| This course will investigate the history of the visual arts (primarily painting and sculpture) in the United States from 1776 to 1960. Artists to be considered include colonial portraitists; Romantic landscape painters; Neoclassical sculptors; Realist, Luminist, and Impressionist painters; artists associated with New York Dada and the Harlem Renaissance; Precisionists, Regionalists and Social Realists; and Abstract Expressionists. Participants will consider artists' responses to key historical developments such as the founding of the nation, westward expansion, the Civil War, industrialization, and emergence as a superpower. Several issues will run throughout the course: What is the relationship between the art of Euro-Americans and that of Europe? and that of Native Americans? Is there something "American" about American art? How do the visual arts reinforce or challenge our sense of American history and identity? This course fulfills the Fine Arts requirement in the core curriculum. |
