Ernst Fuchs
Christ Triumphant (Detail)
1965
ART & RELIGION: THE MODERN ERA
ART & RELIGION: THE MODERN ERA
RAHS 4305
SPRING 2013
DSPT Rm. 1
Professor Michael Morris, O.P.
This course will explore the radical transformations made in western
religious art from the French Revolution to the middle of the twentieth
century in both Europe and America. It will examine how Catholic and
Protestant expressions of faith fluctuated between a nostalgic view of the
past and daring futuristic innovations. It will explain why artistic
brotherhoods like the Nazarenes, the Pre-Raphaelites, and the Nabis
attempted to renew and reform religious imagery and how men and
women sought the Divine in a myriad of movements: from Gothic Horror
to the Romantic Sublime, from Realism and Surrealism to Symbolism and
Abstraction. Emphasis is on art and architecture with references to dance,
theater, literature and film. Weekly lectures with visuals will be followed by
class discussion. Evidence of student learning will upon class participation,
frequent quizzes, a research paper, and an optional art project.
COURSE OBJECTIVES & GOALS
In a course that incorporates slide lectures, readings, creative projects,
class discussion, and film, the student will gain a foundational knowledge
of Modern Religious Art and how spiritual sensibilities survived, adapted,
and evolved in the modern era. Lectures in this class are based on
important themes that have emerged in the art and religion of the last
two centuries. Quizzes, discussion, creative projects, and a paper will
measure the student’s performance in class. Regular attendance is
required.
The purpose of this class is to not only to inform but also to engage the
student in a learning process that is both challenging and enjoyable. It
aims to chart the trajectory of religious culture in the west, from its
modernist roots to the full flower of post-modernism today.
READINGS & Films
Specific readings are selected for most of the themed lectures presented
in class. Students are expected to come prepared for class by having
read the assigned material in the Class Reader. In the first week of class
the Reader will be available for purchase at Vick/Copy located at 1879
Euclid Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709. Phone: (510) 549-COPY (2679)
As listed in the Syllabus/Bibliography, there are further suggested readings
that are recommended but not required for each lecture theme. These
suggested readings can be helpful when a student is looking for a topic
for the final paper, and they can also illuminate weekly class discussions.
Updates on the Bibliography will be featured during the thematic lectures,
as well as pertinent exhibitions and films that coincide and amplify these
themes. Films especially enable a student to capture the mood of the
topics presented and discussed. Occasionally a film, or film clips, will be
shown in class but a list of suggested films will accompany the list of
suggested readings from which a student can choose items for greater
edification.
Student evaluation
Besides attendance, a student will be judged on class participation in the
topical discussions planned at the end of the thematic lecture. Students
will take turns leading the discussions in the style of a seminar. This will
constitute 1/4 of the grade. Occasional quizzes will be given throughout
the semester, based on the lectures given in class. The quizzes will
concentrate on terms, people, and ideas expressed and illustrated in the
lectures. The quizzes will constitute another 1/4 of the student’s grade.
A creative project will be asked of the student in lieu of a midterm. What
this constitutes will be announced by the instructor well before Reading
Week and be presented by the student in the first class session after
Reading Week. This presentation will count for another ¼ of the grade.
Lectures in this class are based on important themes that emerge in art
and religion in the modern era. For the final ¼ of the student’s grade a
typewritten paper of 20 pages will be submitted at the end of the
semester. The paper will be a formal research report on some figure,
movement, or work of art that falls within the religious scope of this class.
Consult with the professor in choosing a topic for your final paper.
SYLLABUS/BIBLIOGRAPHY
An Outline of weekly topics for lecture and discussion
I. REVOLUTION
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Tiepolo, Canoletto, Watteau, Vigee-Lebrun, Boucher,
Fragonard, David, Ingres, Gros, Boullee, Goethe, Canova, and Madame
Toussaud. THEMES: The artist as a revolutionary, The Morality of Style, The
artist as a tool for politicians, The artist as an agent of pleasure, The artist
as a propagandist.
READER:
Michael Burleigh, Earthly Powers, 23-111
SUGGESTED READING: Jean Starobinski, 1789: The Emblems of Reason;
Walter Friedlander, David to Delacroix; Robert Rosenbloom,
Transformations in 18th century art; Hugh Honour, Neo-Classicism
FILMS: A Tale of Two Cities (1935); Marie Antoinette (1938, 2006); The Affair
of the Necklace (2001); Danton (1983); Napoleon (1927)
II. BACK TO THE FUTURE
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Pugin, Winklemann, Burges, Flandrin, King Ludwig II,
Viollet-le-Duc, William Morris & Co., Flaxman, Isadora Duncan, Albert
Speer, Leni Riefenstahl. THEMES: Totalitarian Architecture, Architecture and
Morality, Contemporary Goth Phenomena, Fantasy Heroism, Romanticism
READER:
Augustus Welby Pugin, Contrasts, 1-58
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our
Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, 55-87
Michael Alexander, Medievalism, 65-104
SUGGESTED READING: Kenneth Clark, The Gothic Revival; Terence Davis,
The Gothic Taste; Phoebe Poole, Pugin; Mario Praz, Neo-Classicism,
Cordula Grewe, Painting the Sacred in the Age of Romanticism
FILMS: Darkon (2007); Gothic (1986); The Architecture of Doom (1989); The
Occult History of the Third Reich (1999); Isadora (1968); Ludwig (1972)
III. The Cult of the Painter Monk
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Walpole, Beckford, the Nazarenes, Rossetti, the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood, William Morris and Burne-Jones, La Societe de S.
Jean, Beuron Abbey Art Theory, Eric Gill. THEMES: Brotherhoods of Artists,
New Christian Movements in Art
READER:
Lorenz Eitner, Christian Revival [Sources and Documents
Series], 19-39; Michael Alexander, Medievalism, 127-164
SUGGESTED READING: Michael Morris, Cowled Creatures: The image of
the Monk in Georgian and Victorian England; William Holman Hunt, The
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Pre-Raphaelitism; Keith Andrews, The
Nazarenes. Also, http://www.films.ie/book-267834-Pre_Raphaelites.html
IV. A New Protestant Aesthetic: SACRED LANDSCAPE/SUBLIME
NATURE
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Cole, Friedrich, Runge, Palmer, Martin, Hudson River
Valley Artists, The Luminists, Thomas Kinkade, Christo, Contemporary
Earthwork Artists THEMES: America as the New Eden, the Gaia
Movement, Global Philosophies, Art Nouveau, American Idealism,
Planned Communities of the Future, Sustainable Farming.
READER:
Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory, 185-242
SUGGESTED READING: Helmut Borsch-Supan, Caspar David Friedrich;
Rudolph M. Bisanz, Phillipp Otto Runge; Christopher Johnstone, John
Martin; John Wilmerding, American Light: The Luminist Movement; Gene
Veith et alia, Painters of Faith
FILMS: Into the Wild (2007); Grizzly Man (2005); The Peaceable Kingdom
(2004); Andy Goldsworthy’s Rivers and Tides (2004)
V. The Art Of Morality
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Hogarth, Greuze, Chardin, the English School, Frank
Capra and Hollywood THEMES: Art that teaches Morality, Sentimentality
in Art and Film, Censorship and the Hollywood Production Code
READER: Alexander, Medievalism, “The Working Men & Common Good”
SUGGESTED READING: Ronald Paulson, Hogarth, His Life, Art, and Times;
Innes & Gustav Herdan (transl.) The World of Hogarth: Lichtenberg’s
Commentaries on Hogarth’s Engravings; Graham Reynolds, Painters of the
Victorian Scene; John Hadfield, Every Picture Tells a Story; Christopher
Wood, Victorian Panorama; Gabriel Weisberg, The Realist Tradition 18301900
Films: Great Expectations (1946); Vanity Fair (2004); Becoming Jane (2007);
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946); The Run of the Country (1995)
VI. THE MODERN CHRIST AND THE ALTER CHRISTUS
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: J-J Tissot, Anna Catherine Emmerich, the PreRaphaelites, William Holman Hunt, Sallman, F. Holland Day, Cecil B.
DeMille, Martin Scorsese, Mel Gibson. THEMES: Realism vs. Idealism in
Religious Art, Artists who portray themselves as Christ, Mysticism & Art, The
Role of Photography in Religion, Catholic Revivalism.
READER: Michael Driskel, Representing Belief, 165-226
SUGGESTED READING: J-J Tissot, The Life of Our Savior, Jesus Christ; Anna
Catherine Emmerich [as recorded by Clemens Brentano], The Dolorous
Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ; David Morgan Icons of American
Protestantism: The Art of Warner Sallman; S. Brent Plate, Re-Viewing The
Passion: Mel Gibson’s Film and its Critics
FILMS: The Passion of the Christ (2004); The Life and Passion & Death of Our
Lord Jesus Christ (1905); The Last Temptation of Christ (1988); King of Kings
(1927); From the Manger to the Cross (1913)
VII. Visionaries and dreamers
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Blake, West, Hicks, Allston, Rimmer, Symbolists, Richard
Dadd, The Brothers Grimm, Surrealists, Fantasy Artists and Filmmakers, Walt
Disney, Ernst Fuchs, Howard Finster, Outsider Artists. THEMES: Dreams and
Art, the Role of Science Fiction in Art and Film, Mysticism and End Times,
Visual Preaching, The Apocalyptic Sublime, Swedenborgianism, Fairy
Painters, Demiurges, Religious Folk Art, the power of religious Kitsch
READER: Robert Decharnes & Giles Neret, Dali, “The Mystical Manifesto,”
157-181
SUGGESTED READING: John Dillenberger, The Visual Arts and Christianity in
America; Hugh Honour, Romanticism; Kenneth Clark, The Romantic
Rebellion; Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony; Anthony Blunt, The Art of
William Blake; Ronald Nasgaard, The Romantic North; Milton Klonsky,
William Blake: The Seer and His Visions; John M. MacGregor, The Discovery
of the Art of the Insane; Diane Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden: A
Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins and Other Troublesome Things.
FILMS: Fantasia (1940); In the Realm of the Unreal (2004); Howard Finster:
Man of Visions (1983)
VIII. ART AS RELIGION
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Beardsley, Wilde, Nijinsky, Diaghilev, Ida Rubenstein,
Ravel, Debussy, Knopf, Gustav Moreau, Nicholas Roerich, the Symbolists,
Post-Impressionists, Gauguin, Maurice Denis, the Nabis, Beuron, Buddhism
and Theosophy
THEMES: The Femme-Fatale in Art, Decadence, the Aesthetic Movement,
Art for Art’s Sake, Dance and Biblical Themes, Homosexuality in the Arts
READER: Ellis Hanson, Decadence and Catholicism, Introduction, “The
Dialectic of Shame and Grace,” 1-107
SUGGESTED READING: Phillippe Jullian, The Symbolists, Dreamers of
Decadence; A. M. Hammacher, Phantoms of the Imagination; Robert
Goldwater, Symbolism; Malcolm Haslam, The Surrealists; Phillippe RobertsJones, Beyond Time and Place; J.-K. Huysmans Against Nature
FILMS: Klimt (2006), Salome (1923), Wilde (1997), Nijinski (1980), The Bride of
the Wind (2001)
IX. THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Berkeley Architecture with Bernard Maybeck and Julia
Morgan, the Pre-Raphaelite second wave (William Morris & Burne Jones),
Jane Burden Morris, William De Morgan, Greene & Greene, Comfort
Tiffany, Jewish Arts and Crafts: Bezalel, Poiret. THEMES: Changing Design in
Domestic Architecture and Fashion, The Arts & Crafts Church, Designs for
Better Living.
READER: Mark A. Wilson, Julia Morgan, “Houses of God” p. 68ff
SUGGESTED READING: Stephen Calloway and Lynn Orr (editors) The Cult
of Beauty; Sally Byrne Woodbridge, Bernard Maybeck: Visionary Architect;
Mark Wilson, Bernard Maybeck: Architect of Elegance; Camilla de la
Bedoyere, Tiffany Masterworks.
FILMS: Desperate Romantics (2009), Topsy: William Morris (1996), Julia
Morgan: A Life by Design (1990)
X. Modernism
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: The Bloomsbury Group, Wright, Johnson, Mondrian,
Matisse, Chagall, Picasso, Rouault, Gill, Pere Couturier, Spencer,
Kandinsky, Corbusier, Breuer, Expressionists, Abstract Expressionists, Manzu,
Noguchi, Cocteau, Kahn, Nevelsen, Soleri, Couturier, Minimalists
THEMES: Abstraction, Zen & Influences from Asia, Occultism, Modern
Utopianism, Hedonism, Artists and their Signature Chapels, Making Sacred
Space in Modern Times, the Role of Faith in Art, the Occult influences in
Modern Art.
READER:
William S. Rubin, Modern Sacred Art and the Church at Assy,
“Decadence and the Dominicans,” 7-30, “The Debate on Sacred Art,” 4563
SUGGESTED READING: Jean-Louis Ferrier, Art of Our Century; S. Giedion,
Space, Time, and Architecture; Meyer Shapiro, Modern Art; Kenneth
Baker, Minimalism; Maurice Tuchman, The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting
1890-1985; Stephen Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in
Postwar Paris
FILMS: The Fountainhead (1949); Carrington (1995); My Architect (2003)
XI. transforming Influences on Modern religious art
TOPICS AND FIGURES DISCUSSED: Feminism (the rise of female artists and
patrons): Gertrude Stein, Dominique de Menil, Jane Blaffer Owen, Jane
Dillenberger, Georgia O’Keefe, Leonora Carrington, Kathe Kollowitz,
Frieda Kahlo, Louise Nevelson, Ida Rubenstein, Natacha Rambova, Judy
Chicago; THEMES: African and Caribbean Influences: Africa and Modern
Art, The Negro Spiritual in Music and Film, Frederick Brown, the art of Haiti;
Hispanic Transformations: The Cult of Guadalupe, Shrines and Mural
Painting in Urban America, Southwest Style in Church Architecture,
Decoration and Liturgy.
READER: Jane Dillenberger, Perceptions in the Spirit in Twentieth Century
American Art
SUGGESTED READING: David Bindmen (editor), The Image of the Black in
Western Art volumes 3 and 4; William Rubin (ed), “Primitivism” in TwentiethCentury Art (2 vols), James Noel, The Passion of the Lord: African American
Reflections; Wanda Corn, Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories; Michael
Morris, Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova; Holly
Barnet-Sanchez, Signs from the Heart: California Chicano Murals
FILMS: Salome (1923); The Green Pastures (1936); Black Orpheus (1959);
Diane Keaton’s Heaven (1996)
XII. Pop ART and Post-Modernism
ARTISTS DISCUSSED: Graves, Graham, Segal, Longo, Claudio Bravo, Komar
& Melamid, Pierre & Giles, Andy Warhol, Photo-Realism, Frank Gehry
THEMES: Humor & Irony in Art, Re- or Mis- Interpreting the Past,
Deconstruction.
READER: Jane Dillenberger, The Religious Work of Andy Warhol,
“Leonardo’s Last Supper Transformed,” 78-99
SUGGESTED READING: Charles Jenks, Post-Modernism; Carter Ratcliff,
Komar and Melamid, Wheeler et alia, Michael Graves
FILMS: Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990); (Bill Viola) The
Eye of the Heart (2005) & The Passing (2006)
This Syllabus is always subject to change, additions, and subtractions when
least expected. It is, like LIFE…a work in progress!