ARTH 3740

Painting Nineteenth Century America

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

Art and everyday life in nineteenth and early-twentieth century America with emphasis on Anglo-European traditions. Considers democratic cultures and identities through topical units: the Peale family and America's first public museum; P.T. Barnum's "freak shows," traveling circus, and working-class audiences; daguerreotypes and the rising middle class; genre painting and regional types including the Yankee peddler, Missouri boatman, and the frontiersman; Hudson River School and the "tourist sublime;" artist-explorers, Darwin, and Latin American as spectacle; class and gender construction in the Gilded Age; the neurasthenic body and the turn of the century; Ashcan School, New York City, and urban spectators; immigrants, "slumming," and documentary photography. Alongside paintings, we examine political cartoons, fashion, advertisements, and popular illustrations.

When Offered Spring.

Permission Note Not open to freshmen.
Prerequisites/Corequisites Recommended prerequisite: ARTH 2400, VISST 2000, or ARTH 4100.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (CA-AS)

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