Women, Art and Culture: Early Modern to Contemporary

3 units

In this lecture and discussion course, we will analyze the broad theme of women in the arts-as architects, artists, designers and patrons-in order to expand our ideas of what art can be and who can make it. Setting the stage with medieval craftswomen, we will begin in earnest with female artists during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, when the idea of the male artist-genius emerged. As we survey periods leading up to the contemporary art of the present, we will examine a wide range of creative production by diverse women. Artists include: Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Rosa Bonheur, Mary Cassatt, Paul Modersohn-Becker, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson, Cindy Sherman and Shirin Neshat. Of particular interest will be how women have responded to and reinvented stereotypical images of women in art and in the media.