Course Name: Transforming Encounters: American Art of the
19th and 20th Centuries
Professor: Dr. Ana Munk, Assistant Professor
Contact: amunk@ffzg.hr
ECTS credits:
Language:
5
English
Duration: 1 semester
15 hours of lecture
15 hours of individual student work
(seminars)
S tatus:
Content:
30 hours total (2 hours each week) undergraduate, elective course
This course will survey the most important and interesting art produced in the United
States (or by American artists living abroad) between 1865 and 1980. The course starts with the colonial period when art had an important role in creating American identity.
This process was marked by a series of “transforming encounters,” first with Native
American art and then European art abroad. In building a nation, American art created itself for its own needs, creating a national and cosmopolitan art and celebrating as well as criticizing individualism, collectivism, and modern life.
Modern art was not invented in the States, but it had its American discourse best exemplified through the American reception of European art exhibited at the 1913
Armory Show. Documentary photography of the Great Depression and regionalist tendencies in the 30s continued to show how important art was in strengthening the
American sense of self. By necessity of its émigré and expatriate culture of the early 20 th
century, American art was also often receptive and reactive. The dynamic of receiving and reacting to the modernist impulses of 20 th
century European art had an equally strong backlash in repatriation. As Charles Demouth said, “... (the life of Europe) was all very wonderful, but, I must work here (in America).” The receptiveness of American culture changed in the 50s. When Robert Rauschenberg went to Paris in the 50s, he quickly realized that he came too late and that the new art scene had moved to New York. In the 50s we start tracing a quick succession of artistic trends which created multifaceted, often conflicting arguments as to what art, its nature and its functions are. The course will continue to examine the decadeby-decade series of reactions to the New York school: “the Yale graduate” 1960s

Minimalist reaction and quintessentially American-fed Pop Art (which originated in
Britain). The great landscape art projects such as those by Robert Smithson and
Christo found particular resonance in American land-bound culture and it continues to be an inspiration for many great contemporary American artists such as James
Turell (of Quaker confession). The final nod will be given to postmodern art.
Required Textbook: Angela L. Miller, Janet C. Berlo, Bryan J. Wold,
Jennifer L. Roberts, American Encounters: Art, History, and Cultural
Identity , Prentice Hall, 2008.
Art history students should also read selected chapters from: Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss et al., Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism and Postmodernism : 1900 to 1944,
Vol. 1 and 2, Thames & Hudson, 2004.
There will be also photocopied material on particular artists and movements.
The Course Objective
The goal of this course is to educate undergraduate students on American art of the 19 th and 20 th
centuries. Particular emphasis will be placed on the following:

Acquiring visual literacy by learning to describe, analyze, and formulate arguments on works of art using appropriate art historical terminology and methods.

Learning how to identify and define major artistic standpoints and artists which make up the mosaic of American art 20 th
century art. After successfully completing this class, students should be able to chart major trends in American art and define their aesthetic and ideological claims.

Learning how to engage independently with a work of art. An important goal of this course is to enable students to do independent research and formulate valid arguments.

Doing it all in English!
Class Requirements and Grading
Midterm exam: 30%
Final exam: 30%
Term paper: 30%
Class participation and attendance: 10%
Exams:
Students are expected to demonstrate their knowledge through one midterm and one final exam as well as one term paper. On both exams students will be required to identify

artworks and explain their significance, answer short essay questions, and write a compare-and-contrast essay.
Students' Evaluation
Students will be able to evaluate the course at the end of the semestar.
Course Topics
1.
Forging a New Nation: American Art of the 19th Century: Portrait Paintings,
Thomas Jefferson as Architect, Creation of the Capital City, Painting and
Citizenship
Photographs of the 19th Century West from the Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/curthome.html
2.
Expanding the Froniters: American Landscape Painting: Hudson River School of Painting
3.
Thomas Eakins & Henry Ossawa Tanner
The Art of Civil War: Winslow Homer
4.
Cosmopolitans and Expatriates: John Singer Sargent, James Abbot McNeill
Whistler
5.
Architecture in the New Metropolis: Louis Sulivan
6.
The Armory Show, Alfred Stieglitz and His Circle: Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur
G. Dove, Charles Demuth
Tour of the Armory Show: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~museum/armory/entrance.html
7.
New York Dada and Transatlantic Collaboration
Midterm
8.
American Urban Scene (Stuart Davis, Charles Sheeler, Edward Hopper) versus
American Regionalism (Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton)
9.
The Great Depression
FSA Photographs Library of Congress: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html
10.
Black Artist Making American Modernity: William H. Johnson, Horace Pippin,
Jacob Lawrence
11.
Abstract Expressionism: Jackson Pollock, William de Kooning, Jasper Johns

12.
Minimalism and Pop Art
13.
International Style in Architecture; The Seventies: Conceptual Art, Performance and
Video Art
14.
The 80's and Postmodern Art
15.
Students' presentations
ANA MUNK, PhD
Assistant Professor
Art History Department, Faculty of Philosophy
Ivana Lučića 3
10 000 Zagreb
CROATIA cell: 385 95 878 8140
Email: amunk@ffzg.hr
EDUCATION
Ph. D., March 2003, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
Dissertation: Pallid Corpses in Golden Coffins: Relics, Reliquaries and the Art of Relic Cults in the Adriatic Rim.
M. A. (Art History, Italian Late Medieval and Renaissance Art), 1994, University of
Washington, Seattle, Washington.
Thesis : Iconography of Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Making of a Dominican Intellectual
Saint in Italian Late Medieval and Renaissance Art .
B.A., 1986, University of Zagreb, Croatia. (Art History and French Language &
Literature).
WORK EXPERIENCE (Academic)
Assistant Professor, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Teaches various graduate level courses in Medieval Art: Romanesque Art, Iconography of Late Medieval Art, Art of Italian Trecento, Contemporary Theoretical Approaches to
Medieval Art, Byzantine Art
2008-current

2004-2008
Assistant Professor, University of Saint Thomas, Houston, TX
Taught Introduction to Visual Arts, Survey of Art: Ancient to Medieval, Medieval
Art, Early Medieval Art, Late Medieval Art, Art of the 20 th
Century, Late Twentieth-
Century Art, Early 2oth Century Art, Art in Venice: Medieval to Baroque, and
Iconography of Christian Art.
Other duties: Freshmen Advisor, President Lecture Series Committee, faculty
Development Committee
2003
Adjunct Faculty, Seattle University
Taught Art History 460 Seminar in Medieval Art, Art 211 Survey of Western Art I (Ancient to Medieval), HON 142 Honors Seminar in art.
Teaching Assistant and Guest Lecturer, Art History Department, University of
Washington, Seattle, WA
Assistant to the Director of the Rome Program, Art History Seminar in Rome,
University of Washington .
Responsible for developing the seminar content, supervised students’ preparations and on-site presentations. Taught selected topic in Medieval, Renaissance and
Baroque art in Rome. Assisted students while living, traveling and studying abroad.
Instructor, Serbo-Croatian 402 , Slavic Languages Department, University of
Washington .
Taught Croatian language classes, prepared class material, and monitored student progress.
WORK EXPERIENCE (Non-Academic)
Developer and Quality Control, GLOSS (Global Language Online Support
System) , http://gloss.dliflc.edu/, Insures quality of lessons in variety of languages which are developed for GLOSS, an online system for independent learners. GLOSS provides the learning/teaching tools for improving foreign language skills. A Defense
Language Institute project, widely used in classrooms world-wide.
AWARDS

J. William Fulbright scholarship, (1996-97)

Graduating with Excellence Award, University of Washington, 2003
1990 – 2003
2000, 2003
1993, 1998
2003-2008

PUBLICATIONS
Article, Somatic Treasures: Function and Reception of Effigies on Holy Tombs in
Fourteenth Century Venice , IKON-Journal of Iconographica Studies, 4, 2011, 193-192.
Article in a Book,
Doktrina blažene vizije ( visio Dei ) u prikazu Raja u kapeli Strozzi u crkvi Santa Maria Novella u Firenci: odnos privatnog i kolektivnog naručiteljstva (The
Doctrine of Beatific Vision (visio Dei) in the Depiction of Paradise in Strozzi Chapel
(church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence): The Interaction between Private and
Collective Patronage (Proceedings of the XI Annual Conference “Days of Cvito
Fisković”, Orebić, Croatia, September, 2010, 37-53).
Article, Domestic Piety in Fourth Century Rome: A Relic Shrine beneath the
Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo , Hortus atrium medievalium : Journal of the
International Research Center for Late Antiquity and Middle Ages, Vol. 15/1, 2009, 7-21.
Article, The Art of Relic Cults in Trecento Venice: corpi sancti as a Pictorial Motif and Artistic Motivation , Radovi Instituta za povijest umjetnosti (Journal of the Institute of History of Art, Zagreb), 30, 2006, 81-91
Article in an edited book, Kraljica i njezina škrinja – lik ugarske kraljice Elizabete, rođene Kotromanić (oko 1340.-1387.) u historigrafiji i na škrinji svetog Šimuna u Zadru in
Žene u Hrvatskoj: ženska i kulturna povijest
. Ed. Andrea Feldman, Zagreb: Institut
Vlado Gotovac, 2004, 77-104.
Article, The Queen and Her Shrine: An Art Historical Twist on Historical Evidence concerning Hungarian Queen Elizabeth, neé Kotromanic, Patron of the Saint
Simeon Shrine, Hortus atrium medievalium : Journal of the International Research
Center for Late Antiquity and Middle Ages (Vol. 10, May 2004, 253-262)
Book Review, Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century , by Cynthia Hahn, Peregrinations 2,
(June 2002)