Western Modern Art from the Enlightenment until Today

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course teaches skills of looking at and understanding visual art with a focus on modern art made in Europe and North America from the 18th through the 21st century. Students will learn about movements such as Impressionism, Surrealism, and Pop; artists including Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Jenny Holzer; and issues central to the relationship between art and modernity: definitions of the self and identity, the emergences of the metropolis and the art market, the "real" and the invention of photography, meanings of abstraction and non-traditional materials, the political ambitions of the avant-garde, consumption and media. Discussion sections center around original artworks in the Smart Museum of Art and the University's Public Art and Special Collections.