The Fine Line Between Death & the Devil

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course explores the evolution of intaglio printmaking, a technique used to create original works of art, reproductions, and illustrations beginning in the fifteenth century and continuing to today. Using the collection of prints from the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, students will become acquainted with master printmakers, such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Piranesi, Degas, Manet, Mary Cassatt, Whistler, and others to serve as inspiration and instruction of their own work. After an introduction to engraving (Albrecht Dürer's Knight, Death and the Devil), the focus will be on the development of etching in the seventeenth century exemplified by Rembrandt's prints; innovations of the medium (color) and its subsequent decline in the eighteenth century; its revival in the nineteenth century emulating Rembrandt as an emblem of the avant-garde; followed by a period of boundary-busting experimentation in the twentieth century. Informed by these historical examples, students will explore traditional intaglio approaches and end with more contemporary photographic techniques in the development of their own portfolio expressing their own artistic vision.