UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

ARTH 201: Art and Society in the West from the to the Present

Course Instructor: Mrs Elizabeth Allen

This course is an introduction to Western Art from the late Gothic period to Modernism using original works of art and architecture in as the basis for teaching. Within this broad chronological framework students will study major examples of painting, sculpture and architecture by means of a weekly class visit to the relevant gallery, museum or site. Original examples of art encountered in each class will be limited to those that serve as case studies for the art of the relevant period. The course will focus on the principal characteristics and developments of major styles and movements within Western art as well as major themes and types of art.

The course will equip students with a basic terminology for describing, analysing and interpreting a range of works of art and architecture; relate the works of art to their social and historical contexts; consider the different functions of art; assess the role of materials used by artists and examine the changing role of the artist. These terms and concepts of art history have been developed by art historians to enable students and scholars to communicate the experiences of painting, sculpture and architecture, so they must be understood, learnt and assimilated on a weekly basis. Of course, works of art and architecture also make an aesthetic impact and this aspect of art will also be explored .and discussed.

Teaching

All classes take place in galleries, museums or on site except for the introductory class, the mid-term session, and the final two sessions (revision and final examination) which take place in the classroom. The teaching takes place in front of individual artworks, so the student must read the weekly reading assignment before attending class and must be prepared to discuss the works and respond to questions. A notebook must be kept and brought on every visit. Teaching will be primarily lecture based, although all students will be encouraged to ask questions and participate in discussions. (See below under ‘Course Assessment’.)

Required Texts

Art in History, Martin Kemp, 2014, Profile Books, London. An Introduction to Art, Charles Harrison, 2009, Yale University Press, New Haven & London. How to Read a Building, Timothy Brittain-Caitlin, 2007, Collins, London. Dictionary of Art and Artists, P. & L. Murray, 7th edition, Penguin.

Course Assessment

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The final grade for the course will be calculated as follows:

*Attendance and participation (10%)

*The notebook used for note-taking in every class. (15%)

*A review of the Visit in Week 2. (500 words) (10%)

*Short answer test in Classroom Session in Week 6. (15%)

*A short essay on contrasting attitudes to mythology in Baroque and art. (500 words) (10%)

*A comparative review between a work of art seen in a class and one seen on an independent visit to one of the galleries/sites listed in the syllabus. (500 words) (10%)

*Final Examination (30%)

Attendance and Participation (10%) Classes will start promptly at 10.00. Students are expected to actively participate in each class session by taking part in discussions and by asking and responding to questions.

Notebook (15%) A notebook must be brought to every class. This should be an A5 hardback notebook. Comprehensive notes of each visit are to be made in the notebook and accompanied by a visual reminder -sketches, photographs or postcards. The purpose of the notebook is to record information and observations and to reflect on what has been learned and experienced in class. Therefore the class notes of each visit must be completed by a paragraph length formal reflection or evaluation by the student after each visit.

The notebook will be graded by the following criteria: Depth of content Use of illustrations Quality of reflections

National Gallery Review (10%) This review of the National Gallery visit is to provide students with the opportunity to write up the first class visit to a gallery. Students will be expected to integrate the different aspects of the experience to demonstrate their understanding of the aims of the session. (500 words)

Short Answer Test (15%)

2 The test will be in two parts. The first requires students to write short answers to ten (10) questions from the key terms listed in the syllabus (up to Week 5). The second is a slide test of ten (10) images that the students are asked to identify.

Essay on Contrasting Attitudes to Mythology in Baroque and Rococo Painting (10%) This essay provides an opportunity for students to choose two paintings of mythological subject matter, one from the Baroque period and one from the Rococo period, and to compare and contrast treatment of the subject matter and the different contexts in which the paintings were produced. (500 words) (Sources see Appendix A)

A Comparative Review (10%) The comparative review is to be made between a work of art seen in a class and one seen on an independent visit to one of the galleries or sites listed as Suggested Visits in the syllabus. Each student would choose a visit and afterwards write a review in which comparisons and contrasts were made between (a) a painting/ sculpture or (b) an example of architecture. (500 words) (Sources see Appendix A)

Examination (30%)

The final examination is a written slide test of 20 images selected from the class visits. You will be asked to name the object and give its *Date *Period *Artist or Architect (if known) *Significance

The examination is unseen and will last one hour.

The following grade scale will be used: A+,A,A-,B+,B,B-,C+,C,C-,D+D,D-F.

3 Course Outline All classes start promptly.

1. Meeting Place: Classroom ULU Room 3E Introduction to the course: Classroom

This first class begins with an overview of the course and the necessary arrangements for class visits. A slide lecture will introduce some art and architectural terms, important concepts and different ways of experiencing art and architecture. The formal language of art will be used as the basis for a class exercise.

Reading: L. Schneider Adams, The Language of Art Key Terms: Formal qualities in painting– composition, plane, balance, line, modelling, tone, depth, perspective, space, plan, shape, light, colour, and texture. Style, movement, period, ‘period eye’, subject matter, genre Materials and techniques in painting and sculpture medium and support, carving, casting and modelling T. Brittain-Catlin, The Elements of Architecture, ‘How to Read a Building’, pp 6-29

2. Meeting Place: Sainsbury Wing Entrance, Visiting a National Gallery: National Gallery

The purpose of this first class visit is threefold: first to introduce the National Gallery as a public institution whose setting and architecture declare its status and authority; second, to analyse the arrangement and display of the paintings which are housed within the building; and third to examine the gallery as a site of cultural activity.

Reading: Harrison, pp.9-30, pp. 44-55; Brittain-Catlin, The Classical Tradition Key Terms: National Gallery, classical architecture, pediment, column, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders, capital, pilaster, entablature, porch, portico display, ‘schools’, chronology Suggested Visits: , Britain,

3. Meeting Place: Westminster Underground Exit A Medieval Church: Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey is a mighty and magnificent example of a church constructed in the Gothic style, which is to say that its forms are based on the pointed arch and that it was built some time between 12th and 15th centuries. The pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress enabled the masons to construct an entirely new type of building whose great height, thin walls and large expanses of glass promised the viewer a vision of Heaven on earth. In England, Gothic remained the dominant building style well into the 16th C. for secular as well as religious architecture.

Reading: Brittain-Catlin, The Gothic Tradition pp74-92; pp 94-103 Key Terms: Ground plan, nave, aisles, transept, crossing, choir, apse, altar, pointed arch, ribbed vault, fan vaulting, flying buttress, stained glass, tracery

4 Suggested Visits: Canterbury Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, St Margaret’s, Westminster, King’s College Cambridge, Houses of Parliament

4. Meeting Place: South Kensington Tube Station Renaissance Architecture and Sculpture: V&A Museum

By the beginning of the 15th century in Italy many sculptors abandoned ‘modern’ i.e. Gothic art and began to work in a vividly realistic style inspired by surviving sculptures from the Classical world. Architects also adapted the art of Roman building for contemporary requirements, such as churches, chapels, grand town houses and hospitals. This period is called ‘the Renaissance’ and can be divided into two phases, an ‘Early’ Renaissance in 15thC. and a ‘High’ Renaissance in 16thC.

Reading: Brittain-Catlin, pp52-59 Key Terms: round arch, dome, pendentive, spandrel, the Corinthian order, pilaster, fluting, plaster, pietra serena, glazed terracotta, bronze, marble. Suggested Visits: Banqueting House, , Queen’s House Greenwich,

5. Meeting Place: Archway Tube Station A Villa in the Country:

Kenwood House, situated to the north of London’s City and West End, was remodeled by Robert Adam between 1764 and 1773 in the Neoclassical style fashionable in late 18th century Britain. It is a superb example of Adam’s interpretation of the villa or county house. His direct study of ancient Roman domestic buildings provided him with source material for the architecture and interior decorative designs required for this project. The gardens were designed by Humphrey Repton as a setting for the house.

Reading: Brittain-Catlin, The Classical Tradition, pp 60-68 Key Terms: Neo-Classical, Neo-Palladian, villa, pilaster, colonnade, ‘in antis’, thermae, picturesque Suggested Visits: The Queen’s House, Greenwich, Banqueting House Whitehall

6. Meeting Place: Classroom IH Multi-Purpose Room Mid-Term Session: Classroom

A short answer test of Key Terms and concepts encountered in the course by this week will be followed by a review of students’ notebooks. The class will end with a question and answer session on the course to date.

7. Meeting Place: Sainsbury Wing Entrance, Trafalgar Square

5 Medieval & Renaissance Painting: National Gallery

The revival of large scale painting in Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries was chiefly brought about to serve the needs of Christian worship and belief. But by the beginning of the 15th century painters as well as architects and sculptors began to rediscover ancient art and, taking it as their model, to turn again to the discovery of the natural world. Although Christian subject matter remained the single most important subject matter of art there was an increased emphasis on the portrait, and classical mythology was revived to decorate secular buildings.

Reading: Harrison, pp.69-92 Key Terms: Tempera, fresco, oil paint; altarpiece, diptych, polyptych, portrait, linear perspective, aerial perspective, mythology, allegory Suggested Visits: , ,

8. Meeting Place: Sainsbury Wing Entrance, Trafalgar Square Court Art in the 17th Century: National Gallery

During the 17th century rulers throughout Europe employed the leading artists of the day to produce works of art which would enhance their status and authority. The Spanish painter Velazquez was appointed court artist to Philip IV of Spain as a young man and maintained that position for the rest of his life. The Flemish painter Van Dyck produced so many portraits of Charles I and his court that they have defined its image and Rubens exercised both his painting and his diplomatic skills in the cause of peace in several countries, especially England and Spain.

Reading: Extracts: Ancient Myths, a Selection Key Terms: Baroque, illusionism, mythology, allegory, protocol, the sitter, drapery, attribute, the court, the court portrait Suggested Visits: Banqueting House, Whitehall, Queen’s House, Greenwich, , Hampton Court

9. Meeting Place: Wallace Collection Manchester Square Rococo Art in the Wallace Collection

During the early decades of the 18th century artists in Paris began to respond to a new requirement that decorative interiors and paintings should be informal, apparently spontaneous, and designed to appeal to the eye rather than the intellect. Much use was made of asymmetry, curves and counter-curves. Subject matter was drawn from the worlds of the theatre, dance, and salon, and the gods and goddesses of mythology were depicted in a lighthearted way. Rooms were often completed with carved paneling, elaborate furniture and luxurious to create the ‘Rococo interior’

Reading: As above Key Terms: Rococo, C-curves, S-curves, asymmetry, mythology, salon/Salon, ‘fete galante’, Orientalism Suggested Visits: National Gallery

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10. Meeting Place: Sainsbury Wing Entrance, Trafalgar Square Painting Landscape: National Gallery

The depiction of landscape in Western art is first found as the background in 15th century Renaissance painting. It was not until the 17th century that painters in both Rome and Holland established landscape painting as an independent genre. During the 19th century Constable and Turner in England developed landscape into the most modern form of personal expression. Later in the century the Impressionists in France aimed to capture their immediate perceptions of nature and modern life and throw them onto the canvas.

Reading: E. Langmuir, Landscape [extract] pp. 54-71 Key Terms: Genre, land/landscape, topography, ideal, real, linear perspective, spectator’s point of view, light, aerial perspective, framing device Suggested Visits: Courtauld Gallery, ,

11. Meeting Place: Blackfriars Tube Station Endless Change: Art from Modernism to the Present Day: Tate Modern

The first decade of the twentieth century was one of the most radical in all art. It was a period of daring experimentation, one in which artists jettisoned traditional means of representing the world and invented bolder, more shocking ways of creating art. Out went the use of perspective, out went naturalistic colour: a series of movements or ‘isms’ such as Cubism, Abstraction, and Surrealism, succeeded each other and rapidly became international. By the 1970s a new generation of artists challenged Modernism with the use of Installation Art, Conceptual Art, multi-media etc, a practice which continues to the present day.

Reading: Harrison, pp.130-150, Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New, [extract] Key Terms: Modernism: Cubism. Abstraction, Surrealism ‘the primitive’, arbitrary colour, faceting, simultaneity Post-Modernism, Contemporary Art, installation Suggested Visits: Tate Britain

12. Review: Classroom: IH Multi-Purpose Classroom

13. Final Examination Classroom: ULU Multi-Purpose Room 2E

7 Appendix A

1. The use of sources in this course a. All written work submitted for assessment must be accompanied by a bibliography. b. You may NOT cut and paste ANY text from a website. c. You may paraphrase information from books (but NOT from websites), but the source, including the specific page, must be footnoted. d. The source, including page number, of any information you did not know when you entered this class must be footnoted.

PLAGIARISM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. THESE ASSIGNMENTS ARE TO BE YOUR OWN ORIGINAL WORK.

2. The description of the assignments

Review of Week 2 Class and Comparative Review These assignments are intended to test your powers of observation, analysis and reflection when visiting a gallery/site. Students will be provided with a worksheet of specific questions to guide them through the experience but of course the assignment also offers the student the opportunity to include relevant personal observations, photographs and other visual material.

Essay Paper The essay paper set in the second half of the semester is intended to demonstrate the ability to compare and contrast responses to mythology in two different historical contexts .A brief bibliography will be distributed in the class.

Notebook The notebook is a comprehensive document that includes all class notes as well as visual material. The notebook must be brought to every class and kept up to date on a weekly basis. Visual material should be included in the notebook and should include sketches, photos, postcards, and/or museum/gallery material. The use of visual material from the internet is not permitted.

Academic Honesty and Plagiarism Students are responsible for knowing, understanding, and following the University’s policy on academic honesty and plagiarism.(See “University of Maryland, College Park, Code of Academic Integrity, “ Undergraduate Catalog, 2005/06, p.45). The following is a quotation from the University’s “Code of Academic Integrity,” on-line at www.studenthonorcouncil.umd.edu/code.html#definitions:

Introduction The University is an academic community. Its fundamental purpose is the pursuit of knowledge. Like all other communities, the University can function properly only if its members adhere to clearly established goals and values. Essential to the fundamental purpose of the University is the commitment to the principles of truth and academic honesty. Accordingly, The Code of Academic Integrity is designed to ensure that the principle of academic honesty is upheld. While all members of the

8 University share this responsibility, The Code of Academic Integrity is designed so that special responsibility for upholding the principle of academic honesty lies with the students.

Definitions ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: any of the following acts, when committed by a student, shall constitute academic dishonesty: (a) CHEATING: intentionally using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise. (b) FABRICATION: intentional and unauthorized falsification or invention of any information r citation in an academic exercise. (c) FACILITATING ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to violate any provision of this Code. (d) PLAGIARISM: intentionally or knowingly representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own in any academic exercise.

Responsibility to Report Academic Dishonesty Academic dishonesty is a corrosive force in the academic life of a university. It jeopardizes the quality of education and depreciates the genuine achievements of others. It is, without reservation, a responsibility of all members of the campus community to actively deter it. Apathy or acquiescence in the presence of academic dishonesty is not a neutral act. Histories of institutions demonstrate that a laissez-faire response will reinforce, perpetuate and enlarge the scope of such misconduct. Institutional reputations for academic dishonesty are regrettable aspects of modern education. These reputations become self-fulfilling and grow, unless vigorously challenged by students and faculty alike.

All members of the University community, students, faculty, and staff share the responsibility and authority to challenge and make known acts of apparent dishonesty. The Student Honors Council asks that the following statement be included on syllabi: “The University of Maryland, College Park has a nationally recognized Code of Academic Integrity, administered by the Student Honor Council. This Code sets standards for academic integrity at Maryland for all undergraduate and graduate students. As a student you are responsible for upholding these standards for this course. It is very important for you to be aware of the consequences of cheating, fabrication, facilitation, and plagiarism. For more information on the Code of Academic Integrity or the Student Honor Council, please visit http://www.shc.umd.edu.

To further exhibit your commitment to academic integrity, remember to sign the Honor Pledge on all examinations and assignments: ‘I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this examination (assignment).’

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