Institut de Langue et de Culture Française Spring Semester 2017 Paris, World Arts Capital PE Perrier de La Bâthie / [email protected] Paris, World Capital of Arts and Architecture From the 17th through the 20th centuries Since the reign of Louis XIV until the mid-20th century, Paris had held the role of World Capital of Arts. For three centuries, the City of Light was the place of the most audacious and innovative artistic advances, focusing on itself the attention of the whole world. This survey course offers students a wide panorama on the evolution of arts and architecture in France and more particularly in Paris, from the beginning of the 17th century to nowadays. The streets of the French capital still preserve the tracks of its glorious history through its buildings, its town planning and its great collections of painting, sculpture and decorative arts. As an incubator of modernity, Paris saw the rising of a new epoch governed – for better or worse – by faith in progress and reason. As literature and science, art participated in the transformations of society, being surely its more accurate reflection. Since the French Revolution, art have accompanied political and social changes, opened to the contestation of academic practice, and led to an artistic and architectural avant-garde driven to depict contemporary experience and to develop new representational means. Creators, by their plastic experiments and their creativity, give the definitive boost to a modern aesthetics and new references. After the trauma of both World War and the American economic and cultural new hegemony, appeared a new artistic order, where artists confronted with mass-consumer society, challenging an insane post-war modernity. PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH The class will pay special attention to the notion of modernity, defining it through a large corpus of painting, sculpture and architecture. Each class will be the occasion to visit a monument or a site, showing the way Paris has been built century after century. An introduction of art history methodology and architectural analysis is destined to help students recognize and classify functions and styles. We will discuss artistic conditions, as well as the social and economic context. Students will be encouraged to compare academic buildings to more daring works in order to come to an understanding of the issues posed by both. More particularly it proposes to look at architectures whose functions, materials, colors and forms were relevant to modernity. Upon completion of the course, students will have acquired an understanding of the historic conditions that have come to define this changing world and an ability to critically reflect upon the aesthetic and intellectual legacies of developments in art and architecture over the Parisian 19th and 20th centuries. To take advantage of being in Paris, and to study arts and architectures in their context rather than reproductions as often as convenient, most of the class hours will be spent on site. Please dress in an adapted way for the weather conditions (warm clothes, umbrella, comfortable shoes, etc.) and have your French student card / Passport and Visa (or a photocopy showing you birthdate and your visa) with you at all times. Students will also be assigned weekly field studies for personal working sessions ASSIGNEMENTS and GRADING POLICY · Class Final Exam (50 %) - > written examination with a multichoice test and an essay · Oral Presentation (30 %) - > oral description and analysis of a freely chosen building · Class participation (20 %) SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY Collective Work. Janson’s History of Art. New York: Pearson, 2006. GOMBRICH, Ernst. The Story of Art. London: Phaidon Press, 2006. HOME, Alistair. Seven Ages of Paris. New York: Random House, 2004. HARRISON, Charles. WOOD, Paul. Art in Theory 1815-1900. An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. HARRISON, Charles. WOOD, Paul. Art in Theory 1900-1990. An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992. HARVEY, David. Paris, Capital of Modernity. London: Routledge, 2005. HIGONNET, Patrice. Paris : Capital of the World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. HUSSEY, Andrew. Paris: The Secret History. New York: Bloomsbury, 2006. JONES, Colin. The Biography of a City. London: Penguin, 2004. SUTCLIFFE, Anthony. Paris: An Architectural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. WEBER, Eugen. France, Fin de Siècle. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2006. BAUDELAIRE, Charles. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. London: Phaidon Press, 1995. APOLLINAIRE, Guillaume. Apollinaire on Arts: Essays and Reviews 1902-1918. New York: Viking Press, 1972. BRETON, André. Manifesto of Surrealism. Chicago: The University of Michigan Press, 1972. Selected articles given during the class. Musée du Louvre – Online Collection. On <http://www.louvre.fr/en/homepage>. Musée d’Orsay – Online Collection. On <http://www.musee- orsay.fr/en/collections/overview.html>. Centre Pompidou – Virtual Museum Online. On <http://www.centrepompidou.fr/en>. CONTACT INFORMATION If you have any question on the class program or the bibliography, please contact me! Pierre-Emmanuel PERRIER de La BÂTHIE, associate professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris and Ph.D student at the Ecole du Louvre, pe.delabathie(at)icp.fr. COURSE SCHEDULE Session 1: Introduction Class: Discussing Arts and Architecture – February 15th, 2017 Classroom course After a short introduction on the notion of modernity, we will take a moment to study briefly French History since the beginning of the 17th century, what is a necessary background to understand arts and architecture. We will also have a specific focus on the vocabulary of the description of a work of art and a building. Session 2: The Sun King – February 22th, 2017 Visit to the Château de Versailles – Meeting point: Versailles Chateau RER station (line C), in front of the McDonalds Entering in one of the most visited monument in France, we will examine how Louis XIV managed to make this Palace the perfect realization of his politic views. After visiting his personal apartments, we shall have a study walk in the gardens, expression of the King’s power, and which served as a model for European landscapist during the following centuries. Individual Visits: Petit Trianon, Grand Trianon, hameau de la Reine Session 3: Along the Paris Meridian: Historicism and Architecture – March 1st, 2017 Walking Tour of 1st and 5th arrondissements – Meeting point: ICP By following the Paris Meridian, from the church Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes up to the Saint-Sulpice place, then by walking from the Luxembourg garden and the Pantheon down to Notre-Dame and the Sainte- Chapelle, we will learn how the architecture of the 17th and the 19th centuries took inspiration in History to legitimate the greatness of the French nation. Field Studies: église Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes, place Saint-Sulpice, place de l’Odéon, palais et jardin du Luxembourg, observatoire de Paris, Panthéon, bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Sorbonne, musée de Cluny, cathédrale Notre-Dame, palais de Justice Individual Visits: église Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, Sainte-Chapelle, église Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, Pont-Neuf Session 4: The Louvre – March 8th, 2017 Visit of the Louvre – Meeting Point: ICP We will go up to the Musée du Louvre to admire the masterpieces it contains, paying special attentions to the canvas of the first half of the 19th century. We also will take advantage to speak about the construction of the building, from the end of the 12th century through nowadays. Individual Visits: jardin des Tuileries, ponts des arts, école nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, musée Delacroix, musée de la vie romantique Session 5: Hausmannized Paris – March 15th, 2017 Walking Tour of 8th and 9th arrondissements – Meeting Point: In front of the Palais Royal From the rue de Rivoli up to the church Saint-Augustin, we will admire great architectural examples of the First and the Second Empire, and understand how Paris had been modernized during the 19th century. Our class will end in the Parc Monceau, model of a new type of garden. Field Studies: Palais Royal, place des Victoires, galerie Vivienne, Bourse, opéra Garnier, place Vendôme, place de la Concorde, église de La Madeleine, chapelle expiatoire, église Saint-Augustin, parc Monceau Individual Visits: gare Saint-Lazare, gare du Nord, passages Choiseul, Brady ou du Caire, Printemps & Galeries Lafayette Session 6: Impressionism and Post-Impressionism Masterpieces – March 22nd, 2017 Visit of the Musée d’Orsay and its neighbourhood – Meeting Point: ICP After a little tour around the museum, admiring buildings of different types and different periods, we will explore the rich collection of Orsay discovering the great masterpieces of realist, impressionist and post-impressionist painting. Field Studies: hôtel de Salm, pont Jefferson, palais Bourbon, basilique Sainte-Clotilde, musée d’Orsay Individual Visits: musée Gustave Moreau, musée de l’Orangerie, musée Marmottan Session 7: World Fairs in Paris – March 29th, 2017 Walking Tour of 7th and 8th arrondissements and visit to the Petit Palais – Meeting Point: ICP After a little speech about the role of World Fairs in the development of arts during the second half of the 19th century, we will have a walk on the former grounds in which took place the Parisian World Fairs (from 1855 until 1937). We will conclude the session by a visit to the permanent collections of the Petit Palais, Fine Arts Museum of the City, where remain ignored masterpieces. Field Studies: fontaine de la rue Grenelle, musée Rodin, les Invalides, tour Eiffel, champs de Mars, palais de Tokyo, Grand Palais, Petit Palais Individual Visits: musée Rodin de Meudon, musée Bourdelle, palais Chaillot (session 12) Session 8: The Empire of Death – April 5th, 2017 Montparnasse Cemetery and the Catacombs – Meeting point: place du colonel Rol-Tanguy, in front of the entry of the Catacombs During this particular class, we shall be interested in Paris Underground, visiting the Montparnasse Cemetery, the Catacombs in Denfert-Rochereau and finishing with the Sewers Museum.