity Required Reading: Harrison, pp. 3-34. Abigail Solomon-Godeau, "Going Native," Art in America 77 (July 1989): 118-128, 161. (BP) Recommended: Fred Orton & Griselda Pollock, "Les Données Bretonnantes: La Prairie de la Représentation," (article in English!) Modern Art & Modernism: A Critical Anthology, ed. F. Frascina & c. Harrison (London, 1982): 285-304 (FAR)
Wed. 9/11 Matisse & Les Fauves Required: Harrison, pp. 46-62; Chipp, pp. 130-137; James Herbert, "Painters and Tourists in the Classical Landscape," from Fauve Painting: The Making of Cultural Politics (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 82-111 (BP)
Recommended: Roger Benjamin, "Matisse in Morocco: A Colonizing Esthetic?" Art in America (Nov. 1990), 156-165, 211, 213.
Mon. 9/16 German Expressionism: Die Brücke (The Bridge)
Required: Harrison, pp. 34-45, 62-82; Chipp, pp. 146-151; Carol Duncan "Virility and Domination in Early 20th Century Avant-Garde Painting" Artforum12 (December 1973), pp. 30-39 (BP)
Wed. 9/18 German Expressionism: Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)
Required: Chipp: Kandinsky, pp. 152-170; Marc, pp. 178-182.
Mon. 9/23 Rodin & Brancusi
Required: Leo Steinberg, "Rodin," in Other Criteria (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 322-403, notes 417-420 (BP); Chipp: Brancusi, pp. 364-365.
PMA Recitation!!!!! Recitation meets at the West entrance to the PMA at the usual time.
Wed. 9/25 Early Picasso & Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Required: Leo Steinberg, "The Philosophical Brothel," October 44 (Spring 1988), pp. 7-74 (BP)
Recommended: David Lomas, "A Canon of Deformity: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Physical Anthropology," Art History 16/3 (Sept. 1993), pp. 424-446 (BP).
Mon. 9/30 Picasso & Braque: Inventing Cubism
Required: Leo Steinberg, "What about Cubism?" Other Criteria, pp. 154-173, (BP)
Recommended: Harrison, pp. 87-180. Do look at all the illustrations even if you don’t read the chapter!
Wed. 10/2 "Synthetic" Cubism: Collage & Constructed Sculpture
Required: Clement Greenberg, "Collage" in Frascina, ed., Modern Art and Modernism, pp. 105-108 (BP); Robert Rosenblum, "Picasso and the Typography of Cubism," in Penrose & Golding, eds., Picasso in Retrospect, pp. 49-75 (BP).
Recommended: C. Poggi, "Frames of Reference: Table and Tableau in Picasso’s Collages and Constructions," In Defiance of Painting, pp. 58-89 (FAR).
Mon. 10/7 Futurism: Painting – Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini
Required: Chipp, pp. 281-298, 304-308.
Wed. 10/9 Futurism: Sculpture & the Response to World War I
Required: Chipp, pp. 298-304; Rosalind Krauss, "Analytic Space: Futurism and Constructivism," Passages in Modern Sculpture (Cambridge, MA & London: The MIT Press, 1981), pp. 39-52 (BP).
Fri. 10/11 Fall Break!
Mon. 10/14 Puteaux Cubism: Gleizes, Metzinger, Léger, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Duchamp
Required: Chipp, pp. 207-216, 317-320.
Wed. 10/16 Russian Avant-Garde: Rayonism & Neo-Primitivism – Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Kasimir Malevich
Required: Harrison, pp. 228-249.
PMA RECITATION! Meet at the West entrance to the PMA! Oct. 16 & 17
Mon. 10/21 Russian Avant-Garde: Kasimir Malevich & Vladimir Tatlin
Required: Margit Rowell, "Vladimir Tatlin: Form/Faktura," October (Winter 1978), pp. 83-108 (BP).
Wed. 10/23 Towards a Revolutionary Art in the Soviet Union
Required: Fer, pp. 96-138; Walter Benjamin, excerpts from "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Frascina, ed., Modern Art & Modernism, pp. 217-220 (BP).
Mon. 10/28 Early Modernism in American: The Ashcan Group & The Stieglitz Circle
Required: Myer Schapiro, "The Introduction of Modern Art in America: The Armory Show" in Modern Art: 19th and 20th Centuries (New York: George Braziller, 1978), pp. 135-177.(BP)
Recommended: R. Zurier, R. Snyder & V. Mecklenburg, Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan artists and Their New York (Washington: National Museum of Art in association with W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1995).Gail Stavitsky, "Reordering Reality: Precisionist Directions in American Art, 1915-1941," in Precisionism in America 1915-1941: Reordering Reality (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers in association with The Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey): 12-39.
Wed. 10/30 Modernism in The Netherlands: De Stijl
Required: Harrison, pp. 250-262; Chipp, pp. 349-364; Fer, pp. 153-158.
Mon. 11/4 MIDTERM EXAM
Wed. 11/6 Purism: Le Corbusier, Amadée Ozenfant, Fernand Léger, Picasso
Required: Fer, pp. 2-30, 61-76; Le Corbusier & Ozenfant, "Purism," (1920) in Herbert, ed., Modern Artists on Art (New York: Prentice Hall, 1964), pp. 58-73 (BP); Kenneth Silver, "Purism: Straightening Up After the Great War," Artforum 15/7 (March 1977), pp. 56-63 (BP).
Mon. 11/11 The Bauhaus
Required: Fer, pp. 139-148, 283-311.
Wed. 11/13 Dada in New York & Paris
Required: Chipp, pp. 392-395; Fer, pp. 30-39; Molly Nesbit, "Ready-Made Originals: The Duchamp Model," October 37 (Summer 1986), 53-64 (BP).
Recommended: Thierry de Duve, "The Readymade and the Tube of Paint," Artforum 24/9 (May 1986), 110-121; Chipp, pp. 377-381 (BP)
Mon. 11/18 Dada: Chance and the Found Object
Required: Chipp, pp. 427-431
Wed. 11/20 Dada in Germany
Required: Fer, pp. 40-47; Chipp, p. 396; Maud Lavin, "Heartfield in Context," Art in America 73/2 (Feb. 1985), 84-93 (BP).
PMA RECITATION!!!! Meet at the West entrance to the PMA Nov. 20 & 21
Mon. 11/25 Surrealism: The Circle of Andre Breton
Required: Fer, pp. 47-61, 171-199; Chipp, pp. 397-419.
Wed. 11/27 NO CLASS! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
Mon. 12/2 Surrealism: The Circle of Georges Bataille
Required: Fer, pp. 200-247
Recommended: Rosalind Krauss, "No More Play," The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, 42-85 FAR; Krauss, "A Game Plan: The Terms of Surrealism," in Passages in Modern Sculpture, pp. 105-146.FAR
Wed. 12/4 The Gathering Storm: The Approach of World War II
Required: Chipp, pp. 474-489
Mon. 12/9 Post War Directions
Required: Chipp, pp. 496-497; 501-519; 544-545; 551-552.
Mon. 12/16 FINAL EXAM 11A-1P (Tentative schedule)
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Each of the requirements below will constitute 20% of a student's grade. EACH REQUIREMENT MUST BE FULFILLED IN ORDER TO PASS THE COURSE. Readings should be completed for that day's class.
1. Response papers: 1-2 page papers, typed, double-spaced on specific themes, issues or images related to the required readings. These papers are designed to help you think critically and creatively about the reading assignments. Your goal is to analyze some aspect of the readings, NOT to summarize them. These papers will serve as the basis for in-class discussions as well as prepare you for the exams. Some questions to consider in your writing (and in all your readings for this course) include:
1) What are the author's main points?
2) How does s/he support these points?
3) What kind of sources does the author use: published or unpublished writings contemporary with the making of the photograph, such as correspondence or records of the photographer, critical reviews in periodicals or newspapers, diaries or correspondence of those who saw the work; other visual images; recent art-historical or cultural-historical scholarship about the era?
4) What are the author's underlying assumptions about photography?
5) What alternative analyses would you suggest?
6) How would you develop these ideas?
7) How does the piece compare to others you have read for the course?
NOTE: In your first recitation meeting, you will sign up to do response papers on two of the assigned readings. You will post your paper on blackboard so that all class members can read and comment. Responses to your classmates papers on blackboard counts toward class participation. If you have any questions about the nature of the papers, please talk with me or your Teaching Fellow.
2. Midterm exam. Short essays on slide comparisons that include discussion of the required readings.
3. Thesis paper. (5-6 pages, typed, double-spaced). For this paper, you will compare two works of your choice. (The works must have been produced in Europe between 1900 and 1945.) Your original thesis should be supported by the formal qualities of the work itself and textual sources. A separate handout will be distributed several weeks before the due date.
4. Final exam. Short essays on slide comparisons that include discussion of the required readings. The final will be cumulative, but weighted to the second half of the class.
5. Class attendance and participation in discussions.