The French Art World in the 19th and 20th centuries : Summer Session

The French Art World in the 19th and 20th centuries :
Summer Session
Professor: TBA
Course Abstract
This course traces the artistic contribution to modernity in 19th -century and the first decades of 20th century French art, its utopian dimension, its different achievements and its decline. Since the French Revolution, major works of art, art critics and theorists, and artists themselves contributed to change drastically the artist’s role and the role of the arts. Against the backdrop of the newly established bourgeois, industrialized and modernized society in France, the co-existence of opposite art practices and ideologies as well as the quickly following changes and innovations in successive art-movements, such as realism, impressionism, postimpressionism, cubism, fauvism will be analysed with regard to their respective claim for modernity.
Through an examination of form and content distinguishable in works of various artistic disciplines (painting, sculpture, architecture, design), students will critically evaluate artistic language and expression that is representative of modern ideologies. This course will examine the visual arts and will utilize theoretical texts for supportive analysis.
Course Objectives:
Upon completion of the course the student will be able to:
- Distinguish major art movements from Neo-Classicism to Modern Art. - Analyze and contextualize key works of 19th and 20th century French Art. - Demonstrate awareness and understanding of their historical, social and esthetical
background. - Have a basic reading of essential art critics and art theories dealing with
modernity. - Acquire basic knowledge about the foundations of Modern Art.SAMPLE
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Course Requirement :
Oral Presentation 15% These will be a 15mn oral presentation upon list given by the professor and noted in the syllabus . It will take place in museums or in class, in this case you must come with a power point file with images, preferably on a flash drive. In the content, you must organize your ideas and put the work of art in context. You could compare with work of art from the same artists or some others if it’s relevant to illustrate your issue. Depending on the work art you need to enlighten the political context, or the esthetical approach or the social purpose of the painting. In case of comparison, you will show the interest to compare those two artworks. Midterm 25%and Final 25%:
Paper in class in two parts :
1. Identify 7 artworks (need to specify artist’s name, title, date and media) 30% of the grade
2. Short essay to answer to a general question( between 300 and 500 words, mostly one page) 70% of the grade In this essay, you’ll have to show that you understand how to use artworks and put it back in context. You must organize your ideas, make a short introduction and a short conclusion. Your development will be organized around themes. You’ll need to use examples of work of art seen in class to illustrate your ideas. Only example with artist’s name, title, and date will be considered.
Material in class lectures, work viewed in museums, slides, video shorts, and assigned readings in text will be the basis for the mid-term and final exam. It is imperative that students attend and participate in class discussions and museum sessions in order to pass the exams.
Research Paper : 25%
Interpretation of an after 1970 work of art related to a 19th century one.
Inducing an interesting comparison, your choice must show a relevant interaction between two artists, two interpretations, two cultural readings or two art movements. You must weave the research information with your own ideas and thoughts about the subject to produce an interesting report.
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The length of the report should be a minimum of 700-1000 words of the text only – not the title page and the resource page.
Grading criteria :You must show your documentation of the presented information. You must not copy or lift information from Internet sites without citing those references. You must use prescribed rules of grammar and correct spelling. Finally, Exciting visuals will not redeem a poorly written paper.
Daily Performance Grade 10%
The daily performance will be awarded on regular attendance, participation in discussions, meeting deadlines, and effort spent on class projects will minimize or increase the final grade of 10%.
Letter Grades Letter grades for the entire course will be assigned as follows:
Letter Grade Points Description
1. Introduction, Organisation, Timetable, The academic quarrel: Neo-classicism and romanticism, contributions to modernity? Tuesday 06/04 14h00.; Classroom
Session 1 : Art as a social weapon : Barbizon School and Gustave Courbet
• Nature and peasantry
Wednesday 06/05 14h Musée d’Orsay, Ligne 12. Station Solférino / RER B ligne C Station Musée d’Orsay. Meeting Point : Entrance B
Text :
S. Eisenmann, « Rhetoric of realist art and politics », Eisenmann S. (dir;), 19th century ; a Critical History, Thames and Hudson, 2011, pp. 250-272.
L. Nochlin, The politics of vision, »The invention of the Avant-Garde France 1830-1880 », Westview Press, 1989, pp. 1-10
• The strategy of scandal : Gustave Courbet
Thursday 06/06 Classroom
Oral Presentation:
G. Courbet, Portrait de P.J. Proudhon en 1853, 1865, h/t, 147 x 198 cm, Paris, Musée du Petit Palais.
Text
G.Courbet, « The realist Manifesto », 1855 reprinted and translated in Nochlin L. ,Gustave Courbet, A Study of Style and Society, Garland Publication, 1976, p. 214.
TJ Clark, « On the social history of art », Image of the people, Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution, University of California Press, 1999, pp. 9-21. Session 3 : Modern painter, painter of modern life : Manet’s painting
• The Revolution of the symbolic
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Edouard Manet, The execution of Maximilien Emperor, 1867, Mannheim, Stadticlhe Kunsthalle and other versions
Text
TJ Clark, « The Olympia Choice », The Painting of modern life. Paris in the Art of Manet and his followers, Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 79-146.
• Painter of modern life
Text :
C. Baudelaire, tr. J. Mayne, « Painter of modern life », Phaidon Press, 1863(1995) ,pp. 1-35
Session 4: Impressionism: Inventing modern images and illustrating modern life-style.
• Plein air painting
Wednesday 06/12, Musée d’Orsay, Ligne 12. Station Solférino / RER B ligne C Station Musée d’Orsay. Meeting Point : Entrance B
Oral presentation :
Renoir, Le bal du moulin de la galette, 1876, Musée d’Orsay
Text T. Duret, The impressionists painter, 1878. E. Duranty, The New Painting, concerning the group of artists exhibited at Durand –Ruel Galleries, 1876, reprinted and translated in Charles S. Moffat, The new Painting Impressionism 1874-1876, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, 1986, pp. 42-44. M. Ward, « Impressionist Installation and Private Exhitions », The art Bulletin, vol. 73, n°4, décembre 1991, pp. 599-622.
• Nature and Leisure in the Age of Industry Oral Presentation
Gustave Caillebotte, les raboteurs de parquet, (the floorscrappers) , 1875, Musée d’Orsay
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Thursday 06/13, classroom
• Monet and Renoir : opposites contribution to modernity Monday 06/17 Musée de l’Orangerie, Jardin des Tuileries,
Ligne 1 / 8, station Concorde
Meeting point : Main Entrance
A. Dombrowski : « Instants, Moments, minutes. Impressionism and the Industrialization of Time », in F. Kramer, Monet and the birth of Impressionism, Prestel, Frankfurt, Stadel Museum, 2015, pp. 37-46
• Modernization of Paris under Hausmann :
Tuesday 06/18, Walking tour Meeting point : Piazza of Cathedrale Notre Dame,
Rer C, St Michel, Cluny la Sorbonne / Ligne 4, station Cité
Oral Presentation :
• The history of Vendôme Place and its links to La Commune Text
C. Baudelaire, tr. J. Mayne, « the Crowd », Phaidon Press, pp. 1-35* Session 4 : Art as myth ?
• Post-Impressionism : Cezanne, Van Gogh, Signac, Seurat
Wednesday 06/19 Musée d’Orsay
Text studies : Van Gogh, Correspondence, letter to his brother 25/05/1889, http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let783/letter.html#translation
Cézanne, Correspondence , letter to Emile Bernard 12/05/1904; 26/05/1904; 25/07/1904, 23/10/1904. In Texts to study, pp. 7-9
Paul Signac, excerpts from From Eugéne Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism (1899)
Laure-Caroline Semmer, “Birth of the figure of the father of modern art; Cézanne in International Exhibition 1910-1913”, http://www.artsetsocietes.org/a/a-semmer.html
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Mid-term exam
and 13/11/1889, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let817/letter.html
Paul Gauguin, letter to Georges- Daniel de Montfreid : “ Introduction p. 9-20”, letter of 11 mars 1892, p. 26-28, letter 1898 , p 93-96 .
https://archive.org/details/letterspaulgaug00gauggoog
Facos M., Symbolist art in context, University of California Press, 2009, p. 9-37
Oral Presentation :
• Black model : from Gericault to Matisse,
Tuesday 06/25, Musée d’Orsay , special exhibition
• Sculpture : Carpeaux, Rodin
Wednesday 06/26 Musée Rodin Hotel Biron, 77, avenue de Varenne, Ligne 13 station Varenne, Meeting point : main entrance
Oral Presentation :
Text
A. Potts, The sculptural imagination. Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist, Yale University Press, 2000, “Introduction”, pp. 1-23 / “Modern Figures. Sculpture and Modernity : Rodin, Rilke and Sculptural things”, pp 60-101
• The influence of science and machine Cubism and Italian Futurism
Thursday 06/27, Classroom
Text studies :
Guillaume Apollinaire “: The Cubists”, L’intransigeant, 10 october 1911, in Texts to study, p . 9
Gleizes A. Mezinger J., excerpt From Cubism, 1912 in Art Humanities Primary Source Reading, « Picasso »
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, from The Way of Cubism in Art Humanities Primary Source Reading, « Picasso »
• Picasso and Calder
Monday 07/01 Musée national Picasso, 5, rue de Thorigny, 75003 Paris, , Ligne 1 station Saint Paul , Meeting point : courtyard
Text
A. H. Barr, « From Cubism to Abstract Art » reprinted from, Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited by) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002
• From Delacroix to Signac : Matisse and les fauves
Tuesday 07/02 Classroom
Text
H. Matisse, excerpts from Notes on a painter, 1908, reprinted from Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited by) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002, pp. 57- 63
H. Widauer, C. Grammont, “From Neoimpressionism to Fauvism”, Matisse and the Fauves, Vienne, Albertine, 2013, pp 48-50 / Jack Flam “Explosiveness, Primitivism, Fragmentation and the new unity of modern painting”, pp 268-283
P. Signac, excerpts from FromEugéne Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism (1899)
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• Avant-garde : From “Modernity” to abstract art. Orphism ( Delaunay-Kupka)
Wednesday 07/03 Musée national d’art modern Centre Georges Pompidou Place Georges Pompidou, 75004 Paris Ligne 11, station Rambuteau, Ligne 1, station Hotel de ville or Chatelet Meeintg point : Piazza, in front of group entrance
Text studies :
Matisse, excerpts from Notes on a painter, 1908, reprinted from Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited by) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002, pp. 57-63 in Texts to study, pp. 10-16
W. Kandinsky, from Concerning the spiritual in Art , 1911, reprinted from Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited by) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002, p. 82-89 in Texts to study, pp. 10-22
W. Kandinsky , « The cologne lecture », 1914, reprinted from Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited by) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002,p. 89-93.in Texts to study, pp. 22-26
Alfred H. Barr, « From Cubism to Abstract Art » reprinted from, Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited by) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002, inTexts to study, pp. 26-29
2. Call to order : art faces to war : (Dada, Surrealism,)
Thursday 07/04, Classroom
Text studies :
Tristan Tzara, Dada Manifesto, from Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited bt) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002
André Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism from Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited bt) .Art in Theory, 1900- 2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002
B. Doherty, « The work of art and the problem of politics in Berlin Dada », , October, vol. 105, summer 2003, pp. 73-92 Oral Presentation :
Francis Picabia, Tabac-Rat, Musée national d’art moderne
14. Duchamp and his heirs : Duchamp, Pop art, Nouveau realism
Monday 07/08, classroom
Text Studies :
T. De Duve, R. Krauss, « Marcel Duchamp or the « Phynancier » or Modern Life », October, vol. 52, spring 1999, pp. 60-75
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Marcel Duchamp, « The richard Mutt case », The Blind Man, New York, 1917, in Texts to study, p. 29
• How New York stole the idea of modern art ? American expressionism vs French abstract art
Tuesday 07/09 , Classroom
Text studies :
Cl. Greenberg, « Avant-garde and Kitsch », Partisan Review, 1939, pp. 34-49 Oral presentation :
Pierre Soulages, Outrenoir,
15. Final Exam.
Wednesday 07/10 , Classroom
16. Contemporary art
Palais de Tokyo
Primary Source Reading
Apollinaire G. “: The Cubists”, L’intransigeant, 10 october 1911,p. 8
Baudelaire C. , tr. J. Mayne, « Painter of modern life », Phaidon Press, pp. 1-35 Breton A. , Manifesto of Surrealism, 1924, Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited bt) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Balckwell Publishing, 2002, pp. 87-88
Clark TJ, « On the social history of art », Image of the people, Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution,University of California Press, 1999, pp. 9-21. Clark, TJ « The Olympia Choice », The Painting of modern life. Paris in the Art of Manet and his followers, Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 79-146. Courbet G., « The realist Manifesto », 1855 reprinted and translated in Nochlin L. , Gustave Courbet, A Study of Style and Society , Garland Publication, 1976, p. 214.
Daix P. , Picasso: Life and Art , Westview Press,1993 Duranty E., The New Painting, concerning the group of artists exhibited at Durand –Ruel Galleries, 1876, reprinted and translated in Charles S. Moffat, The new Painting Impressionism 1874-1876, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, 1986, pp. 42-44.
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Duret T., The impressionists painters, 1878 reprinted and translated in Rewald. J. , History of Impressionism,Museum of Modern Art. 1973
De Duve T., Krauss R., « Marcel Duchamp or the « Phynancier » or Modern Life », October, vol. 52, spring 1999, pp. 60-75 Doherty B., « The work of art and the problem of politics in Berlin Dada », October, vol. 105, summer 2003, pp. 73-92 Eisenmann S., « The intransgeant artist or how the impressionists got their name », in Charles S. Moffat, The new Painting Impressionism 1874-1876, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, 1986, pp. 51-91. Eisenmann S. , « Rhetoric of realist art and politics », in 19th century ; a Critical History, Thames and Hudson, 2011, pp. 250-272. Facos M., Symbolist art in context, University of California Press, 2009 Cl. Greenberg, « Avant-garde and Kitsch », Partisan Review, 1939 Laforgue J., "Impressionism: The Eye and the Poet" by Jules La Forgue, William Jay Smith, trans., is reprinted from Art News, May 1956 Leroy L. , « Exhibition of the impressionists, reprinted from John Rewald, The History of Impressionism L. Nochlin, The politics of vision, Westview Press, 1989 Nochlin L. , Gustave Courbet, A Study of Style and Society , Garland Publication, 1976.
Signac P, From Eugéne Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, 1899
Steinberg L., « The philosophical Brothel », October, vo. 44, Spring 1988, pp. 7-74.
Varnedoe K. , « Primitivism », Fine Disregard, what makes modern art modern, Paperback, 1994 Ward M., « Impressionist Installation and Private Exhitions », The art Bulletin, vol. 73, n°4, décembre 1991, pp. 599-622.
Additional Reading
Batchelor D., Fer B., Wood P., Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art between the Wars, Yale University Press, 1993. Celestin R. and DalMolin E., France from 1851 to the Present, Universalism in Crisis. Macmillan, 2007.
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T.J. Clark, The Absolute Bourgoies, Artists and Politics in France, Thames and Hudson , London 1973 (.Chapters: Millet, p. 115-154, Daumier, p. 155-212, Delacroix et Baudelaire, p. 213- 276.)
Clark T. J., Image of the people : Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution, Princeton University Press, 1982. Clark T.J, Farewell to an Idea, Episodes from a History of Modernism, Yale Univerity Press, 1999
Clark T.J., The Painting of modern life. Paris in the Art of Manet and his followers, Princeton University Press, 1999. Cheetham M. A., The Rhetoric of Purity. Essentialist Theory and the Advent of Abstract Painting, Cambridge University Press, 1991. Eisenmann S. (dir;), 19th century ; a Critical History, London, Thames and Hudson, 2011. Lewis H., The Politics of surrealism, New York, Paragon House, 1988. Löwy M., Morning star : surrealism, marxism, anarchism, situationism, utopia, University of Texas Press, 2009 Nochlin L. , Gustave Courbet, A Study of Style and Society , Garland Publication, 1976.
Nochlin L., The Politics Of Vision: Essays On Nineteenth-century Art And Society, Westview Press, 1991. Kachur L., Displaying the marvelous, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali and Surrealist Exhibition Installation, MIT Press, 2001. Krauss R., (dir.), Art Since 1900. Modernism, Anti-Modernsim, Post-modernism, Thames and Hudson, 2005. Harrison Ch. & Wood P. (edited bt) .Art in Theory, 1900-2000, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing, 2002
Judovitz D., Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit, Berkeley University of California, 1995. Tompkins Lewis M. (ed. by), Critical readings in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, an Anthology University of California Press, 2007
Rewald. J. , History of Impressionism,Museum of Modern Art. 1973
Rubin J. H., Courbet. Phaidon 1997.
White M., Generation Dada. The first World War and the First World War, Yale University Press, 2013
Zola E., Ecrits sur l’Art, Gallimard, 1991.
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