History of Art 286

History of Art 286 Twentieth Century Art: 1900-1945 Spring 2001

Dr. Oliver Shell Office Hours: Rm. 306 Jaffe Bldg. 215.568.8344 Thursday 12-2 (make apt. with me) [email protected]

Class Meets: Monday 6:30-9:10, Meyerson B-13

Class Texts: Available at The Penn Book Center, 130 South 34 th Street,

C. Harrison, F. Frascina, and G. Perry, Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century. B. Fer, D. Batchelor, and P. Wood, Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars.

Reading Packet, available at Campus Copy, 3907 Walnut Street.

January 22 Introduction to the Course; Matisse and Fauvism Harrison et al: “Primitivism and the ‘Modern’,” 1-34; “The Decorative, the Expressive, and the Primitive,” 46-62. Henri Matisse, “Notes of a Painter,” (1908), (reading packet)

January 29 German Expressionism: Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter Harrison et al: 34-45, 62-82. Emil Nolde, excerpt from Jahre der Kämpfe, (reading packet) Wassily Kandinsky; (in reading packet).

Due: *Reading Response # 1: write a 1 page response to the first readings. Discuss the positive and negative implications of the terms “primitive, “primitivism,” “decorative,” and “decoration.”

February 5 Early Picasso and the development of Cubism Leo Steinberg, “What about Cubism?” from Other Criteria, (reading packet). Recommended: Harrison, 87-180.

February 12 No Regular Class. Instead, Students are Required to Meet at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (West Entrance) Either Wednesday the 14 th at 6:00 PM or Sunday the 18 th at 11:00 AM (Students who can not make either time should see me). Museum-Based Paper Assignment handed out (Due February 26).

February 19 Cubist Collage, Puteaux Cubism, Orphism, and Modern Sculpture Clement Geenberg, “Collage,” from F. Frascina ed. Modern Art and Modernism, (reading packet) Robert Rosenblum, “Picasso and the Typography of Cubism,” from Penrose and Golding, Picasso in Retrospect, (reading packet).

February 26 Futurism J. Taylor, Intro., and Futurist Manifestos, from H. Chip, Theories of Modern Art, (reading packet). Due: *Museum Paper

March 5 Midterm

Spring Break

March 19 Responses to War: Purism and the Call to Order; Dada Fer, 1-47; Marcel Duchamp, “Painting…at the Service of the Mind,” (reading packet).

March 26 The Russian Avant-Garde Fer, 87-138; Harrison, 228-249. Research Paper assignment handed out (Due April 23).

April 2 De Stijl and The Bauhaus Fer. 139-167; Harrison, 250-262. Piet Mondrian, “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art,” (reading packet).

Due: *Reading Response # 2: write a one page paper comparing Mondrian and Kandinsky’s statements on abstraction in art (for Kandinsky see the reading packet assignment for January 29th).

April 9 Surrealism Fer, 171-247; Max Ernst, “What is the Mechanism of Collage,” (1936), and “On Frottage” (1936), (reading packet).

April 16 Realisms, Responses to Fascism, Picasso’s Guernica and the Rise of American Modernism Fer, 250-263. Adolf Hitler, excerpts from the speech inaugurating the “Great Exhibition of German Art” (1937), (reading packet). Pablo Picasso, Statement on “Guernica” (1945) (reading packet).

April 23 Review Due: *Final Paper .

Course Requirements: All the following assignments must be handed in to receive a grade:

15% Comparative Museum Paper, 3-5 pages, (assignment will be handed out the week of Feb. 12 at the museum)

20% Midterm

25% Research Paper, 5-8 pages, (assignment handed out March 26).

25% Final Exam

15% Class Participation: includes 2 ungraded Reading Response assignments, regular attendance (including museum visit), participation in class discussions.