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Home , Aestheticism, Decadence, Decadent movement, Victorian painting

ARTHI 5245

Bad Moderns: , ,

Professor David Getsy Department of History, Theory, and Criticism School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Fall 2008 Graduate Seminar Tuesdays 6-9pm; MC 919 e-mail: [email protected] office: MC 710 / office hours by appointment

COURSE DESCRIPTION This seminar focuses on art-historical methodologies through case studies devoted to alternative modern movements in the late nineteenth century. We examine tendencies in art and criticism that do not seem to fit into modernist narratives based on an evolution of styles. Nevertheless, they made contributions to the foundations of in the twentieth century. The critical foundations of Aestheticism, Symbolism, and Decadence each set the stage for subsequent debates, but they have often proven resistant to the priorities of traditional . By contrast, we focus on recent books and exhibitions that seek to find different modes of evaluation for this work. Readings include both primary texts and current scholarship that sees in these alternatives to a set of contemporary and 'postmodern' concerns. A guiding question for the seminar is why many contemporary artists have begun looking back to the art associated with these tendencies and how these critical texts and artworks (as well as the recent methodologies developed to study them anew) can be usefully deployed in the analysis of current art practice.

COURSE STRUCTURE This is a reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar. Each three-hour session will focus on presentations and discussions of assigned texts. Students will be evaluated on the basis of their preparation, attendance, critical engagement with course themes, and research projects. We will take advantage of the relevant holdings of the Art Institute of Chicago and special exhibitions in the Chicago area.

There is one required textbook for the course: , Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007). Other readings will be made available on the Docutek electronic reserve system (docutek.artic.edu/eres) or are available from JSTOR, Project Muse, or posted as ‘Files’ on the course homepage on the SAIC Portal, where indicated. Students are expected to undertake substantial independent research for course presentations and the final paper. The resources of the Ryerson and Flaxman Libraries should be consulted regularly. For web resources, see below.

Students are expected to have read over the summer the following texts: Joris-Karl Huysmans, A rebours (Against Nature); , Picture of Dorian Gray; and , (Flowers of Evil). 2

EVALUATION 1. ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION All students are expected to attend class meetings prepared to discuss the required readings. This is a discussion-based class, and all students should regularly and productively contribute to class discussions. Attendance at all class meetings is essential. More than two missed classes may be grounds for a “no credit.”

2. LEADING COURSE DISCUSSION Each week, teams of seminar participants will lead the discussion of the required readings. This should not be organized as a summary of the readings. Instead, it should be framed around discussion questions posed to . Teams are expected to prepare all visual materials and conduct background research necessary to lead course discussion.

For each presentation, students will be required to prepare Images prepared as a Powerpoint/Keynote document. Your image presentation must be fully-prepared and ready to go. The professionalism of your presentations will be considered as part of the evaluation of your work. Do not expect to just grab things off of Google Image at the last minute or in class.

3. ARTIST PRESENTATIONS Students will be assigned in different teams to prepare a short (15 minute) presentation on the assigned artist comparison. This presentation should attempt to link the contemporary artist with course themes for that week. Images should be prepared as outlined above at #2.

4. RESEARCH PROJECT All students will engage in independent, original research on a topic relevant to the course themes. Projects should be distinct from research or work done for other classes. There are four stages to your research project: A. Topic approval: A one-paragraph topic prospectus must be submitted in class on 7 October or before. B. Preliminary draft: A 2500-word (10-page) draft of your paper must be submitted by 31 October at 4.00pm. This draft will be returned to you before your oral presentations. C. Oral research presentation: An oral presentation and discussion of 45 minutes, with a full Powerpoint/Keynote. Presentations should be 30 minutes and allow for 15 minutes of discussion D. Final paper: The final research paper should be submitted by 4pm on Friday, 12 December. It should expand upon the work done and feedback received on the preliminary draft and the oral presentation. Research papers should be approximately 5000-6000 words (20-25 pages) for graduate students in Art History, Theory, and Criticism; Visual and Critical Studies; and Administration and Policy. For students from other departments, papers should be 4000 words (16 pages). All assignments should be submitted as hard copies with all illustrations. They may be turned in during class or to MC 606. Papers should be standard, double-spaced typed pages. Word counts listed above are exclusive of bibliography, captions, and endnotes. Bibliographies must contain at least 15 items from valid sources. Websites and any form of encyclopedia entry are not acceptable sources. Books, journal articles, and online full- text articles from library indices and databases are acceptable sources.

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ELECTRONIC AND LIBRARY RESOURCES SAIC Portal http://go.artic.edu Docutek (e-reserves) http://docutek.artic.edu course password: bad Lecture images on MDID http://mdid.artic.edu id + password = artic acct. Research Flaxman Resources for Art History http://library.saic.edu/arthistory Flaxman integrate search engine http://search3.webfeat.org/wf3_artic.html Ryerson full-text journals listing http://kx2bf3kp7c.search.serialssolutions.com/ Flaxman databases https://startit.artic.edu/helpdesk/webproxy/databaselist.html • Grove Dictionary of Art • JSTOR (full-text journals) • Project MUSE (full-text journals) • ARTSTOR image and art database NOTE: To use the above research sites from off-campus, you will have to sign on to the proxy server. To find out how to set up your computer to prompt for this access, log on to the Portal, and under the ‘Academic Resources’ tab go to the StartIt.Artic pages. From there, you can go to https://startit.artic.edu/helpdesk/webproxy/index.shtml for information on off-campus access.

DIFFERENTLY- ABLED STUDENTS Any students with exceptional needs or concerns (including 'invisible' difficulties such as chronic diseases, learning disabilities, or psychiatric complications) are encouraged to make an appointment with the professor to discuss these issues by the end of the second week of the term so that appropriate accommodations can be arranged. Any student in need of academic adjustments or accommodations because of a disability should first contact SAIC's Disability and Learning Resource Center (DLRC), formerly Services for Students with Disabilities. The Disability and Learning Resource Center can be reached by phone at 312.499.4278 or by sending an email to [email protected]. DLRC will review the student's disability documentation and will work with the student to determine reasonable accommodations. DLRC will then provide the student with a letter outlining approved accommodations. This letter must be presented to the instructor before any accommodations will be implemented.

PLAGIARISM The School of the Art Institute of Chicago prohibits academic misconduct, which includes "both plagiarism and cheating, and may consist of the submission of the work of another as one's own; unauthorized assistance on a test or assignment; submission of the same work for more than one class without the knowledge and consent of all instructors; or the failure to properly cite texts or ideas from other sources" (Students' Rights and Responsibilities, Student Handbook, http://www.saic.edu/pdf/life/pdf_files/rights.pdf).

Plagiarism is a form of intellectual theft. One can plagiarize even if one does not intend to. The penalty for plagiarizing may range from failure on the specific plagiarized assignment to failure in the class. Repeat offenses can lead to disciplinary action, which could include suspension or expulsion from the School. The Faculty Senate Student Life Subcommittee has prepared a 28-page handbook entitled Plagiarism: How to Recognize It and Avoid It. The document is available online on at http://www.saic.edu/webspaces/portal/library/plagiarism_packet.pdf.

The final page of the handbook has been designed as a one-page handout, When to Give Credit. It is available online in PDF format at http://www.saic.edu/webspaces/portal/library/plagiarism_credit.pdf. Library staff has also prepared a two-page synopsis of the committee's handbook, designed as a handout for students. Avoid Plagiarism: Quick Guide, is available at http://www.saic.edu/webspaces/portal/library/plagiarism.pdf

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COURSE CALENDAR Please note: due to the dates of the “Ah… Decadence” exhibition in the Sullivan Galleries, the seminar will proceed out of strict chronological order, dealing with Decadence before its Aestheticist precedents.

2 September 2008 INTRODUCTION: AESTHETICISM AND DECADENCE IN MODERNIST NARRATIVES Required reading 1. , “Towards a Newer Laocoon” [1940] in Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism, ed. John O’Brian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 23-38.

9 September DECADENCE I: AND A RT Required reading 1. Passages on Gustave Moreau from Huysmans’s A rebours 2. , “The in Literature” [1893, excerpt] in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History c.1880- 1900, ed. Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 104-11. 3. Matei Calinescu, “The Idea of Decadence” [excerpts “Versions of Decadence” and “The Decadent Euphoria”], Faces of Modernity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 151-57 and 171-78 4. Charles Bernheimer, “Unknowning Decadence,” in Perennial Decay: On the and Politics of Decadence, ed. Liz Constable, Dennis Denisoff, and Matthew Potolsky (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 50-64. 5. Douglas Druick, “Moreau’s Symbolist ,” in Geveviève Lacambre, Gustave Moreau: Between Epic and Dream, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1999), 33-39. 6. Sally Ledger, “Wilde Women and : The Sexual Politics of Aestheticism and Decadence,” in Transition, 1880-1920 50.1 (2007): 5-26. PROJECT MUSE 7. Emily Apter, “Spaces of the Demimonde/Subcultures of Decadence: 1890-1990,” in Perennial Decay: On the Aesthetics and Politics of Decadence, ed. Liz Constable, Dennis Denisoff, and Matthew Potolsky (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 142-56. Further reference • “Decadence and Décadisme: A rebours and Afterward,” in Decadence and the Making of Modernism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), 82-118. • Joseph Bristow, “‘Sterile Ecstasies’: The Perversity of the Decadent Movement” in The Endings of Epochs, ed. Laurel Brake ((Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), 65-88 [re: Arthur Symons] • Joan Navarre, “ and a Platonic Lament: Beardsley’s Portrayal of a Parallel Story in Wilde’s ,” English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 51.2 (2008): 152-63. PROJECT MUSE • Bridget Elliot, “Covent Garden Follies: Beardsley’s Masquerade Images of Posers and Voyeurs,” Oxford Art Journal 9.1 (1986): 38-48. JSTOR Artist comparison • Paul McCarthy

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16 September DECADENCE II: EVOLUTION AND Required reading 1. Passages on from Huysmans’s A rebours. 2. Primary texts on Degeneration by H. G. Wells, , William James, and George Bernard Shaw from The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History c.1880-1900, ed. Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1-24. 3. T. H. Huxley, from Evolution and Ethics, in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History c.1880-1900, ed. Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 238-42. 4. Whitney Davis, “Decadence and the Organic Metaphor,” Representations 89 (Winter 2005): 131-49. PORTAL 5. Marina van Zuylen, “The Secret Life of Monsters,” in Jodi Hauptman, Beyond the Visible: The Art of Odilon Redon, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005), 57-73. Further reference • Richard Dellamora, “Productive Decadence: ‘The Queer Comradeship of Outlawed Thought’: Vernon Lee, Max Nordau, and Oscar Wilde,” New Literary History 35.4 (2004): 529-46. • Linda Dowling, “The Decadent and the New Woman in the 1890’s,” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 33.4 (March 1979): 434-53. JSTOR Artist comparison • Jake and Dinos Chapman

23 September AND THE LEGACY OF DECADENCE Site visit to the exhibition “Ah… Decadence” at the Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago with exhibition walk-through with Lisa Wainwright, Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism and Interim Dean of Faculty.  Class will meet in the Sullivan Galleries, 7th floor, 33 S. State St. Required reading 1. Lisa Wainwright, Ah…Decadence, exh. cat. (Chicago: School of the Art Institute of Chicago Sullivan Galleries, 2008)

30 September AESTHETICISM I: CLASSICIST AESTHETICISM Required reading 1. Prettejohn, “Albert Moore,” 101-27 2. Prettejohn, “The of ,” 130-61 3. David Getsy, “Frederic Leighton’s Athlete Wrestling with a Python and the Theory of the Sculptural Encounter,” in Body Doubles: in Britain, 1877-1905 (Yale University Press, 2004), 15-42. 4. David Peters Corbett, “Aestheticism and Unmediation: Moore, Leighton, Watts, Whistler,” in The World in Paint: Modern Art and Visuality in England, 1848-1914 (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), 83-127. 5. Jason Edwards, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Aesthete: Perseus Arming and ‘Grosvenor’ Aestheticism, c.1882,” in Alfred Gilbert’s Aestheticism: Gilbert Amongst Whistler, Wilde, Leighton, Pater and Burne-Jones (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 19-55. 6

Further reference • Jason Edwards, “Icarus: ‘Academic’ Aestheticism at Leighton and Burlington House, c.1884,” in Alfred Gilbert’s Aestheticism: Gilbert Amongst Whistler, Wilde, Leighton, Pater and Burne-Jones (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 57-92 • Stephen Jones, “Attic Attitudes: Leighton and Aesthetic Philosophy,” History Today 37 (June 1987): 31-37. • Elizabeth Prettejohn, "The Modernism of Frederic Leighton," in English Art 1860-1914: Modern Artists and Identity, ed. David Peters Corbett and Lara Perry (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 31-48, 221-5. • Elizabeth Prettejohn, "Lawrence Alma-Tadema and the Modern City of ," Art Bulletin 84.1 (2002): 115-29. • Elizabeth Prettejohn, "Aestheticising ." In Frederic Leighton: Antiquity, , Modernity, edited by Tim Barringer and Elizabeth Prettejohn, 89-110. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. Artist comparison • Vanessa Beecroft

7 October AESTHETICISM II: JAMES MCNEIL WHISTLER Required reading 1. James McNeil Whistler, “Ten O’Clock” [1885], reprinted in Art in Theory: 1815-1900, ed. Charles Harrison, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger (London: Blackwell, 1998), 838-847. 2. Oscar Wilde, “Mr. Whistler’s Ten O’Clock,” in The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde, ed. Richard Ellman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 13-16. 3. Prettejohn, “James McNeil Whistler,” 163-99. 4. Transcript of the Whistler v. Ruskin Trial (1877) and commentary in Linda Merrill, A Pot of Paint: Aesthetics on Trial in Whistler v. Ruskin (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 9-56, 135-97. 5. Shearer West, “Laughter and the Whistler/Ruskin Trial,” Journal of Victorian 12.1 (2007): 42-63. PROJECT MUSE Further reference • Robin Spencer, “Whistler, Swinburne, and Art for Art’s Sake,” in After the Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Aestheticism in Victorian England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 59-89. • Andrew Stephenson, “Refashioning Modern Masculinity: Whistler, Aestheticism, and National Identity,” in English Art 1860-1914: Modern Artists and Identity, ed. David Peters Corbett and Lara Perry (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 133-49. • Robert Slifkin, “James Whistler as the Invisible Man: Anti- Aestheticism and Artistic Vision,” Oxford Art Journal 29.1 (2006): 53-75. Artist comparison • Jeff Koons DEADLINE FOR RESEARCH PAPER TOPICS

 9 October: SPECIAL MUSEUM SESSION on WHISTLER Thursday, 9 October, 10.30am – 12.00pm Art Institute of Chicago Curator of Prints and Drawings Martha Tedeschi will lead a discussion of works by Whistler in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Class will meet promptly at 10.30 in the Prints and Drawings Study Center on the ground floor of the AIC 7

14 October AESTHETICISM III: W ALTER P ATER AND CONTEMPORARY A RT Required reading 1. , “Preface,” “Leonardo da Vinci,” “The School of Giorgione,” and “Conclusion,” The Renaissance, 1873 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), xxix-xxxiii, 63-98, 150-53. 2. Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Walter Pater,” 255-81 3. Rachel Teukolsky, “The Politics of Formalist Art Criticism: Pater’s ‘School of Giorgione’,” in Walter Pater: Transparencies of Desire, ed. Laurel Brake, Lesley Higgins, and Carolyn Williams (Greensboro: ELT Press, 2002), 151-69 4. Angela Leighton, “Aesthetic Conditions: Returning to Pater,” in Walter Pater: Transparencies of Desire, ed. Laurel Brake, Lesley Higgins, and Carolyn Williams (Greensboro: ELT Press, 2002), 12-23. 5. Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Walter Pater and Aesthetic Painting,” in After the Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Aestheticism in Victorian England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 36-58. Further reference • Leslie Higgins, “No Time for Pater: The Silenced Other of Masculinist Modernism,” in Walter Pater: Transparencies of Desire, ed. Laurel Brake, Lesley Higgins, and Carolyn Williams (Greensboro: ELT Press, 2002), 37-54 • Richard Dellamora, Masculine Desire: The Sexual Politics of Victorian Aestheticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). • Laurel Brake and Ian Small, eds., Pater in the 1990s (Greensboro: ELT Press, 1991) Artist comparison • Kehinde Wiley

21 October OSCAR WILDE Required reading 1. Review the “Preface” to Picture of Dorian Gray 2. Oscar Wilde, letters in defense of The Picture of Dorian Gray [1890] reprinted in The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde, ed. Richard Ellman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 237-48. 2. Oscar Wilde, “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young,” in The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde, ed. Richard Ellman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 433-34. PORTAL 3. Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under ” [excerpt] in The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History c.1880-1900, ed. Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 4. Alan Sinfield, “Aestheticism and Decadence,” in The Wilde Century: Effiminacy, Oscar Wilde, and the Queer Moment (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 84-108 5. Paul Fortunato, “Wildean Philosophy with a Needle and Thread: Consumer Fashion at the Origins of Modernist Aesthetics,” College Literature 34.3 (2007): 37-53. PROJECT MUSE 6. Ed Cohen, “Posing the Question: Wilde, Wit, and the Ways of Man,” in Performance and Cultural Politics, ed. Elin Diamond (New York: Routledge, 19996), 35-47. PORTAL 8

Further reference • John Paul Riquelme, “Oscar Wilde’s Aesthetic Gothic: Walter Pater, Dark Enlightenment, and the Picture of Dorian Gray,” Modern Fiction Studies 46.3 (2000): 609-31. PROJECT MUSE Artist comparison • Damien Hirst

 23 OCTOBER: REQUIRED OUT-OF-CLASS LECTURE: LINDA NOCHLIN Thursday, 23 October, 6pm, Rubloff Auditorium, Art Institute of Chicago Linda Nochlin presents the 20th-anniversary Norma U. Lifton Lecture in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism: “Courbet Now”

28 October PERFORMANCES & PROJECTIONS: T HE , THE FEMME FATALE, AND THE ANDROGYNE Required reading 1. Andrew Stephenson, “Precarious Poses: The Problem of Artistic Visibility and its Homosocial Performances in Late-Nineteenth- Century London,” Visual Culture in Britain 8.1 (2007): 73-103. PORTAL 2. Colin Cruise, “Versions of the Annunciation: Wilde’s Aestheticism and the Message of ,” in After the Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Aestheticism in Victorian England, ed. Elizabeth Prettejohn (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 167-87. 3. Patricia Mathews, “Gendered Bodies I: Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Fear of Woman” in Passionate Discontent: , Gender, and French Symbolist Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 86-125 4. Elizabeth K. Menon, Evil by Design: The Creation and Marketing of the Femme Fatale (University of Illinois Press, 2006), excerpts TBA Further reference • Jonathan Shirland, “‘A Singularity of Appearance Counts Doubly in a Democracy of Clothes’: Whistler, Fancy Dress and the Camping of Artists’ Dress in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Visual Culture in Britain 8.1 (2007): 15-35 Artist comparison • Grayson Perry 10-PAGE DRAFTS OF RESEARCH PAPERS DUE FRIDAY 31 OCTOBER, 4pm

4 November ALTERNATIVE S YMBOLISMS: E DVARD MUNCH, CAMILLE CLAUDEL, AND AUGUSTE RODIN Guest lecture by Jay Clarke, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, Art Institute of Chicago Required reading 1. Jay A. Clarke, “Munch’s Critical Reception in the 1890s and His ‘Place” in History,” in Seeing and Beyond: Essays on Eighteenth- to Twenty-First-Century Art in Honor of Kermit S. Champa (New York, 2005). 2. Patricia Mathews, “The Gender of Creativity: Women, Pathology, and Camille Claudel,” and “Symbolist Women Artists: Practice and Reception” [excerpt] in Passionate Discontent: Creativity, Gender, and French Symbolist Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 64-85, 134-52. 3. Deborah Silverman, “Auguste Rodin: Artisanal Tradition and Neurotic Tension,” in in fin-de-siècle France: Politics, Psychology, and (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 243-69. 9

4. Claudine Mitchell, “Rodin and the Baudelairian Legacy: Arthur Symons on the Sculptor as Poet,” in Rodin: The Zola of Sculpture, ed. Claudine Mitchell (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 73-94. Artist comparison • Maurizio Cattelan

11 November Presentations

18 November Presentations

25 November Presentations

2 December CRITIQUE WEEK / No class

9 December Presentations

FINAL RESEARCH PAPERS DUE IN CLASS (exception: presenters on 9 December must turn in papers by 12 December, 4pm)