Nineteenth-Century European Art

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This seminar reconsiders 19th-century Western European painting within the context of the social, political, and intellectual ferment that shaped the continent - primarily, the political revolutions and the rise of industrial capitalism and the middle class in France, England, and Germany. Each week we will examine a specific set of concepts, historical ruptures, and major figures whose work ushered in the modernist era. These include artists associated with Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Symbolism. The themes of the course will thus address the relationships between tradition and formal innovation; gender and representation; the public and private spheres; and notions of the center and the periphery. Course requirements include a museum visit to The Art Institute of Chicago and the DVT Planetarium on campus.