Exoticism and Primitivism in Modern Art

3 units

An interdisciplinary investigation of the development of exoticism and primitivism in European and American Art from the Enlightenment to the Second World War. Topics include exoticist representations of non-western cultures; the links between colonialism and orientalism; the intersection of discourses on race and gender with exoticism; and the anti-modernist impulse of modernist primitivism. Sample artists and authors include Delacroix, Flaubert, Gauguin, LaFarge, Segalen, Picasso, and Matisse.