History of Art 210aAmerican Art Before 1900Baird Jarman
T & Th, 10:30-11:20Yale University
Street Hall 200SYLLABUSFall 2000

Website: https://classes.yale.edu/hsar210a/
E-mail: baird.jarman@yale.edu
Office: Street Hall 365, phone 432-2684
Office Hours: by appointment
Mailbox: History of Art Office (Old Art Gallery 103)

Course Outline: There will be two 50-minute lectures and one 50-minute section meeting each week. All lectures will take place in Street Hall 200. Sections will generally meet in either the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) or the British Art Center (BAC) in order to study a few artworks firsthand.

Course Readings: The required readings appear in two books and one photocopied packet. The books, A Concise History of American Painting and Sculpture by Matthew Baigell and Reading American Art, edited by Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy, are available for purchase at Book Haven (290 York Street, between Elm and Grove). The course packet may be purchased nearby at York Copy (284 York Street). All these readings, the two books and the packet, may be borrowed from the closed reserve shelf behind the circulation desk in the Art & Architecture Library (A&A). A complete list of reading assignments appears on the following pages.

Supplemental Texts: You are encouraged to consult additional texts throughout the semester. The open reserve shelf in A&A contains selected survey texts of American Art, monographs about a few major artists, and texts devoted to various themes within the field of American art. The open reserve books in A&A are arranged by course number on the shelving opposite the circulation desk.

Written Assignments: The written work for the semester comprises two papers (one about 3-5 pages in length, the other about 7-10 pages) and three short reading responses. The two paper assignments will be distributed and discussed in class. Each of the three reading responses may relate to any of the assigned readings from either the course packet or Reading American Art. These responses should be approximately 1-2 pages in length (around 400 words) and should be posted to the course website.

Website: The class website, https://classes.yale.edu/hsar210a/, displays color thumbnail sketches and detailed images of every artwork required for memorization on the mid-term and final exams. The website also contains the text of course materials such as the syllabus and the paper assignments.

Teaching Exhibition: The Teaching Gallery on the 2nd floor of the YUAG will be hung twice during the semester with paintings selected to complement this class. Most section meetings will occur in this gallery. The first group of paintings, works from the years 1670-1840, will be on display through Oct. 8. The second group, paintings from the years 1840-1900, will be exhibited from Oct. 17 through Dec. 15.

Important Dates and Deadlines:

? The short paper is due at the beginning of lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 3.

? The term paper is due at the beginning of lecture on Tuesday, Dec. 12.

? The mid-term exam occurs during regularly scheduled classtime on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 10:30-11:20 am.

? The final exam occurs on the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 19, beginning at 7:00 pm.

LECTURE SCHEDULE

Sept. 7 Introduction & Overview

Sept. 12 One of Those Trifling, Insignificant Arts: Colonial Portraiture

Sept. 14 Most Instructive Records of a Rising Generation: Benjamin West & Neo-Classicism

Sept. 19 Working in Your Little Way at Boston: John Singleton Copley in Boston and London

Sept. 21 The Great American Incognitum: Charles Willson Peale & the Peale Family

Sept. 26 Connecticut is not Athens: John Trumbull & the Failure of History Painting

Sept. 28 Where Pictures are Confined to Sittingrooms: The Federal Era

Oct. 3 Increased Demands of the Imagination: The Romantic Movement (SHORT PAPER DUE)

Oct. 5 Scenes of Wild Grandeur: The Hudson River School

Oct. 10 Westward the Course of Empire: Landscapes of Manifest Destiny

Oct. 12 The Painter's Triumph: Genre Painting

Oct. 17 The Verdict of the People: George Caleb Bingham & Democracy on the Frontier

Oct. 19 Above, Below, Where'er the Astonished Eye Turns: Folk Art

Oct. 24 MID-TERM EXAMINATION

Oct. 26 Reading the News: Mid-Century Politics and the Civil War

Oct. 31 To Go About and See the Watery Part of the World: Winslow Homer and the Sea

Nov. 2 There is a Stubborn, Antipoetical Tendency: Sculpture in Marble and Bronze

Nov. 7 The Pencil of Nature: Photography in the Nineteenth Century

Nov. 9 Of Physiology from Top to Toe I Sing: Thomas Eakins & Realism

Nov. 14 The Eden of Idleness is Hateful: Mary Cassatt & the Modern Woman

Nov. 16 I'd Rather Go to Europe Than Go to Heaven: The American Impressionists

FALL RECESS begins Friday evening, Nov. 17 - classes resume Monday morning, Nov. 27

Nov. 28 Pure Tact of Vision: John Singer Sargent & Society Portraiture

Nov. 30 The Poetry of Moonlight & Ultra-Realism: Tonalism and Trompe L'Oeil

Dec. 5 Anatomy Is the Only Subject: Academic Art & the "American Renaissance"

Dec. 7 The Ill-Educated Conceit of the Artist: James McNeill Whistler & the Aesthetic Movement

Dec. 12 Review & Conclusions (TERM PAPER DUE)

Dec. 19 FINAL EXAMINATION begins at 7:00 pm.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Please try to complete each reading shortly after the lecture with which it is listed. In addition, the first three chapters of A Concise History of American Painting and Sculpture by Matthew Baigell should be read at some point before the mid-term exam. The fourth chapter of Baigell's book should be read in preparation for the final exam. One asterisk indicates that an article appears in the reading packet; two asterisks indicate that the article appears in the anthology Reading American Art.

Sept. 12 Colonial Portraiture

** Wayne Craven, "The Seventeenth-Century New England Mercantile Image: Social Content and Style in the Freake Portraits."

Sept. 14 Benjamin West & Neo-Classicism

* Ann Uhry Abrams, "Benjamin West's Documentation of Colonial History: William Penn's Treaty with the Indians."

Sept. 19 John Singleton Copley in Boston and London

** Paul Staiti, "Character and Class: The Portraits of John Singleton Copley."

* John Singleton Copley correspondence with Captain R. G. Bruce and Benjamin West (1766-67).

Sept. 21 Charles Willson Peale & the Peale Family

** Roger B. Stein, "Charles Willson Peale's Expressive Design: The Artist in His Museum."

Sept. 26 John Trumbull & the Failure of History Painting

* Patricia M. Burnham, "John Trumbull, Historian: The Case of the Battle of Bunker's Hill."

* John Trumbull letter to Thomas Jefferson (1789).

Sept. 28 The Federal Era

* David Lubin, "Ariadne and the Indians: Vanderlyn's Neoclassical Princess, Racial Seduction, and the Melodrama of Abandonment."

Oct. 3 The Romantic Movement

* Washington Allston, "Lectures on Art and Poetry" (excerpts).

Oct. 5 The Hudson River School

** Alan Wallach, "Thomas Cole and the Aristocracy."

* Thomas Cole, "Essay on American Scenery" (1835).

* Asher B. Durand, "Letters on Landscape Painting" (1855).

Oct. 10 Landscapes of Manifest Destiny

** Kathryn S. Hight, "'Doomed to Perish': George Catlin's Depictions of the Mandan."

* George Catlin, "Letter from the Mouth of the Yellowstone River" (1832).

** Nancy K. Anderson, "'The Kiss of Enterprise': The Western Landscape as Symbol and Resource."

Oct. 12 Genre Painting

** William T. Oedel & Todd S. Gernes, "The Painter's Triumph: William Sidney Mount and the Formation of a Middle-Class Art."

Oct. 17 George Caleb Bingham & Democracy on the Frontier

* Bryan J. Wolf, "History as Ideology Or, "What You Don't See Can't Hurt You, Mr. Bingham."

* George Caleb Bingham, "The Ideal in Art" (1879).

Oct. 19 Folk Art

** David Jaffee, "'A Correct Likeness': Culture and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century Rural America."

Oct. 24 MID-TERM EXAMINATION

Oct. 26 Mid-Century Politics and the Civil War

* Bryan J. Wolf, "All the World's a Code: Art and Ideology in Nineteenth-Century American Painting."

Oct. 31 Winslow Homer and the Sea

** Jules D. Prown, "Winslow Homer in His Art."

* Albert Boime, "Blacks in Shark-Infested Waters: Visual Encodings of Racism in Copley and Homer."

Nov. 2 Sculpture in Marble and Bronze

** Joy S. Kasson, "Narratives of the Female Body: The Greek Slave."

Nov. 7 Photography in the Nineteenth Century

* Alan Trachtenberg, "Photography: The Emergence of a Keyword."

Nov. 9 Thomas Eakins & Realism

** Elizabeth Johns, "The Gross Clinic, or Portrait of Professor Gross."

Nov. 14 Mary Cassatt & the Modern Woman

* Linda Nochlin, "Issues of Gender in Eakins and Cassatt."

Nov. 7 Photography in the Nineteenth-Century

** Griselda Pollock, "Mary Cassatt: Painter of Women and Children."

Nov. 16 The American Impressionists

* George Inness, "Letter on Impressionism" (1884).

Nov. 28 John Singer Sargent & Society Portraiture

* Sarah Burns, "Outselling the Feminine."

Nov. 30 Tonalism and Trompe L'Oeil

* Albert Pinkham Ryder, "Paragraphs from the Studio of a Recluse" (1905).

Dec. 5 Academic Art & the "American Renaissance"

** Kirsten P. Buick, "The Ideal Works of Edmonia Lewis: Invoking and Inverting Autobiography."

Dec. 7 James McNeill Whistler & the Aesthetic Movement

* James A. M. Whistler, "Ten O'Clock Lecture" (1888).