WESTERN ART FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT

HSAR 115b / SPRING 2016

SYLLABUS

Prof Tim Barringer
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 11.35-12.25. YUAG Lecture Hall.

This course surveys the history of Western art from 1300 to the present, with an
emphasis on the relationship between art (mainly painting) and its original
historical and cultural contexts. We will focus on how to look at a work of art in the
original, and sections will be taught from the uniquely rich collections of Yale
University Art Gallery.

The course will question the term Western Art, emphasizing the porous nature of
European culture and the dialogue of European artists with cultural traditions
beyond the boundaries of Europe. Other themes will include the birth and
development of museums, and relationships between painting and the other arts,
especially music.

REQUIREMENTS

--Lecture and section attendance, section participation (10% of the final grade)
--Short paper 1 (10%) Due March 1 at class (before class begins)
--Midterm examination (20%) on March 10
-- Short paper 2 (10%) by April 5 at class (before class begins)
--10-page final paper (25%) Due April 29, deliver to History of Art office in Loria
by 4pm.
--Final examination (25%)
NB: There will be an alternate final exam in the first week of the exam period.

Sections
This class has a weekly section. The sections will be taught entirely from the
collections of the Yale University Art Gallery, so sections have to take place when the
gallery is open.
Section enrollment is on line. Attendance at section is compulsory: email your TA in
advance if you need to miss section because of illness or any other reason.

Textbook

All students will need to purchase Fred S. Kleiner, ed., Gardners Art Through
the Ages: The Western Perspective, volume II. 15th edition. ISBN
9781305645059. Publisher: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2016 edition, available
from Yale Bookstore (with discount) and on line. List price $175; Amazon $148.
ASSIGNMENTS

Short Paper 1 (4-6 pages, double spaced): CLOSE LOOKING
Choose two works in the collection of Yale University Art Gallery that represent the
Virgin Mary (with or without the Christ child or other figures). They can be
paintings, reliefs or sculptures.

Compare and contrast the two works. Write a close visual analysis of each work,
bearing in mind the following questions: how does the form of the image/object
relate to its meaning? How does the artist deploy line and colour? How does the
medium of the work affect its meaning and aesthetic effect? What does the visual
appearance of the object tell you about its original location and function?

Short Paper 2 (4-6 pages, double spaced): VISUAL ANALYSIS AND HISTORICAL
RESEARCH
As before, look closely at an object made between 1600 and 1900 on display at Yale
University Art Gallery and provide a precise visual analysis of it. This time connect
the visual analysis to a historical account of the works meaning and function. Use
the resources of the Haas Library in Loria for research: you should cite at least 5
books or published articles in your answer. Online sources not accepted (for
exceptions see below)

Final Paper (8-10 pages, double spaced): THESIS-DRIVEN ART HISTORY
PAPER
A list of essay questions will be circulated after mid-term. NB: Do NOT give your
essay its own title but answer one of the prescribed questions. Your answer must be
thesis-driven.

A note on the textbook and on sources:

Gardners Art through the Ages, fifteenth edition, has been comprehensively revised
and is an up-to-date survey text. It is mainly useful to us because it provides a basic
canon of images with reliable information. For the essays, however, you will need to
conduct research in the Haas Art and Architecture Library, using Yales outstanding
collection of books on the history of art.

Online sources are not acceptable. The only exceptions are Oxfordartonline
recent articles accessible through JSTOR and the peer-reviewed content of websites
of major museums such as the Metropolitan Museums Heilbrunn Timeline of Art
History. Any essay with a reference, or which has made use of, Wikipedia or non-peer-
reviewed web content of any kind, will not be graded but returned to you unmarked. If
your second and third papers do not contain references to books you have consulted
in the Haas Art and Architecture library, you will not gain a grade above B. Your TA
will give you a handout on citation requirements.


SYLLABUS

Tuesday January 19
1. Introduction
Preparation: If you are new to the History of Art, read Gardner, 1-13. Also, all students
please visit the Yale University Art Gallery and make sure you have been in every
single gallery in the building, spending most of your time on Western art since 1300!

Thursday January 21
2. Florence, Siena and the World in 1300

Gardner, 411-433

Tuesday January 26
3. Antiquity and Reality: Florence, 1400-1450

Gardner, 461-481

Michael Baxandall, Conditions of Trade, in Painting and Experience in Fifteenth
Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 1-27. PDF on cv2.

Thursday January 28
4. Oil Painting and the North

Gardner, 435-459

Tuesday February 2
5. Courtly Arts of the Renaissance

Gardner, 481-500

Thursday February 4
NO CLASS

Tuesday February 9
6. Art in 1500: A Global View

Gardner, 503-527

Thursday February 11
7. Venice: Arts of a Maritime Republic

Gardner, 527-538

Erwin Panofsky, Titian's Allegory of Prudence: A Postscript in Panofsky, Meaning in
the Visual Arts, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955. PDF on cv2.

Tuesday February 16
8. Word and Image in the Reformation

Gardner, 555-575

Thursday February 18
9. Arts of the Counter Reformation

Gardner, 581-600; 611-616

Michael Fried, Thoughts on Caravaggio, Critical Inquiry 24 (Autumn 1997): 13-56.
PDF on cv2

Tuesday February 23
10. Spanish Art and the Habsburg Empire

Gardner, 601-609

Thursday February 25
11. Worlds of Trade

Gardner, 616-629

Tuesday March 1. Short paper 1 due in class at beginning of lecture.
12. Absolutism, War and Glory: the World in 1700

Gardner, 630-650

Thursday March 3
13. Academies and Modernities

Gardner, 651-671

Tuesday March 8
14. Age of Revolutions

Gardner, 673-689

Thomas Crow, Patriotism and Virtue: David to the Young Ingres in Stephen
Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art: A Critical History, London: Thames & Hudson,
2011, 18-54. PDF on cv2.

Thursday March 10
MID-TERM EXAM


MID TERM BREAK: LOOK AT SOME ART WHEREVER YOU ARE!

Tuesday March 29
15. Romanticism: Nature and History

Gardner, 689-695

Thursday March 31
16. The First Avant-Gardes: Realism versus Historicism

Gardner, 695-719

Tim Barringer, Reading the Pre-Raphaelites, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998,
Introduction and chapter 1 Rebellion and Revivalism. PDF on cv2.

Tuesday April 5. Short paper 2 due in class at beginning of lecture.
17. Modernity in Question

Gardner, 721-741

Griselda Pollock, Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity in Vision and Difference:
Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art, London: Routledge, 1988. PDF on cv2.

Thursday April 7
18. Art in 1900: A global view

Gardner, 741-759

Tuesday April 12
19. Historical Avant-Gardes I: Remaking the World

Gardner, 761-780

Hal Foster, et al., 1906 and 1907 in Art Since 1900, v. 1 (London: Thames and
Hudson, 2004), 70-84. PDF on cv2.

Thursday April 14
20. Historical Avant-Gardes II: Burning Museums and Great Utopias

Gardner, 780-787


Tuesday April 19
21. The Great War and the era of Totalitarianism

Gardner, 788-827

Hal Foster, et al., Art Since 1900, v. 1 (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 135-41,
174-79. PDF on cv2.

Thursday April 21
22. War to Cold War

Gardner, 829-851

Clement Greenberg, Avant-Garde and Kitsch, in Clement Greenberg: The Collected
Essays and Criticism, v. 1, ed. John OBrian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1986), 5-22. PDF on cv2.

NB: MAKE-UP CLASS: FRIDAY APRIL 22, usual time and place
23. Art of the Sixties

Tom Crow, extract from The Rise of the Sixties. PDF on cv2.

Tuesday April 26
24. Paradox and Postmodernism

Gardner, 851-873

Thursday April 28
25. A Global Art World

Gardner, 875-911

Friday April 29: 10-page final paper due. Deliver to History of Art office (251) in
Loria by 4pm.