Landscape(s)

3 units

The very moment artists in Europe and the United States focused much attention on rendering some aspect of nature as landscape, the notion of art as an autonomous venture entered the aesthetic discourse. Central to landscape art that with the advent of Romanticism surpassed other genres in art such as history painting was a distinctly modernist sensibility for nature, as much informed by notions of individualism and subjectivity as by conunter-Enlightenment stances against rationality. This seminar will engage with changing notions of artistic representations of landscape(s) from the early nineteenth century to the very present. We will explore artists ranging from Gericault, Friedrich, Turner, Cole, Kandinsky, Pollock, Rothko to contemporaries such as Eliasson, Paik, Cardiff, Lockhart and Pfeiffer. Throughout the semester we will also discuss landscape theories by such diverse writers and theorists as Goethe, Schiller, Marx, Simmel, Burke, and Flusser. Prerequisite: Intro to Modern Art, a 300-level course in Art History or Aesthetics, or permission of the instructor.