1
Dr. Jo-Anne Berelowitz
SDSU, Fall 2013
Art History 560: American Art
Room 512 , TTh 8:00-9:15
Office: A 510, ext 4995
Office hours: T., Th. 7-8, 11-12, or by appt.
Office phone: 594-4995
Email: jberelow@mail.sdsu.edu
American Art
Description/Objectives:
This course is a survey of American art from colonial times to approximately 1940. It examines art produced in the U.S., American
art institutions, and American attitudes toward art and artists. Our approach, while following a broadly chronological framework, will
focus on particular issues and topics such as representations of the landscape, the politics of ethnicity, the mythology of the West,
genre painting, the Gilded Age, paintings of city life, modernism, the Depression Decade, articulations of sexuality, the artist’s
relationship to nature and to industry. Throughout, we will view the production of art within the broader context of political, social,
intellectual, and cultural issues.
Prior requirements:
I expect that students enrolled in this course have taken prior classes in Art History, particularly 258 and 259. If this is not the case,
please see me before enrolling. If you have not had these courses or their equivalents, I strongly advise that you drop the course and
delay taking it until you have the background that these 200 level courses provide.
Class format:
Slide illustrated lectures, videos, discussion of readings, one field trip during class time.
Review procedure:
Independent frequent review of notes, readings, and visual material is necessary for success in this class. Good note taking is
essential. It is also essential that you work through the study guide questions on a week-by-week basis to keep up with the material.
Requirements:
All assigned readings, attendance in class, three midterms. There will be an optional final CUMULATIVE examination. Please note
that you MUST attend all classes and do all the readings. You cannot afford to neglect either of these modalities. Information will be
given in lectures that is not contained in the readings. You are responsible for this and will be examined on it. So - COME TO
CLASS!
Examinations:
Examinations will be in the form of multiple choice questions and slide identifications. Questions will be based on assigned readings
and on material presented during the lectures. Some of the material you are responsible for is not in your textbooks or your reader and
therefore requires your attendance and attention in all classes. Some of the slide identifications will be images that you have not seen
before or are not illustrated in your textbooks but are by artists whom you will have studied. They will manifest obvious
characteristics of those artists and, provided that you study and pay attention in class, you should have no difficulty identifying them.
You will also be tested on information given in the videos.
There will be four examinations: three during the semester and a final. Only the final is cumulative. The course grade will be
computed by combining three examination grades. A student who has taken three examinations may use the comprehensive final to
better a grade. (In other words, if you take four exams, your grade will be computed from your three best exam grades.) A student
who has missed an examination should take the cumulative final. This will be your only opportunity to make up a missed exam!
There are no make-ups in this class.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
First midterm:
100 points
Second midterm:
100 points
Third midterm:
100 points
Final:
100 points
Sept. 19
Oct. 24
Dec. 5
Important dates:
NO CLASS: Thursday, Sept. 5 (Rosh Hashanah)
Ordinarily on examinations and for general grading purposes, the following table is used:
90-100 = A; 80-89 = B; 70-79 = C; 60-69 = D; 0-59 = F. This may vary by two or three points, depending on the class’s overall
performance on a given examination. Pluses and minuses will be given.
Your final grade is computed out of a possible total of 300 points. The scale is as follows:
A
419-450
A405-418
B+
392-404
B
373-391
B360-372
C+
346-359
C
328-345
C315-327
D+
302-314
D
283-301
2
D-
270-282
Policy for missed exams:
A missed exam will count as an F grade unless the student has an authorized excuse. Illness must be substantiated by a physician’s
letter, work-related absence by a letter from an employer. Other reasons for absence will need to be cleared with the professor. There
will be no makeups under any circumstances. Students who miss an exam for whatever reason may take the optional cumulative final.
Early exams are not an option.
Student responsibility:
It is your responsibility to attend class regularly, to make up missed information if absence is unavoidable, to stay current in terms of
course material, and to prepare for examinations. If you experience difficulties with course material, it is your responsibility to
schedule conferences with the professor.
Readings:
Two books have been ordered for you:
Wayne Craven: American Art: History and Culture, Brown and Benchmark, 1994.
Marianne Doezema and Elizabeth Milroy: Reading American Art, Yale, 1998.
Office Hours:
Tuesdays and Thursdays11-12 or by appointment. I encourage you to take advantage of office hours and to use this time to discuss
the readings, difficulties you might be having with the course, writing skills, or any other matters pertaining to the course. It’s best to
catch problems early! I will sometimes have a faculty meeting scheduled during my usual office hour time. This makes it
important to check with me regarding my availability for each office hour period.
Cheating and plagiarism:
The penalty for cheating is an F in the class and being reported to the University’s judicial officer. Plagiarized work will be penalized
to the fullest extent possible and will very likely result in expulsion from the university and/or delay of graduation. If you are caught
cheating, it will go on your record.
More administrative details:
In Incomplete may be issued under appropriate circumstances, in which case a contract must be signed by both student and professor.
The contract form is available in the School of Art Office, located in A-505. An Incomplete is not a substitute for an “F.” If no
arrangements have been made and assignments are missing, a “U” will be automatically issued. It is all but impossible to withdraw
from a course after the official drop date, so please do so before that date, should you want or need to drop this course. University
restrictions on issuing Incompletes and granting course withdrawals after the official drop deadline are very stringent. Even if you
have submitted a petition to withdraw from a course, continue to attend until permission has been officially granted and confirmed in
writing by the University.
If you are taking the course in order to remove a grade lower than C (C- or below), you must file a petition for “Course Forgiveness”
with Admissions and Records.
If you are taking this course Credit/No Credit, Credit is a cumulative “C” according the University regulations. All assignments must
be completed with a cumulative grade of “C” (not “C-“) in order for Credit to be earned. Keep all returned assignments until after you
have received your final grade report from the Registrar’s office. If you anticipate needing to ask for a letter of recommendation to
graduate school, keep all graded assignments for me to review before I write the letter.
“Graduating Seniors” who earn an F in this class will receive an F. Any student who receives an F on an examination should see
me immediately during office hours. If your grade is lower than a C, I strongly advise that you consult with me.
Students who are completing Incompletes from previous semesters must meet this semester’s deadlines and follow this semester’s
assignments.
The Love Library offers useful library tours. If you find yourself receiving Ds or Fs, you should consider signing up for tutoring
services through the Student Affairs Office or the Study Skills Center.
Graduate students are required to produce a paper, approximately 15 pages. Please see me ASAP to discuss a topic. This will be in
lieu of one exam. In other words, graduate students will take two exams and write one paper. Each component is worth 100 points.
Schedule of Classes and Readings:
(Please note that this schedule is approximate and may be modified.)
An * denotes an article from Reading American Art.
Week 1
August 27
No class today.
August 29
Introduction
--A vision of paradise: the European concept of America
The Colonial Period: portraits
--the Freakes, Smibert, Feke, Copley
3
Required reading:
Craven. 42-47 (the 17th c), 68-74 (1700-50), 99-102 (Copley); 104-108 (Peale)
*Wayne Craven. “The Seventeenth-Century New England Mercantile Image”, 1-11.
*Staiti, “Character and Class. . . .” 12-37.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 2
Sept. 3
The Federal Period: History and Portrait Painting
--West, Copley, Trumbull, Stuart, Vanderlyn
Sept. 5
No class today because of Jewish New Year
Required reading:
Craven: West 135-139; Trumbull 139-141; Stuart 141-143; Vanderlyn 146-147
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 3
Sept. 10
The Federal Period: History and Portrait Painting, contd
--Peale family; portraits of Washington
Millenialism and apocalypse
--Washington Allston
Sept 12
Manifest Destiny, apocalypse, nationalism, and the American landscape/American nature
--Cole, Durand, Church, Bierstadt, Moran
--Industrializing the American landscape
--America’s birds: Audubon
The Feminized Sublime
--Kensett, Gifford, Lane
Required reading:
Craven. Peale 104-107; Allston 148-149; Washington 107; 142-143; 166; 149-150;
198-211 (Cole, Durand, Church, Bierstadt); 214-219 (Luminism, Moran), 161 (Audubon)
*Alan Wallach. “Thomas Cole and the Aristocracy,” 79-108.
* Nancy Anderson. “’The Kiss of Enterprise’: The Western Landscape as Symbol and Resource,” 208-231.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 4
Sept. 17
Picturing/Inventing "the Indian"
--Catlin, King, Bingham, Stanley, Deas, Tait.
Federal Commissions in the Capitol
--The politics of ethnicity in the US Capitol, 1815-1860
Sept. 19
First midterm
You are responsible for all material covered thus far (including the Audubon movie).
Required reading:
Craven. 213 (Catlin), 228-229 (Bingham);252-253 (Crawford)
*Kathryn S. Hight. “’Doomed to Perish,’ George Catlin’s Depictions of the Mandan.” 150-162.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 5
Sept 24
Genre and Folk painting; representing the West
--Picturing progress: Woodville, Ranney, Bingham, Leutze, Palmer, etc
--satire, coded comments (Mount)
--representations of African-Americans
--representations of and by women: Lilly Martin Spencer
Sept. 26
The Civil War
--representations of battle and slavery
--Winslow Homer
-- Edmonia Lewis
--photographing the war
Required reading:
Craven. 221-227 (Genre), 329-330 (Johnson) 334-338 (Homer), 257-258 (Lewis), 241-248 (Brady, etc
4
* William T. Oedel and Todd S. Gernes. “The Painter’s Triumph: William Sidney Mount and the Formation of a Middle-Class Art,”
128-149.
*Jules D. Prown. “Winslow Homer in His Art,” 264-279.
* Kirsten P. Buick, “”The Ideal Works of Edmonia Lewis: Invoking and Inverting Autobiography,” 190-207
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 6
Oct. 1
Mythologizing the American West, 1880-1920
--Remington, Russell
The Gilded Age
--Winslow Homer
Oct. 3
The Gilded Age, contd.
--Thomas Eakins: painter and photographer
-- Henry Ossawa Tanner
Required reading:
Craven., 387-389 (Remington) 334-338 (Homer), 338-341 (Eakins), Tanner 346
*Elizabeth Johns. “The Gross Clinic, or Portrait of Professor Gross,” 252-263.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 7
Oct. 8
Visiting lecturer Dr. Stacey Riley: “Landscape and Film”
Oct. 10
The Gilded Age, contd.
--Ryder
--Master illusionists: Harnett and Peto
--William Merritt Chase
--Cecilia Beaux
Required reading:
Craven, 362-364 (Ryder); 365-367 (Harnett and Peto) 362-364 (Ryder); 349-350 (Chase), 354 (Cecilia Beaaux)
----------------------------------------------------------------Week 8
Oct. 15
Gilded Age Expatriates
--Whistler, Sargent, Cassatt
A Gilded Age Collector and her dealer
--Isabella Stuart Gardner and Bernard Berenson
Oct. 17
Representing women in 19th century sculpture
--Queens and captives
Required reading:
Craven, 342-348 (Whistler, Sargent, Cassatt)
*Griselda Pollock. “Mary Cassatt: Painter of Women and Children.”
*Joy S. Kasson. “Narratives of the Female Body: The Greek Slave,” 163-189.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 9
Oct. 22
Representing modern life
--Ash Can School Realism: Robert Henri and the Eight; Bellows
--Isabel Bishop
--Hopper
Oct. 24
SECOND MIDTERM
You are responsible for all material covered since the first midterm
Required reading:
Craven. 422-429 (Ashcan), 435-436 (Hopper)
Robert E. Haywood. “George Bellows’s Stag at Sharkey’s: Boxing, Violence, and Male Identity,” Critical Issues in American Art,
ed. Mary Ann Calo, Icon, 1998, 243-252.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 10
October 29
American Modernists
-- Stieglitz and “291”
5
Oct. 31
American Modernists
--O’Keeffe
Required reading:
Craven. 444-446 (disc. Modernism), 452 (291), 469-472 (Stieglitz), 457-458 (O’Keeffe)
* Trachtenberg. “Image and Ideology. . . .” 301-311.
*Anna C. Chave. “O’Keeffe and the Masculine Gaze,” 350-370.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 11
Nov. 5
American Modernists, contd.
-- Marin, Hartley, Dove
--Demuth
--Sheeler
Nov. 7
American Modernists, contd.
--The Arensberg Circle
--American Dada
Required reading:
Craven. 464-465, 455 (Marin), 457 (Hartley), 456 (Dove), 475 (Sheeler), 460 -461(Arensberg), 461 (Man Ray)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 12
Nov. 12
American women modernists
--Mabel Dodge Luhan
--Gertrude Stein
--Florine Stettheimer
--Romaine Brooks
Nov. 14
--The Armory Show
Left-wing politics and art
--Stuart Davis
A Marxist paints an image of American capitalism
--Diego Rivera in the United States
Required reading:
Linda Nochlin. “Florine Stettheimer: Rococo Subversive,” Critical Issues in American Art, ed. Mary Ann Calo, Icon, 1998, 303-318.
Craven. 464-465 (Davis)
Max Kozloff. "The Rivera Frescoes of Modern Industry at the Detroit Institute of Arts: Proletarian Art under Capitalist Patronage,"
Artforum 12 (Nov.1973): 58-63.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 13
Nov. 19
The Depression Decade: Regionalism and the New Deal
--Benton, Curry, Wood
Nov. 21
Thomas Hart Benton video
Required reading:
Craven. 439-443 (Regionalists)
Thomas Hart Benton. “On Regionalism, 1951. McCoubrey 201-206.
*Wanda M. Corn. “The Birth of a National Icon: Grant Wood’s American Gothic,” 387-408.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 14
Nov. 26
O’Keeffe video
Nov. 28
THANKSGIVING
Required reading:
6
Revision and catch-up
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 15
Dec. 3
Review
Dec. 5
Third midterm. You are responsible for all material covered since the last midterm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Week 16
Dec. 10
return of papers and opportunity for questions
Cumulative final:
You will be tested on material from the beginning of the course to the end.