FA155 Impressionism: Avant-Garde Rebellion in Context
Fall 2015
Prof. Nancy Scott M W 2 – 3:30 PM
This course fulfills the Fine Arts major and minor requirements, the French and
Francophone Studies major elective, the Creative Arts requirement, and is ideal for the
European Cultural Studies major or for students interested in 19 th
century literature and the arts.
Course Requirements : To complete the course, and receive a passing grade, the student must fulfill the following assignments: three short assignments, a midterm, the research paper, and a final exam (with take-home essay component) . Both exams will reflect on visual material presented in class lectures, lectures notes, and readings in the syllabus . The final research paper may also comprehend a museum / visual analysis essay, if feasible. [See notes for final project, to be posted on Latte.]
Guidelines on the short assignments also will be posted on Latte.
NB : Your attendance and participation will also be computed in the final grade.
You cannot receive a grade in the course if you have failed to turn in all required work.
Texts and reading assignments : There is no principal text for the course, though several books are used for longer sections. Specific articles for discussion and consultation are listed in Latte weekly modules, and all pdf documents are posted on
Latte. Important current exhibitions of Impressionism and Impressionist art will be discussed, and texts incorporated into class lectures and readings.
Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye, National Gallery of Art Washington D. C.
June 28 – October 4, 2015
Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting,
Philadelphia Museum of Art, June 24, 2015 - September 13, 2015
Still available on alibris.com, abebooks.com, and other independent seller sites, recommended for your purchase:
Herbert, Robert. Impressionism (Yale University Press: 1991).
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, ed. Charles S. Moffett, The New Painting:
Impressionism 1874-86 (Burton: 1986). ISBN: 0884010473.
Topics and readings for week beginning:
August 27 Introduction:
.
Who do we call an Impressionist? What is the origin of the term?
S. Eisenman, “How the Impressionists got their Name,” in
The New
Painting: Impressionism 1874-86 (Hereafter New Painting ).

Sept 16
Sept 21 pp. 51-59.
Impressionism—FA155
Aug 31 page 2
JMW Turner—British antecedents, and the long legacy of ‘veils of color’
Reading: Latte: Smiles, “Sun of Venice going to the Sea” p 169
“Response of French Artists” pp 155-67ff
Exposition Universelle of 1855—the background of the
French Romantic tradition, and Gustave Courbet’s Pavilion du Réalisme
Sept 9
Reading: Latte:Tinterow, Loyrette, et al. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Origins of Impressionism , introduction, pp. xiii-xvi.
The early realist style of Edouard Manet to the 1863 Salon des Réfusés
Herbert, chapter 1, pp. 28-33 “Manet’s Paris;” and chapter 2, pp. 43-57
“Artist as Investigator” and “Artist as Observer of Domestic Manners.”
Ch. 5, “Luncheons,” pp. 170-177.
The artist of contemporary life: Manet and Edgar Degas (c 1858-9): urban and socio-economic themes
Herbert, chapter 1, “Paris Transformed,” pp. 1-28; ch. 2, “Impressionism and Naturalism: The Artists as fl
â neur,” pp. 33-43; ch. 4, “Theater,
Opera, Dance,” pp. 93-139.
Painting “en plein air”
Seascapes and early landscapes of Monet, Renoir, Morisot
Latte: Tinterow, et al., Origins, “Realist Landscape,” pp. 55-93.
Sept 29 Tuesday is Brandeis Monday –Meet at the Rose [Cézanne session].
Artists of Gleyre’s studio: Bazille and Sisley; Pissarro, early work;
Pissarro and Monet in London
Oct 7
Latte: Tinterow, Origins, “Figures in the Landscape,” pp. 125-147.
On Latte: Patrice Mandarel, Frederic Bazille and Early Impressionism, pp. 11-20.
First Impressionist Exhibition—the
Société Anonyme
Paul Tucker, “The First Impressionist Exhibition in Context,” in New Painting , pp. 93-117;
Cézanne – early work and his relation to the Impressionist exhibits
On Latte: John Rewald,
Cézanne , “First Exhibitions” to p 117;
R. Cohen, “Artist’s Model,”
The New Yorker , Nov. 20, 2005.

Impressionism—FA155
Oct 12 The Late 1870s: 2 nd
and 3 rd
Impressionist Exhibitions page 3
Hollis Clayson, “A Failed Attempt,” in The New Painting , pp. 145-159;
Richard Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” Ibid., pp. 189-202.
Oct 19
Oct 26
Nov 2
Enter Cassatt (& exit Cézanne)
Ronald Pickvance, “1879: Contemporary Popularity and Posthumous
Neglect,” Ibid., pp. 243-265.
5 th
Impressionist Exhibition – Degas Rules
Charles Moffett, “1880: Disarray and Disappointment,” Ibid., pp. 293-309.
6 th and 7 th Impressionist Exhibitions
Fronia Wissman, “1881: Realists among the Impressionists,” Ibid., pp.
337-352; Joel Issacson, “1882: The Painters called Impressionists,”
Ibid., pp. 373-93
Class discussion on Manet’s Bar at the Folies Bergère
Essays to be chosen from B. Collins:
Twelve Views of Manet’s Bar
Nov 9 th : Assignment no.2 due—Response paper to issues raised by essay in Twelve Views of Manet’s Bar.
Nov 9 Durand-Ruel and his 1883 Exhibition of Impressionism—the
Impressionists break ranks.
Reading : Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New
Painting, pages TBA.
Nov 16 8 th
Impressionist Exhibition
Martha Ward, “1886: The Rhetoric of Independence and Innovation,”
Ibid., pp. 421-42.
Seurat and color -- the “science” of Neo-Impressionism--
Broude, Norma, Seurat in Perspective
, “Introduction,” pp. 1-13.
Roads deeper into Impressionism
Monet’s later period at Giverny; Degas and his late style; Cassatt as printmaker and collector.
Due date: December 7th Museum without Walls: Research paper

Nov 23
Nov 30
The crisis, dissolution and roads to Post-Impressionism
Renoir’s “sour” manner and his classical period;
Cézanne’s maturity from 1886.
The Origins of Symbolism: Gauguin after Impressionism, 1886-89
Expressionism and Late Impressionism: Van Gogh in Arles and St-Rémy:
1888-89
Dec 7 Brief oral reports on Museum without Walls.
Study Day
May 1- 8 (Friday- Friday) Final Exam Period
FINAL EXAM as scheduled by the Registrar’s office:
[TBA: Probable combination will be slide examination during exam period, with a takehome essay.]
Impressionism—FA155 page 4
E-mail: scott@brandeis.edu Voice: X62664
Office Hours: Monday / Wednesday @ 3:45- 5 PM; Thursdays by appointment.
Office: 210, Mandel Center for the Humanities, 2 nd
Level,