ARTH210: American Art « Saylor.org – Free Online Courses Built by Professors

American Art

Purpose of Course show close

This course surveys art of America from the colonial era through the post-war 20^th century. We will consider broad stylistic tendencies in various regions and periods and examine specific artists and works of art in historical and social contexts, with emphasis on the congruent evolution of contemporary American multi-cultural identity. We will move chronologically, more or less, with many overlaps and cross-chronological, thematic diversions that will help shape this overview and offer different perspectives on the notion of an “American art,” per se. Overarching issues that have interested major scholars of American art and its purview include the landscape (wilderness, Manifest Destiny, rural settlement, and urban development); the family and gender roles; the founding rhetoric of freedom and antebellum slavery; and notions of artistic modernism through the 20^th century. A background in the basic concepts and terms of art history and art practice, and/or American studies in other disciplines, will be helpful in fully engaging the course material. Note: The links in the drop-down instructional boxes below will direct you to short essays with images, unless otherwise noted. Please click on all images encountered, as they will often enlarge or show details; also note the size of the artworks in descriptions, crucial to their form and their functions. Viewing original works in person is important for any study of art. Please identify a museum, gallery, or venue where you may closely view a work of American art created before 1980. A self-evaluation essay based on your choice is assigned at the end of UNIT 3. Other assignments are based on the reading. At the end of this syllabus, you will find a worksheet for general reference in studying art and a list of web resources frequently noted below, as well as several additional sites you can use to look up terms (including those bold-faced below), images, artists, and styles. To comply with all copyright laws, do not save any downloads accessed for your personal viewing through websites assigned below.

Learning Outcomes show close

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

Understand the historical (geographic, political) formation of the present United States of America;
Be familiar with renowned influential American artists from the 18th through the 20th century;
Be conversant in common stylistic designations used in Western art of the 17th through 20th centuries;
Recognize subjects and forms in “American” art through history that mark its distinction;
Be able to engage specific images, objects, and structures from different critical perspectives to consider their functions and meanings

Course Requirements show close

In order to take this course, you must:

√ Have access to a computer

√ Have continuous broadband internet access

√ Have the ability/permission to install plug-ins or software (e.g. Adobe Reader of Flash)

√ Have the ability to download documents to a computer

√ Have the ability to open and save Microsoft word documents (worksheets)

√ Be competent in the English language

√ Have read the Saylor Student Handbook.

√ Have completed ARTH110 (Introduction to Western Art History: Pre-historic to High Gothic).

It is strongly recommended that you complete ARTH111 (Introduction to Western Art History: Proto-Renaissance to Contemporary Art) prior to taking this course.

2 The 18th Century
2.1 The Revolutionary Era
2.2 The First President and the National Capitol

3 1800 to Circa 1860
3.1 Developments in Portraiture
3.2 Romantic Landscape
3.3 Painting Everyday Life
3.4 History Painting: Emanuel Leutze’s “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851)

4 The Civil War Era to the Gilded Age
4.1 The War Years
4.2 The Late 19th Century
4.2.1 American Impressionism
4.2.2 The World’s Columbia Exposition, 1893 / Turn of the Century
4.2.3 Special Topics

5 The New Century to the Great Depression
5.1 The Ashcan School and Early Abstraction
5.2 Harlem Renaissance

6 The 1930s Through WWII
6.1 "American Scene” Painters and Documentary Photography
6.2 Abstraction and Surrealism
6.3 Case Study: Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s Premier Architect

7 Post-War America and the Art World: Abstract Expressionism to New Political Art, Stylistic Pluralism, Diversity
7.1 Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism
7.2 Pop Art and Other Figurative Styles
7.3 Feminist, Conceptual and Earth Art
7.4 Post-Modernism Pluralism
7.5 Case Studies: Public Monuments and Sculpture

8 Final Exam

Expand All Resources Collapse All Resources

Unit 1: The Americas: 16th and 17th Centuries

The indigenous and early Colonial culture in South and Central America as well as Native North American society have continued to resonate variously in the art and visual culture of the United States. The Spanish (funding Christopher Columbus) made the earliest Christian mark, followed by the English and Dutch, who eventually prevailed in privileging Protestantism over Catholicism in the forthcoming new nation.

Web Media: Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “American Historical Periods”
Link: Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “American Historical Periods” (HTML)

Instructions: Before beginning Unit 1, work your way through the entire presentation above, which will give you a general idea of our trajectory in this course. Each section has a short essay accompanied by images; enlarge two or three of these images from each section to get a sense for styles and imagery. Get a feeling for types of subject matter and composition (i.e. how the images are laid out on the picture plane). Below, we will look in depth at some of this material. Continue to refer back to this site for image references.

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Reading: Wikipedia’s “History of the United States”
Link: Wikipedia’s “History of the United States” (HTML)

Instructions: Use this basic timeline to keep track of the major events in American history as we proceed through the units below.

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1.1 Pre-Columbian Art Forms

Note: At the time of European contact with the Americas, Aztec civilization was producing sophisticated architecture, sculpture, and painted images on pottery and codices. Their ceremonial capital, Tenochtitlan, beneath modern-day Mexico City, is under continual excavation, yielding new information. Native North Americans generally employed ephemeral art materials; however, they also created monumental “earth sculptures” before the second millennium that remain part of the American landscape.

Web Media: Mexicolore’s “Aztec Pages"
Link: Mexicolore’s “Aztec Pages” (HTML)

Instructions: This website features excellent images of Aztec art. Please browse the site after reading the articles listed below:

In the left menu, click “Moctezuma” and then the “Death of Monctezuma” link on the right menu at top of the page you reach. Read the entire, well-illustrated article on the enigmatic Aztec ruler at the time of Cortes (three parts; attributed to a panel of scholars). Then return to the previous right menu to browse “art news/exhibition pages” listed near the bottom.

Return to main Aztec page (as above). Click “Spanish Conquest” and then read the illustrated article, “What Happened to the Aztec Gods after Conquest?” (found on the top right hand menu) by Dr. Eleanor Wake (2 parts).

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Reading: The National Park Service: Indian Mounds of the Mississippi: "The Mound Builders" and "Building the Mounds"
Links: The National Park Service: Indian Mounds of the Mississippi: "The Mound Builders" (HTML) and "Building the Mounds" (HTML)

Instructions: Please read these two webpages as an introduction to the Mound Builders, the prehistoric inhabitants of North America who built earthen mounds for ritual and residential purposes. "Mound builder" is an inclusive name for a number of cultures that lived in the Great Lakes Region and the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys from the fourth millennium BCE to about 1700CE. These pages focus on Mound Building cultures in the Mississippi Valley, while the following reading is about the famous Serpent Mound in the Ohio Valley.

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Web Media: JQ Jacobs’ “Serpent Mound”
Link: JQ Jacobs’ “Serpent Mound” (HTML)

Instructions: This site provides summary information on the “Great Serpent Mound,” an ancient native Adena burial site in Ohio. Please read about the mound and examine the pictures.

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1.2 Early Colonial Art

Note: Soon after conquest by the Spanish, native artists of Mexico were enlisted by the new regime; syncretistic art forms (art forms that show cross-cultural influences) ensued. In the North American southwest and Florida, Catholic churches adopted the adobe techniques of the native pueblos, later mimicked in stone with Baroque flourishes. The east coast of what became the United States was settled even earlier, with the first extant depictions dating from the 1500s.

Web Media: The Saylor Foundation's “Florentine Codex”
Link: The Saylor Foundation's “Florentine Codex” (PDF)

Instructions: Please click on the link above to view some images of an object known as the “Florentine Codex,” which was commissioned by an early missionary. This object provides eyewitness images of Aztec daily life.
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Web Media: Patronato San Xavier’s “History” and “Slideshows”
Links: Patronato San Xavier’s “History” (HTML) and “Slideshows” (HTML)

Instructions: Please read about the history of this mid-18^th century Arizona church for a good summary of the complex. Then work your way through the slide shows for various views of the building in the midst of restoration.

About the resource: The website above is hosted by the Patronato San Xavier, a non-profit, non-religious group dedicated to continuing restoration of the Jesuit church, San Xavier del Bac in Arizona.

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Web Media: KNME: New Mexico History Museum’s “New Mexico’s Segesser Hide Painting”
Link: KNME: New Mexico History Museum’s “New Mexico’s Segesser Hide Painting” (YouTube)

Also available in:
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Instructions: Please watch this six-minute video, historian Thomas Chavez speaks about several eighteenth-century, banner-like hide paintings that represent battle scenes between Native Americans and feature some of the earliest known depictions of Spanish Colonial life in the Southwest. They may have been created by native artists training with Europeans, or members of the Spanish expedition.

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Reading: History Is Fun: Lisa F. Heuvel’s “Looking with Clearer Vision: The Significance of John White’s Watercolors”
Link: History Is Fun: Lisa F. Heuvel’s “Looking with Clearer Vision: The Significance of John White’s Watercolors” (HTML)

Instructions: Please read the linked article above, which discusses John White’s renderings of the indigenous populations he encountered in the New World.

About the website: This is the website of the Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center.

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Unit 2: The 18th Century

During the 18^th century, threats to Native American societies began in earnest as fights over land between Europeans escalated. “Modern” history painters commemorated the action, including that of the American War of Independence, in a mix of Neoclassical and Romantic styles, following the trends at British (and to a lesser extent other European) royal academies. This century also saw the design of the capital city of Washington, D.C. and the emergence of a visual discourse (including paintings, prints, and illustrations) around the slave trade and plantation slavery system.

2.1 The Revolutionary Era

Note: Major artists from this period include Benjamin West of Pennsylvania and John Singleton Copley of Boston, both of whom settled in England before the war, as well as Connecticut artist John Trumbull (who spent much time there). Early emblems of the new nation with various personifications and Classical symbolism were designed; these remain prevalent today.

Reading: Wikipedia’s “Great Seal of the United States”
Link: Wikipedia’s “Great Seal of the United States” (HTML)

Instructions: Browse the history, design, and iconography of the Great Seal of 1792.

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Reading: SmartHistory’s “Neoclassicism”
Link: SmartHistory’s “Neoclassicism” (HTML)

Instructions: Read Beth Gersh-Nesic’s brief summary of the origins of the Neoclassical style. Continue to use SmartHistory throughout the course for brief stylistic references. (Below, additional specific pages within the site are also assigned.)

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Web Media: National Gallery of Canada/Musee des Beaux-Arts du Canada: Benjamin West’s “The Death of General Wolfe,” 1770
Link: National Gallery of Canada/Musee des Beaux-Arts du Canada: Benjamin West’s “The Death of General Wolfe," 1770 (HTML and Quicktime)

Instructions: Listen to the Media Guide from the right menu (1 min.; minimize speaker image; enlarge reproduction).

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Web Media: National Gallery of Art: John Singleton Copley’s “Watson and the Shark,” 1778
Link: National Gallery of Art: John Singleton Copley’s “Watson and the Shark,” 1778 (HTML)

Instructions: Read the linked page above, examining Copley’s work. In conjunction with the webpage on “The Death of General Wolfe,” you should be able to get an idea of the forms and issues circulating among painters at this time through these specific, renowned works. There have been many interpretations of the significance of the black sailor at the pinnacle of the composition; reflect on his presence and significance.

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Activity: CATESOL Conference: Seth A. Streichler’s “American Civilization and Language Through Art History: Worksheet 1”
Link: CATESOL Conference: Seth A. Streichler’s “American Civilization and Language Through Art History: Worksheet 1” (PDF)

Instructions: Scroll down and click on the link for “Streichler, S.A.” A PDF should appear; scroll down to the bottom of page 5 for a list of questions pertaining to two of the paintings we have already seen. Then, refer back through links for brief entries and good reproductions of The Death of General Wolfe and Watson and the Shark to construct short essay answers to the following questions from pages 6 and 7 of the PDF: questions 3, 4, and 5.

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Reading: Wikipedia’s “Jane McCrea”
Link: Wikipedia’s “Jane McCrea” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this entry and view the large .jpg of John Vanderlyn’s Death of Jane McCrea (1804; Wadsworth Atheneum). Note the continuing “classical” depiction of Native Americans, as in West’s Death of General Wolfe. This work, of course, has its own specific contexts and content.

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Web Media: State Museum of Pennsylvania’s “Creating an Image of Peace: The William Penn Treaty”
Link: State Museum of Pennsylvania’s “Creating an Image of Peace: The William Penn Treaty” (HTML)

Instructions: On the left menu, click on and read “Creating an Image of Peace,” which discusses Benjamin West’s painting, William Penn's Treaty with the Indians when he founded the Province of Pennsylvania in North America, 1771 (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia). For a larger image of the painting, visit the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art’s website.
Then browse the State Museum of Pennsylvania’s “Image Gallery” (at the bottom of the home page); peruse works in the exhibition to see how subject matter and early nationalistic images circulated.

About the website: This site was formed in conjunction with the 1996 exhibition An Image of Peace: The Penn Treaty Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Meyer P. Potamkin.

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2.2 The First President and the National Capitol

Note: The representations of Washington produced during this period set a precedent that generations of future artists would follow. Architect Thomas Jefferson brought a studied Neo-Classism to the new nation. The planning of Washington, D.C. and the Capitol building extended over several decades.

Web Media: Yale University: John Trumbull, George Washington at Trenton (1792) and John Trumbull, The Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775 (1786)
Link: Yale University: John Trumbull, George Washington at Trenton (1792) (HTML) and John Trumbull, The Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775 (1786) (HTML)

Instructions: Click on links above to view paintings by John Trumbull, the official painter of the new republic; both of these images are from the online catalogue of the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery. Note the direct artistic lineage between Benjamin West and these artists.
The equestrian portrait of Washington has a long history grounded in classical Roman imperial prototypes. Efforts to identify the black soldier at far left edge of the battle scene, and interpretations of his position, have been important to a boom in scholarship on the participation of African Americans in the Revolution and all wars engaged by the U.S. military.

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Web Media: Smithsonian Institution: National Portrait Gallery’s “Gilbert Stuart, George Washington (Landsdowne Portrait), 1796”
Link: Smithsonian Institution: National Portrait Gallery’s “Gilbert Stuart, George Washington (Landsdowne Portrait), 1796” (Adobe Flash)

Instructions: Gilbert Stuart was the most renowned painter of the first president. At the link above see his George Washington (Landsdowne Portrait), 1796. In the center of the page, click “Launch the Interactive Portrait.” Go through the program carefully, exploring close-ups of the painting from symbolic, biographical, and artistic perspectives.

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Web Media: Monticello’s “House and Gardens” and “Plantation and Slavery”
Link: Monticello’s “House and Gardens” (HTML) and “Plantation and Slavery” (HTML)

Instructions: Monticello was the home of President Thomas Jefferson. Explore these the pages on the plantation to get an idea of the aesthetics associated with Neoclassical architectural and interior design.

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Web Media: Architects of the Capitol’s “U.S. Capitol Building”
Link: Architects of the Capitol’s “U.S. Capitol Building” (HTML)

Instructions: From the homepage menu at the top of the site, click on "Capitol Campus"; in sub-menu, click on "U.S. Capitol Building." Read the linked page and explore the embedded links (history; construction; etc.). Focus on the architectural sections. The "Works of Art" section is extensive and most were done into the nineteenth century; we will return to the painting section below.

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Web Media: Florence Griswold Museum’s “With Needle and Brush”
Link: Florence Griswold Museum’s “With Needle and Brush” (HTML)

Instructions: Click the link above in order to read about women’s needlework from the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, which is an interesting topic of specialty study.

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Unit 3: 1800 to Circa 1860

Portrait painting became popular from the time of Protestant infiltration of the colonies, in a shift from religious art of the earlier Catholic regime. The spread of photography in the 1840s in turn diminished demand somewhat. During this period, painter Charles Willson Peale opened the first museum opened to the public in America. Westward expansion began in earnest and the nation’s population increases dramatically. Landscape painting gained stature as well.

3.1 Developments in Portraiture

Note: A demand for portraits encouraged many artists with varying degrees of training to seize opportunities in this genre in the period between 1800 and 1860. American portraits of the 18^th and early 19^th century tend toward a flattened style. Iconographic details relate to status, occupation, and important events in the sitters’ lives.

Web Media: Yale University Art Gallery: John Smibert, The Bermuda Group (Dean Berkeley and His Entourage), 1728-1739; SmartHistory: “John Singleton Copley” [The Copley Family, 1776-77, National Gallery of Art”; National Gallery of Art: “John Singleton Copley, The Copley Family”
Link: Yale University Art Gallery: John Smibert, The Bermuda Group (Dean Berkeley and His Entourage), 1728-1739; (HTML) SmartHistory: “John Singleton Copley” [The Copley Family, 1776-77, National Gallery of Art”; (HTML) National Gallery of Art: “John Singleton Copley, The Copley Family” (HTML)

Instructions: Compare form and meaning in the paintings featured in the links above.

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Web Media: SmartHistory: Gerri Hayes and Floyed Sklaver’s “Erastus Salisbury Field's Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1830 (Portland Art “Museum)”
Link: SmartHistory: Gerri Hayes and Floyed Sklaver’s “Erastus Salisbury Field's Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1830 (Portland Art “Museum)”

Instructions: Please listen to Gerri Hayes and Floyed Sklaver's discussion and iconographic interpretation of this work (3 minutes).

Terms of Use: The above video is reposted from SmartHistory.org. The original version can be found here. This video is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
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Web Media: Bowdoin College Museum of Art: “Joshua Johnson, Portrait of a Man (Possibly Abner Coker), c. 1805-1810”
Link: Bowdoin College Museum of Art: “Joshua Johnson, Portrait of a Man (Possibly Abner Coker), c. 1805-1810” (HTML)

Instructions: Please view the linked image above by portrait painter Johnson (sometimes “Johnston”), who worked mainly in Maryland and is among the first documented African American painters.

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Carrie Rebora Barratt’s "Nineteenth-Century American Folk Art"
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Carrie Rebora Barratt’s "Nineteenth-Century American Folk Art" (HTML)

Instructions: The extent to which painters like Sklaver and Johnson (above) were self-taught, interacted with other artists, and/or reflected a new “American” style has been taken up by specialists in the field, as have the roots and boundaries of “folk art,” which has its own historical narrative that overlaps with the more canonical art historical one. The webpage above is a good place to start (browse briefly; for those interested, there are extensive links.)

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Web Media: National Gallery of Art: “Edward Hicks”
Link: National Gallery of Art: “Edward Hicks” (HTML)

Instructions: Edward Hicks (1780-1849) is perhaps among America’s most renowned 19^th-century folk artist. Click through images and descriptions (six). Note the personal aspects of Hicks’ style, and how he uses narratives subjects also shared by “academic” painters.

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3.2 Romantic Landscape

Note: America represented divine wilderness to Europeans. Painters like Thomas Cole exploited literary and spiritual allusions to create metaphoric visions of America’s natural wonders. The “Luminists” focused on pristine, dramatic light and overlapped with the “Hudson River School.” Landscapes of the West often included images of Native Americans; some artists specialized in recording their enclaves and customs in the wake of “Manifest Destiny.”

Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Kevin Avery’s “The Hudson River School”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Kevin Avery’s “The Hudson River School” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the linked page above and view the slide show; browse further references.

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Reading: New World Encyclopedia’s “The Hudson River School”
Link: New World Encyclopedia’s “The Hudson River School” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the entry linked above.

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Web Media: SmartHistory: Steven Zucker and Beth Harris’ “Romanticism in the United States: Cole's The Oxbow”
Link: SmartHistory: Steven Zucker and Beth Harris’ “Romanticism in the United States: Cole's The Oxbow” (Adobe Flash)

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Instructions: Listen to this discussion of Cole’s artwork. With the encyclopedia entry above, this will provide you with a good overview of landscape painting in the era.

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Web Media: Smithsonian American Art Museum: "George Catlin and His Indian Gallery”
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum: "George Catlin and His Indian Gallery” (HTML)

Instructions: From the main menu (link above), click “Virtual Exhibitions”; read the introduction and click “Images” to proceed through an extensive presentation of Catlin's artwork (34 images).

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3.3 Painting Everyday Life

Note: American genre painting—depictions of ordinary life, as well as still life “genre” (or “type”)—were visual commentaries on the diversity of lifestyles emergent in the United States. They could appear “realistic” but were often composed to convey moral messages, sometimes based on literary subjects. “History” paintings were influenced by genre subjects in terms of sentimentality and melodrama.

Web Media: Metropolitan Museum of Art: “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915”
Link: Metropolitan Museum of Art: “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915” (HTML)

Instructions: At the top of the page, click the first section, “Inventing American Stories 1765-1830.” Read the introduction and view the 13 images/entries. (Please note that images can be enlarged twice.) Pay special attention to the following entries:
-#3 and #4: Review John Singleton Copley.
-#10: John Lewis Krimmel, The Quilting Frolic, 1813. Note the exaggerated coloration, ragged clothing, and marginal position of the black fiddler. Black musicians would become a staple of the 19^th-century genre in which some artists specialized, and which have inspired diverse interpretations of artist intent and the appeal to the (white) market. Disturbing depictions, which became stereotypes through repetition and by virtue of a lack of alternative, naturalistic images of real people of African descent were influenced by grotesque visages of “black-face” minstrelsy, a hugely popular entertainment in much of America into the 20^th century. Note the young black serving girl, whose heavily laden serving tray is nearly her size.
-#8 and #11: Charles Willson Peale, Exhumation of the Mastadon, 1805-08, and The Artist in His Museum, 1822. In a new window, open related supplemental essay from The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

Return to the exhibition home/index page; click “Stories for the Public, 1830-1860,” and read the introduction and view the 28 images/entries. Listen to the audio commentaries provided for the following entries:
-#19, George Caleb Bingham,The County Election, 1851-52.
-#23, Lilly Martin Spencer, Young Husband: First Marketing, 1854 and
- #25, Spencer, Kiss Me and You’ll Kiss the ‘Lasses, 1856 (one 6-minute audio on both works; #25 is spoken about first)

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Web Media: National Gallery of Art: “Raphaelle Peale, A Dessert (1814)” Link: National Gallery of Art: “Raphaelle Peale, A Dessert (1814)” (HTML)
Link: National Gallery of Art: “Raphaelle Peale, A Dessert (1814)” (HTML)

Instructions: Raphaelle Peale, a son of Charles Willson Peale (whose work you observed in "Inventing American Stories 1765-1830"), was the first acclaimed American still life painter. The meticulous attention to surface and texture (derived from European, especially Dutch precedents) would be developed by the end of the century into amusing “trompe l’oeil” paintings that can almost appear to incorporate real objects (more in upcoming sections).

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Web Media: Philadelphia Museum of Art: “Charles Willson Peale, Staircase Group, 1795”
Link: Philadelphia Museum of Art: “Charles Willson Peale, Staircase Group, 1795” (HTML and Adobe Flash)

Instructions: Charles Peale experimented directly with “trickery” in this life-size work of two of his children on a staircase. It includes a real wooden step coming into the gallery space at the bottom to enhance the illusionism. Listen to the brief audio clips on the page.

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Web Media: National Gallery of Art: “Will Harnett’s, The Old Violin (1886)”
Link: National Gallery of Art: “Will Harnett’s, The Old Violin (1886)” (HTML)

Instructions: Read through this presentation in three steps: a close look at the painting, the career of Harnett, and the subject of money in still life painting; make comparisons with other artists. While Harnett’s best work is late in the century, it is the epitome of what became associated with distinctly American 19^th-century trompe l’oeil. The detail is hard to capture on screen; for larger images of works by Harnett, you may want to enlarge images from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Search “Harnett” (any search window) to retrieve enlarged images of his artwork.

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3.4 History Painting: Emanuel Leutze’s “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851)

Note: Perhaps the most widely recognized and reproduced American painting in history, and the most frequently copied by other artists and illustrations (whether in parody, homage, or both), Leutze’s “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” is traditional for the period in terms of composition, with the centered hero at its “peak.” It does, however, evoke a naturalistic sense of the setting and, while still detailed, the brush strokes are somewhat looser than those in some of the precedents we have seen; this is not as clear in reduced reproduction as it would be in a first-hand viewing of the 25-foot-long canvas.

Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Emanuel Leutze’s “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851)
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Emanuel Leutze’s “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851) (HTML)

Instructions: View the object entry above; view image details in the slide show below the main image.

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Web Media: NPR: Ina Jaffee’s “George Washington Crossing the Delaware”
Link: NPR: Ina Jaffee’s “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” (HTML and RealPlayer)

Instructions: Read the introduction (above link), then click the audio link in order to listen to a 6-minute report about the painting by art historian Ina Jaffee. (A free media player download is available).

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Activity: The Saylor Foundation’s “American Art Activity 1”
Instructions: Select an original work of American art (see INTRODUCTION, above) and compose an essay (2-3 typed, double-spaced pages) from notes taken at a personal viewing. Refer to The Saylor Foundation’s ARTH210 Worksheet. Begin with data. Include a careful description of the basic subject depicted, medium/technique, and formal aspects (as applicable/what is most prominent in the piece). Then offer a summary of its potential meanings (iconographic analysis, context in terms of period, narrative, artist’s biography, etc., as applicable). Draw on how scholars we have read so far have approached close viewings of individual works.
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Unit 4: The Civil War Era to the Gilded Age

The visual culture of the Civil War is extensive, with the explosion of the popular illustrated press. For the first time, the death and devastation of war was conveyed to those removed from the action through photography. Naturalistic, “realistic” styles become pervasive. The progress, hopes, and disintegration of the Reconstruction platform for African Americans was documented by and expressed through art. During the same period, the Indian Wars were brought to their devastating conclusion. Impressionism came to American late in the century, when nouveau riche industrialists began many of America’s major art collections.

4.1 The War Years

Note: Leaving behind the heroic military painting of the past, Winslow Homer and other prominent artists of the era infused war scenes and ancillary subjects with up-close, subtle solemnity. They also provided eyewitness sketches of the conflict for reproduction in illustrated journals. Commemorative prints included African American soldiers, although public war memorials and commemorations of the Emancipation Proclamation were fraught with racial politics.

Web Media: Metropolitan Museum of Art: “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915”
Link: Metropolitan Museum of Art: “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915” (HTML)

Instructions: Click “Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860-1877”; read the introduction. Click on the first image, Eastman Johnson’s Negro Life at the South (1859). Many scholars have written about the meanings and messages of this work. It came to be known as “Old Kentucky Home,” even though it depicts black life in Washington, D.C. on the eve of the Civil War. (Washington had a substantial population of free blacks by then, but slavery was not outlawed in the city until 1862). Note the banjo player; among the many 19^th-century portrayals of black musicians, the banjo, an African-derived instrument, appears most frequently. Many portrayals of black muscians during this time are overtly racist, others, sympathetic or ambiguous. See brief examples at the following links:

-The Long Island Museum: “William Sidney Mount, Banjo Player, 1856” (HTML)
Note: this is an image that was widely marketed in its time in prints.

-Library of Congress: Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue: “Tobacco Product label, 1859” (HTML)

-Library of Congress: Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue: “Poster for Minstrel Troupe, c. 1869” (HTML)
Note: A backlash in severe stereotypes picked up after the war and reconstruction; compare the image linked above to the next one.

-Library of Congress: Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue: “Commercial Photograph, 1897” (HTML)

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Reading: Carnegie Magazine Online: Nona Martin’s “Civil War Symbolism”
Link: Carnegie Magazine Online: Nona Martin’s “Civil War Symbolism” (HTML)

Instructions: This is an analysis of Eastman Johnson’s painting, Union Soldiers Accepting a Drink, 1865. In a new window, open a better reproduction of the work to refer to while reading, available at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

Note on the link: This article appeared in the Carnegie Magazine Online, LXIII, no.7 (January/February 1997).

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Winslow Homer: Prisoners from the Front (22.207) [1866]”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Winslow Homer: Prisoners from the Front (22.207) [1866]” (HTML)

Instructions: Examine this image and read the brief entry on it. Then, on the right, under the heading “Thematic Essays,” read the brief biographical sketch of Homer. Then return to main page and find the link (lower right) to the Natalie Spassky’s extensive scholarly essay, "Winslow Homer: At The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Please read the essay in full (it may take a few minutes to download). The article goes through Homer’s oeuvre chronologically and by theme; he began as a printer’s apprentice, influenced by Impressionism in his later work. You can read more about him via this supplemental overview, which emphasizes his later work, by The National Gallery of Art. Additional sites that may be of interest to you if you wish to study Homer further:

-Son of the South’s “Winslow Homer Civil War Prints” (HTML)
Note: Browse the site for war sketches by Winslow Homer.

- Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue: “Civil War Photographs” (HTML)
Note: Browse, via the left-hand-side menu choices, the introduction to war photography; note sections on photographer Matthew Brady and the section titled “Taking Photographs during the Civil War.”

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Stories of War and Reconciliation”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Stories of War and Reconciliation” (HTML)

Instructions: Return to the section “Stories of War and Reconciliation,” where we began with Eastman Johnson’s painting, Life at the South. Continue to view the remaining 23 images/entries.

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Web Media: Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Thomas Waterman Wood”
Link: Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Thomas Waterman Wood” (HTML)

Instructions: Type in "Waterman Wood"; Look at Wood’s Triptych, titled “A Bit of War History”(1884); it is represented here as 3 images, to be viewed separately. Click “Next” to scroll to the all the pictures in the Triptych. It appears a sympathetic view of African Americans in the Union Army, particularly runaways (from the South). Stylistically, it may be considered “mainstream” for its time, with naturalistic flourishes. It remains relatively tightly painted, with an overall staged sensibility.

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Web Media: University of Delaware Library Special Collections Department: “The Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876: An introduction to America’s First ‘World’s Fair’”
Links: University of Delaware Library Special Collections Department: “The Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876: An introduction to America’s First ‘World’s Fair’” (HTML)

Instructions: By the early 1870s, all manner of Civil War monuments were being erected on local and regional levels. Planning for a national celebration of the forthcoming centennial had begun. Two African American artists were included in these plans: Edwin M. Bannister, primarily a landscape painter with a Realist style, and Mary Edmonia Lewis (aka “Edmonia,” also of Ijibwe heritage). Read about the plans for the World Fair on the University of Delaware page.

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Web Media: American Art from the Howard University Collection: “Oral Narrations by Tritobia”
Link: American Art from the Howard University Collection: “Oral Narrations by Tritobia” (RealPlayer)

Instructions: Choose “Edward M. Bannister,” then, “Video” (at left) for brief audio text. Return to index page; choose “Mary Edmonia Lewis, ‘Forever Free’”; this work is perhaps the first known sculptural commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation, although it was not the work exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition. Note: browse the web briefly for other possible other views of this work.

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Reading: Lakewood Public Library (Ohio): “Women in History: Edmonia Lewis Biography”
Link: Lakewood Public Library (Ohio): “Women in History: Edmonia Lewis Biography” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the linked entry above, which was last updated 3/9/2010 [as of 10/9/10].

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Web Media: Smithsonian American Art Museum: “Edmonia Lewis”
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum: “Edmonia Lewis” (HTML)

Instructions: Click the titles of the listed works by Edmonia Lewis to see enlargement feature/view “largest” for each work (8).

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Reading: Wikipedia’s “Emancipation Memorial”
Link: Wikipedia’s “Emancipation Memorial” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this entry on Thomas Ball’s The Emancipation Memorial (aka The Freedman’s Memorial), erected 1876 in Lincoln Park, Washington, DC.

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Activity: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 2
Link: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 2 (PDF)

Instructions: Compare the form and iconography of Thomas Ball’s Emancipation Memorialwith Lewis’s Forever Free. What are the messages of each figure and each group as a whole, in your opinion? Consider that African Americans paid for the work; as today, various official and other committees would have had to approve the design of any public work.
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Reading: Wikipedia’s “The Gross Clinic”
Link: Wikipedia’s “The Gross Clinic” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this summary on Thomas Eakins’s most famous painting, The Gross Clinic, 1875. This portrait of a renowned surgeon at work is the epitome of the Realist style in America painting. See also the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s exhibition website: An Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing The Gross Clinic Anew. The focus is on restoration of the painting (2009-2010), which had been altered by various cleanings, to its original shadowy palette.

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Web Media: National Gallery of Art: “August Saint-Gaudens’ Monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment”
Link: National Gallery of Art: “August Saint-Gaudens’ Monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54^th Regiment” (HTML)

Instructions: Take the complete “Tour,” reading all subsections. This describes the decades-long project, from concept to installment of the bronze original monument in Boston Commons. (Sketches as well as plaster and bronze studies are extensive.)

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Activity: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 3
Link: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 3 (PDF)

Instructions: Visit the online exhibition for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915.” From the section titled “Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860-1877,” choose two paintings by any two different artists except Eastman Johnson or Winslow Homer. Write a comparative essay, 2 – 3 typed double-spaced pages in length. Begin with data and a summary statement or two about the thrust of your comparison. In other words, what is the comparison meant to elucidate about painting in the period? (For example, similar or diverse views of a subject or issue, use of iconography, aspects of period style, etc.) You might continue with an integrated comparison or move to prominent aspects of each, then conclude with direct comparison.
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4.2 The Late 19th Century

Note: Impressionism originated in France in the 1870s and took some time to cross the Atlantic, where it also generally remained closer to earlier naturalistic Realism (as we have seen in later Homer works). Industrialism and mercantilism demanded new architectural forms. In a backlash to Reconstruction, graphic racial stereotypes facilitated the on-set of “Jim Crow” segregation.

Web Media: Metropolitan Museum of Art: “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915”
Link: Metropolitan Museum of Art: “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915” (HTML)

Instructions: Click “Cosmopolitan and Candid Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860-1877.” Read the introduction and click on the images/entries numbered 1 – 27.

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4.2.1 American Impressionism

Reading: SmartHistory: “Impressionism”
Link: SmartHistory: “Impressionism” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this brief essay by Beth Gersh-Nesic.

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Barbara Weinberg’s "American Impressionism”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Barbara Weinberg’s "American Impressionism” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this essay; click each thumbnail/description (11).

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4.2.2 The World’s Columbia Exposition, 1893 / Turn of the Century

Reading: University of Delaware Library Special Collections Department: “World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893” and Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago: Robert W. Rydell’s “World’s Columbian Exposition”
Link: University of Delaware Library Special Collections Department: “World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893” (HTML) and Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago: Robert W. Rydell’s “World’s Columbian Exposition” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the two entries linked above. There are many studies on racial tensions in post-Reconstruction American at the World’s Columbian Exhibition, where “Aunt Jemima,” a logo developed a few years earlier, was brought to life in a product exhibition. (Her look and early incarnations were drawn from earlier “mammy” characters of black minstrelsy.) Overtly or covertly racist graphics were common in period advertising, suggesting the growing appeal (in white society) of nostalgic antebellum sentiment that ushered in the “Jim Crow” order with the infamous “Plessy verses Ferguson” legal decision of 1896. (This decision allowed states to implement segregation.) Images are readily available in web searches, keyed to an active market in early “black collectibles.” Those interested can start with: Wikipedia’s “Aunt Jemima”.

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Web Media: Mark Harden’s Artchive, “Henry Ossawa Tanner”
Link: Mark Harden’s Artchive, “Henry Ossawa Tanner” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the linked essay, click the image list, and focus on The Banjo Lesson, 1993. Tanner is the most renowned African American painter born in the 19^th century.
He exhibited and delivered a lecture at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Think about how the painting works in a dialogue with some past related images/themes we have looked at. What are the basic style(s) reflected in the painting?

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Reading: Emerging Infectious Diseases: P. Potter’s “Artistic Light and Capturing the Immeasurable”
Link: Emerging Infectious Diseases: P. Potter’s “Artistic Light and Capturing the Immeasurable” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this brief analysis of light effects in The Banjo Lesson. It originally appeared in February 2008.

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Web Media: Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: Will South’s “A Missing Question Mark: the Unknown Henry Ossawa Tanner”
Link: Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: Will South’s “A Missing Question Mark: the Unknown Henry Ossawa Tanner” (HTML)

Instructions: This extensive article gives insight into in-depth professional, critical research on individual artists and issues concerning their personal and professional motivations and intentions. Please keep in mind that this is only one interpretation of Tanner’s views toward race as an issue in his life and art.

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Web Media: Smithsonian American Art Museum Online Exhibitions Homepage: “Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Mystical Painter”
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum Online Exhibitions Homepage: “Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Mystical Painter” (Adobe Flash)

Instructions: Scroll down and choose “Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Mystical Painter.” Enter the Flash site and view entire presentation with images.

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Web Media: Smithsonian American Art Museum: “The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2003)”
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum: “The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2003)” (HTML)

Instructions: Run through the slide show of 60 images/entries; please stop to enlarge several. This resource provides an excellent visual overview of aesthetics associated with “Gilded Age” America.

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Barbara H. Winberg’s "John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Barbara H. Winberg’s "John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)” (HTML)

Instructions: Read more about Sargent (represented in several sites above), the most famous American portrait painter of the era.

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen and Monica Obniski’s "Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933)”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen and Monica Obniski’s "Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933)” (HTML)

Instructions: Tiffany, who specialized in stained glass, is perhaps the most renowned practitioner of decorative artist in this era. Read this essay and view the embedded images. Follow article links given for further introduction to this field.

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Activity: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 4
Link: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 4 (PDF)

Instructions: Choose one artist viewed in this section (4.2.3). Write a short essay (1 to 2 typed, double-spaced pages) in the style of an “encyclopedia entry.” Summarize the significance/contribution of the artist to culture of the era, in your critical opinion. Give an overall stylistic description characteristic of the artist’s oeuvre, and mention 2 – 3 specific works of art that best illustrate your assessments.
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4.2.3 Special Topics

Web Media: National Museum of America History, Smithsonian Institution: “Keeping History: Plains Indian Ledger Drawing”
Link: National Museum of America History, Smithsonian Institution: “Keeping History: Plains Indian Ledger Drawing” (HTML)

Instructions: View the full presentation of these late 19^th-century drawings via the link at bottom of the page: “Visit Website.”

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Reading: Connexions: Stephen Frederick’s "Introduction: The Birth of American Artist Printmaking”
Link: Connexions: Stephen Frederick’s "Introduction: The Birth of American Artist Printmaking” (HTML)

Also available in:
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ePub format

Instructions: Frederick’s article provides insight into the interest of artists who considered themselves primarily painters in terms of late 19^th century printmaking techniques and aesthetics, as well as commercial aspects.

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Unit 5: The New Century to the Great Depression

In the early 1900s, for the first time in American history, the wealthy class in America rivaled the wealthy in Europe, and this development was reflected in portraiture and collecting. However, America also saw growing class division, facilitated by large waves of immigration. A new underclass became subjects in art. World War I brought United States directly into world affairs and alliances. The Harlem Renaissance takes shape.

5.1 The Ashcan School and Early Abstraction

Note: Impressionism finally became popular in the early part of the 20^th century, while “modern” urban American painters embraced immigrant life as subject matter. Photographs of the urban poor began to affect public sentiment. At the same time, the Armory Show brought European abstraction to New York.

Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915” (HTML)

Instructions: View the image/entries for #28 to #38 (end).

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Barbara H. Weinberg’s “The Ashcan School”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Barbara H. Weinberg’s “The Ashcan School” (HTML)

Instructions: Read essay and view all image/entries.

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: James Voorhies’ “Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and His Circle”
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: James Voorhies’ “Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and His Circle” (HTML)

Instructions: Read about photographer/gallerist Stieglitz, who helped popularize abstraction in America.

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Web Media: Whitney Museum of American Art: “Barbara Haskell and Sasha Nicholas Discuss [Georgia] O’Keeffe’s Use of Abstraction over the Course of Her Career” (2005)
Link: Whitney Museum of American Art: “Barbara Haskell and Sasha Nicholas Discuss [Georgia] O’Keeffe’s Use of Abstraction over the Course of Her Career” (2005) (Adobe Flash)

Also available in:
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Instructions: Please view this 5 minute clip, and then see close-ups of four works by Georgia O’Keeffe in the collection.

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Web Media: University of Virginia: Shelly Staples’ “The Armory Show”
Link: University of Virginia: Shelly Staples’ “The Armory Show” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the introduction and view each of the site sections by clicking on image menu at the bottom of the page.

About the site: Shelly Staples created this website the American Studies Program at the University of Virginia in May 2001.

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5.2 Harlem Renaissance

Note: In 1925, philosopher Alain Locke published an interdisciplinary anthology entitled “The New Negro” that initiated the loose movement, which extended far beyond Harlem. Overall, Locke advocated the embrace of an African past in the development of new cultural forms. Please note that this loose movement emerged during WWI and that its formative phase faded with the Depression. However, the best known works by associated artists date from the 1930s-40s.

Web Media: Institute of Visual Arts and the Hayward Gallery: “Rhapsodies in Black (travelling exhibition, 1997)”
Link: Institute of Visual Arts and the Hayward Gallery: “Rhapsodies in Black (travelling exhibition, 1997)” (HTML)

Instructions: Read through entire site for an overview of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Web Media: PBS’ “Harlem Renaissance”
Link: PBS’ “Harlem Renaissance” (HTML)

Instructions: Please read this in-depth discussion of the occasion of the travelling exhibition (above), featuring C. Stewart, William Drummond, and Richard Powell, Associate Professor of art and art history at Duke University and the exhibition’s main curator.

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Reading: Wikipedia’s “Aaron Douglas”
Link: Wikipedia’s “Aaron Douglas” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this summary on Aaron Douglas, the premier artist of the Harlem Renaissance. He integrated “modern” European Cubism, African forms, and African American subjects in prints, paintings, and murals.

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Web Media: Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas: “Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist” (2008)
Link: Spencer Museum of Art, The University of Kansas: “Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist” (2008) (HTML)

Instructions: Read through this article on the Aaron Douglas exhibition.

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Reading: Wikipedia’s “James Van Der Zee”
Link: Wikipedia’s “James Van Der Zee” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this entry on photographer James Van Der Zee.

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Web Media: Detroit Institute of Art: “James Van Der Zee”; Cleveland Museum of Art: “Van Der Zee”; and Art Institute of Chicago: “Archibald Motley”
Link: Detroit Institute of Art: “James Van Der Zee”; (HTML) Cleveland Museum of Art: “Van Der Zee”; (HTML) and Art Institute of Chicago: “Archibald Motley” (HTML)

Instructions: Please view these images by James Van Der Zee (use the magnifying feature) and Archibald Motley.

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Activity: The Saylor Foundation American Art Activity5
Link: The Saylor Foundation American Art Activity 5 (PDF)

Instructions: Consider the main issues in photographic portraiture, such as tensions between “objectivity” and “subjectivity.” Choose one VanDerZee portrait for a short essay (1 page in length) on messages conveyed through lighting, pose, props, technical manipulation, or context.
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Unit 6: The 1930s Through WWII

The New Deal offered government employment for artists. Themes related to self-reliance, as represented in broad categorical styles best known as Regionalism and Social Realism, crossed racial lines in the art world. Public murals were a new feature of the national cultural landscape, and were largely influenced by Mexican mural painters. Documentary photography gained prominence. Artists fleeing Europe in the 1930s brought “avant-garde” art forms to America, definitively.

6.1 "American Scene” Painters and Documentary Photography

Note: Generally, rural artists or artists focusing on rural subjects were considered Regionalist, while those in and of the cities were known as Social Realists, although the artists themselves, as well as their subjects, overlapped. Many combined narrative figuration with idiosyncratic stylization that was likely influenced by contemporary abstraction. The Farm Securities Administration (FSA) commissioned extensive photographic documentation of rural families around the country that had been deeply affected by the Depression for widespread publication. FSA photographs have been much studied in terms of “deconstructing” the supposed neutral and mechanical work of the journalistic photographer.

Web Media: Smithsonian American Art Museum: Ann Wagner’s “Picturing the 1930s”
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum: Ann Wagner’s “Picturing the 1930s” (HTML)

Podcast available in:
Quicktime
iTunes (Podcast #30)

Instructions: Scroll down briefly until you have access to a podcast tour via Quicktime or iTunes and download the podcast (it may take a few minutes; the program is 31 minutes long). Listen to the curator’s tour of the traveling exhibition “Picturing the 1930s,” organized and opened at The Smithsonian Institution of American Art (2/27/2009-1/3/2010). The emphasis is on the nature and extent of government work and support for artists in this period. Take notes on general comments and on a few specific works discussed. Afterwards, return to the main page and browse the website. (Note the national touring schedule, extended through May 2014; perhaps you may be able to view the exhibition first-hand.) Go to the “slide” section near the top of the page, which includes over 50 images.

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Web Media: Smithsonian American Art Museum, “Scenes of American Life”
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum, “Scenes of American Life” (HTML)

Instructions: View this online presentation of 62 works from this period with brief descriptions.

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Activity: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 6
Link: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 6 (PDF)

Instructions: Choose two of paintings viewed on the Smithsonian Art Museum sites above for a comparative essay (2 – 3 pages in length). In making your choice, consider how each relates to the exhibition’s themes and scope. (Always present introductory data and a detailed description of the works of art discussed.)
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Web Media: New Britain Museum of American Art, “The Murals of Thomas Hart Benton”
Link: New Britain Museum of American Art, “The Murals of Thomas Hart Benton” (HTML)

Instructions: Explore the site above for a good overview of America’s leading “Regionalist.” The images are unfortunately small; visit the website below (among others) for better reproductions (of similar works).

-Whitney Museum of American Art, Collection Database (HTML)

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Reading: University of Virginia American Studies Program: “Going Back to Iowa: The World of Grant Wood.”
Link: University of Virginia American Studies Program: “Going Back to Iowa: The World of Grant Wood” (HTML)

Instructions: “Enter” and browse this website on the second leading Regionalist, Grant Wood. This will broaden your understanding of the issues, styles and subjects associated with this loose movement.

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Web Media: Missouri Senate: Kids’ Page: “New Video-The Thomas Hart Benton Murals”
Link: Missouri Senate: Kids’ Page: “New Video- The Thomas Hart Benton” (Windows Media Player)

Instructions: Click on the link for an excellent, detailed 14-minute talk about a mural project in the Missouri State House, including subject matter, style, technique, development. (Note: The quality of the video images varies throughout.)

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Web Media: Library of Congress: “FSA/OWI Photographs”
Link: Library of Congress: “FSA/OWI Photographs” (HTML)

Instructions: Click the embedded link for “‘Migrant Mother’ Photographs”; view the renowned series by Dorothea Lange. Back on the homepage, near the bottom, view: “Documenting America: Photographers on Assignment.” See also:

-Living History Farm: Billy Ganzel’s “FSA Photography” (HTML)
Note: This is the website of Wessel’s Living History Farm. See the main page, examining the images and exploring several of the extensive links about photographic journalism in the West during the Depression.

-The University of Virginia: Shelley Staples’ “Negotiating the Racial Mountain: The Depression Era Murals of Aaron Douglas” (HTML)
Note: Read through this site on later work by Aaron Douglas.

-The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “African American Artists 1929-1945: Prints, Drawings and Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” (HTML)

-The Phillips Collection’s “Jacob Lawrence” (HTML)

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Web Media: Smithsonian American Art Museum: “William H. Johnson”
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum: “William H. Johnson” (HTML and Adobe Flash)

Instructions: Read and view images; then, from links on lower right section of the page, under “Online Exhibitions,” click on “William H. Johnson: American Art” and run through the presentation. (Move cursor over images for data). Then return to the main Johnson page and choose “Works in the Collection by William H. Johnson.” You will see that the museum owns over 1000 works. Run through a few pages and enlarge several images.

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Activity: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 7
Link: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 7 (PDF)

Instructions: Describe briefly the overall aesthetic (artistic feeling/form) of Johnson’s main style (1 page in length). Judging from your viewing, what appear to be some of the major influences on his work?
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6.2 Abstraction and Surrealism

Note: Abstraction and other “progressive” styles from Europe were fostered by emerging art criticism in New York; this development helped establish New York’s prominence as the center of the contemporary art world after WWII.

Web Media: Museum of Modern Art, “Stuart Davis”
Link: Museum of Modern Art, “Stuart Davis” (HTML)

Instructions: Examine the linked material above. Davis takes subjects of the “American scene” and pushes them towards abstraction, largely influenced by cubism.

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Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art "Surrealism"
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: James Voorheis’ “Surrealism”

Instructions: Read the linked entry and browse the accompanying images for an overview of the Surrealist movement, which began in Paris. Then see the links below on specific American artists.

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Web Media: Museum of Modern Art: “About Joseph Cornell”
Link: Museum of Modern Art: “About Joseph Cornell” (HTML)

Instructions: Read about the artist and run through available images at the sliding bar on the top of the page, enlarging several of them.

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Web Media: Smithsonian American Art Museum: “Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination” (2006-2007)
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum: “Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination” (2006-2007) (Adobe Flash)

Instructions: View the slide show of 21 works.

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Web Media: Dorothea Tanning Website
Link: Dorothea Tanning Website (HTML)

Instructions: As of October 2010, the artist Dorothea Tanning is 100 years old and continues to supervise this website. Click “Dorothea Tanning” for an introduction. Then return to homepage to click, “Life and Works”; click on the reproductions on the first page; each has a statement by the artist about the work.

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6.3 Case Study: Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s Premier Architect

Note: Wright became the first internationally recognized American architect. His unique “Prairie Style” for domestic buildings was inspired by the mid-Western landscape. He rarely looked to European forms and was instead influenced by Japanese aesthetics (this is especially apparent in his use of natural materials). He deplored the verticality of New York City and only reluctantly took on the commission for the Guggenheim Museum in the late 1940s.

Web Media: Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust: “Robie House”
Link: Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust: “Robie House” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the introduction; click on the link for “Prairie Style” (in the left menu or embedded in the text) for an explanation of the term.

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Web Media: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Website
Link: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Website (HTML)

Instructions: On the menu at the top, click on the link for “Wright’s Life and Work” and read the overview. Then read “A Brief Biography” from the menu at left. Return to the left menu and click on “Public Sites.” Scroll down column of images; click website links for the following:

-Beth Shalom Synagogue (PA); from the bottom menu of the homepage, click on and read “History; then return to choose “Virtual Tour,” and visit.

-Fallingwater (PA); a major, extensive website. By clicking on “Explore,” then “Multimedia,” and then “Tours,” you can take the “Seasonal Tour” to get a feel for the site; then return to take the “Architectural Tour.”

-Hollyhock House (CA); from the top menu, click on “Media”; then scroll to “Main Gallery” and click through the images.

-Unity Temple (IL); from the top menu, click on “The Building” and then “Explore Unity Temple,” then “Photo Galleries.” Browse the images.

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Web Media: Guggenheim Museum: “Keeping Faith with an Idea: A Time Line of the Guggenheim Museum 1943-1959”
Link: Guggenheim Museum: “Keeping Faith with an Idea: A Time Line of the Guggenheim Museum 1943-1959” (HTML)

Instructions: Explore the “Timeline.” Note that Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth are prominent among artists who continue with “American Scene” painting into the post war years. See the links below for further information on them:

- Whitney Museum of American Art: “Modern Life: Edward Hopper and his Time” (HTML)

-Andrew Wyeth Website (HTML)

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Unit 7: Post-War America and the Art World: Abstract Expressionism to New Political Art, Stylistic Pluralism, Diversity

In the wake of a decimated Europe, post-war America prospered. The Cold War with the Soviet Union (USSR) ensued. Abstraction triumphed as the dominant mode of picture-making, but was challenged substantially by the emergence of Pop Art, which attempted to reconnect directly with modern American life. Gradually, diverse representational forms made a come-back, influenced by “counter-cultural” politics, along with tendencies towards artistic expressions of gender and ethnic identity.

7.1 Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism

Note: “Non-objective” abstraction on a super-sized scale became nearly a national style in America. Much (but by no means all) of it was gestural and also known as “Action Painting.” Until recently, a small number of artists (white; male) were seen as the embodiment of its essence, although it actually encompassed diverse sensibilities and intentions, including spiritual, emotional, and political ones. An off-shoot known as Minimalism toned down the gesture and expressive color and focused on surface texture, shape, and light in both painting and sculpture.

Reading: Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art: “Abstract Expressionism”
Link: Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art: “Abstract Expressionism” (HTML)

Instructions: Read through the entire entry on the background and main figures of the loose movement or style. (Extensive links are provided; look at other material on Abstract Expressionism below and then perhaps return and explore additional links here.)

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Web Media: National Gallery of Art: “Mark Rothko”
Link: National Gallery of Art: “Mark Rothko” (HTML)

Instructions: View the entire presentation. Rothko’s oeuvre moves from Surrealism to total abstraction focused on expansive planes of color.

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Web Media: Museum of Modern Art: “Abstract Expressionism New York”
Link: Museum of Modern Art: “Abstract Expressionism New York” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the introduction and click the embedded link titled “view the video” in order to listen to curator Ann Temkin. From the right hand column menu, choose “From the Curator: Franz Kline” and view the linked video (about 4 minutes). Then return to exhibition homepage (above) and choose “Featured Works” (top menu). Enlarge/view data on the eight works. Each entry has links to other works by the artists represented. View a few; choose the one whose work most immediately appeals to you for the assignment below.

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Activity: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 8
Link: The Saylor Foundation’s American Art Activity 8 (PDF)

Instructions: Pretend you are writing an art review (1 – 2 pages in length) for a one-person show by the artist you choose. Describe the basic aesthetic of the work. Try to assess what is engaging and interesting about it in terms of how the artist uses form (color; technique; etc.). Do not use “first person” (i.e., “I like…”). While reactions to abstract art focus on formal perceptions and emotional responses, think about whether any content is suggested based on the socio-political contexts of the era; comment briefly.
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Web Media: Museum of Modern Art: “Minimalism”
Link: Museum of Modern Art: “Minimalism” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the introduction and view the six linked images. (You can enlarge them.)

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Web Media: Guggenheim Museum: “Minimalism”
Link: Guggenheim Museum: “Minimalism” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the introduction and view the 17 images. (You can enlarge them and read notes on each.)

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Web Media: The New Yorker: Peter Schjeldahl’s “Finish Fetish”
Link: The New Yorker: Peter Schjeldahl’s “Finish Fetish” (Adobe Flash)

Instructions: View this presentation on a New York exhibition of California Minimalists from The New Yorker, January 25, 2010 (4 minutes).

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7.2 Pop Art and Other Figurative Styles

Note: Some artists were alienated by abstraction’s lack of connection to everyday life. Consumer products, comic book heroes, movie stars, and front page news became the subjects of Pop Art. Photorealist painting, which imitated photographic effects in painstaking detail, was an off-shoot of the movement. This genre looked back to the early trompe l’oeil traditions we saw earlier in this course. These artists used tracing and photographic projection to create compositions in ways that pre-figure digital image programs like Photoshop. Looser representational styles harking back to earlier Realism eventually made a comeback.

Web Media: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Nan Rosenthal’s "Jasper Johns (Born 1930)"
Link: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Nan Rosenthal’s "Jasper Johns (Born 1930)" (HTML)

Instructions: Johns is transitional, bridging the gap between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. His extended series of American flags has been interpreted variously.

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Web Media: Museum of Modern Art: “Andy Warhol’s Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962”
Link: Museum of Modern Art: “Andy Warhol’s Gold Marilyn Monroe, 1962” (HTML)

Also available in:
MP3

Instructions: View the image/entry and listen to audio link at lower left (about 2 minutes).

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Reading: Wikipedia’s “Pop Art”
Link: Wikipedia’s “Pop Art” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this overview of “Pop Art.”

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Web Media: Museum of Modern Art: “Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962”
Link: Museum of Modern Art: “Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962” (Adobe Flash)

Also available in:
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Instructions: View the image/entry and listen to audio link at lower left (about 2 minutes).

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Web Media: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: “About Andy Warhol”
Link: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: “About Andy Warhol” (Adobe Flash)

Also available in:
M4a (Audio)

Instructions: Listen to this audio clip on Any Warhol (about 1 minute).

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Web Media: Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Website
Link: Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Website (HTML)

Instructions: Click on “Enter,” and then, from left menu, choose “Art.” From the timeline at top of page, click on several of the years between 1960s and 1970s for illustrations of his work. (Don’t worry about the text of the detailed timeline.) Then, return to the homepage and click on “Current and Upcoming Exhibitions” (in the left hand side menu) for installation shots and varied thematic works. Back on the homepage, choose “Read Lichtenstein Articles” and click on and read the “Special Report: The Story of Pop!” (Newsweek, April 25, 1966). Continue to browse as interested.

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Web Media: Whitney Museum of American Art, “Oldenburg” (collection search results)
Link: Whitney Museum of American Art, “Oldenburg” (HTML & Adobe Flash)

Instructions: On this page are four examples of early Pop sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, and one sketch for a later large sculpture in collaboration with the artist’s wife, Coosje van Bruggen. Click each image to enlarge and view. Then scroll down the main page to the section, “Watch and Listen”; view two short videos: “Installation of Claes Oldenburg’s Giant BLT,” and “Claes Oldenburg discusses Ice Bag-C.”

Optional: third video on conservation of Ice Bag-C.

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Reading: Wikipedia’s “Photorealism”
Link: Wikipedia’s “Photorealism” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this summary of “Photorealism.”

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Web Media: Deutsch-Guggenheim: “Picturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s”
Link: Deutsch-Guggenheim: “Picturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s” (HTML)

Instructions: Explore the above exhibition.

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Web Media: YouTube: Deutschebankgroup, Vernissage: “Picturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s”
Link: YouTube: Deutschebankgroup, Vernissage: “Picturing America: Photorealism in the 1970s” (YouTube)

Instructions: View this clip, which includes comments by the curator and artists in the exhibition (about 7 minutes). For more information on photorealism, visit:

- Artnet Magazine: Donald Kuspit’s “The Real in Photorealism” (HTML)
Note: This is a December 22, 2009 art review with illustrations.

-Art Register Press: Virginia Anne Bonito’s “Don Eddy: The Resonance of Realism in the Art of Post War America” (HTML)
Note: In this art history monograph published for the internet by ArtregisterPress.com, leading photorealist Don Eddy provides an extensive interpretation of various works. Eddy creates layered iconography with photorealist techniques.

-Saatchi Gallery: “Duane Hanson” (HTML)
Note: This webpage introduces Duane Hanson, a photorealist sculptor of “everyday” Americans.

By the 1980s, artists working in figurative style (not the mechanically-inspired “super-illusionism” of the Photorealists) were included under the umbrella of “Contemporary American Realism.” Do a web search for a few images of work by the following artists: Alex Katz, Janet Fish, Jane Freilicher, Alice Neel, Philip Pearlstein, and Wayne Thiebaud.

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7.3 Feminist, Conceptual and Earth Art

Note: The National Organization of Women (NOW) was founded in 1966. Women artists drew attention to gender inequities in career opportunities by challenging what they considered the chauvinistic standards in place throughout the entire history of Western art with blunt imagery and non-traditional techniques (such as fabric-based craft). Conceptual art, which privileged idea over execution, was ultimately rooted in early European experiments, but flourished in the context of American freedom of speech. Monumental art in site-specific landscapes and urban environments, as well as comprehensive gallery installations (rather than displays of individual portable works), were the climatic legacy of Abstract Expressionism.

In 1971, art historian Linda Nochlin published an article entitled, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” (Artnews, January 1971), which was crucial to the emergence of “Feminist” art and art history. Conduct a web search for a reprint of the full text or excerpts.

Web Media: Brooklyn Museum: “Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1974-1979”
Link: Brooklyn Museum: “Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1974-1979” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the introduction and click the link at right labeled “Website.” From the left hand side menu, click on “Components of the Dinner Party”; view all sections/images. Back on the previous Website page, read the “Curatorial Overview,” accessible via the menu on the left.

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Web Media: The Woman’s Building Website
Link: The Woman’s Building Website (HTML)

Instructions: From the menu on the left, select “History” and read the linked essay. At the bottom of the page, click on the link to read the “Photoessay” by Terry Wolverton (2003).

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Web Media: Hannah Wilke Collection and Archive
Link: Hannah Wilke Collection and Archive (HTML)

Instructions: View the linked selection of Hannah Wilke’s “radical” feminist art in a variety of mediums.

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Web Media: hannahwilke.com: Excerpts from Writings
Link: hannahwilke.com: “ Excerpts from Writings” (HTML)

Instructions: Read these excerpts from Wilke’s writings and spend some time browsing the links listed on the left-hand side of the webpage. Wilke’s works were provocative in their open sexuality, and the ways in which she drew upon her own body – from its youthful beauty through the ravages of cancer – broke new conceptual and performative ground.

Expect to spend approximately 30 minutes reading Wilke’s writings and browsing the site.

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Reading: feldmangallery.com: Amelia Jones’s “Everybody Dies…Even the Gorgeous: Resurrecting the Work of Hannah Wilke”
Link: feldmangallery.com: Amelia Jones’s “Everybody Dies…Even the Gorgeous: Resurrecting the Work of Hannah Wilke” (HTML)

Instructions: Scroll partway down the webpage to the year 2003 and click on Jones’s article. The link will open a .pdf of the text. Consider the ways in which Wilke’s art intersects with Body Art, Feminism, and Performance and the gendered nature of her reception during the 1960s and ‘70s. In which ways is her career emblematic (or not) of the challenges facing female artists during this time?

Expect to spend approximately 30 minutes on this reading.

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Reading: Wikipedia’s “Betye Saar”
Link: Wikipedia’s “Betye Saar” (HTML)

Instructions: Several African American women artists were important in the spread of feminist-inspired art, although they did not generally receive “mainstream” attention until the 1980s. Betye Saar began her career in California by creating a now iconic “assemblage” that has proved influential in the work of many younger artists. See the page above for links for further study. (Saar continues to be prolific, with frequent exhibitions in all media.)

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Reading: ArtLex Art Dictionary: “Conceptual Art”
Link: ArtLex Art Dictionary: “Conceptual Art” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the linked entry above.

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Web Media: Guggenheim Museum: “The Panza Collection”
Link: Guggenheim Museum: “The Panza Collection” (HTML)

Instructions: This presentation of images and entries focuses on American Minimal and Conceptual artists. Review the Minimalist artists (above) and focus on the Conceptual artists Bruce Nauman (page 2) and Lawrence Weiner (page 3).

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Web Media: Estate of Robert Smithson Website
Link: Estate of Robert Smithson Website (HTML)

Instructions: View the images on this site, which present perhaps the most renowned site-specific “earth work” in the United States. Click on the link at bottom of the page in order to read an article by Melissa Sanford that discusses issues with upkeep/preservation.

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7.4 Post-Modernism Pluralism

Note: Steel-frame construction allowed for the rise of “glass towers” that filled the urban landscape in the post-war years, coinciding with total abstraction and, eventually, Minimalism. By the late 1970s, however, architects were returning to earlier ornamentation to counter the cold geometry of high modernism; in this context, “postmodern,” as an aesthetic term, was first popularized. It has come to signify the gradual move away from stylistic, media, and other strict, qualitative aesthetic precepts and designations. Painters began to appropriate historical styles as well as specific works of art in new ways. Some focused on the expression of racial, ethnic, and gender identities that had been previously denied by the mainstream.

Reading: Wikipedia’s “Philip Johnson”
Link: Wikipedia’s “Philip Johnson” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this entry on Philip Johnson, who is likely the most acclaimed American architect of the postwar 20^th century. Scroll down to “Contents” and choose “The Seagram Building.” Then click on the hyperlink in the text to view a “high modern” skyscraper of the 1950s (Johnson collaborated here with a mentor). Back at the “Johnson” homepage, click on “Contents” and then “Later Buildings” to read a description and view an image of “The Sony Building.” Note the roofline design, which he borrowed from earlier architectural ornament. This has been discussed as a “postmodern” design. A more extreme example is the “Piazza d’Italia” in New Orleans; view it on Wikipedia’s entry on the building.

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Web Media: Faith Ringgold Website
Link: Faith Ringgold Website (HTML)

Instructions: In painting and sculpture, “postmodernism” includes both borrowing from the past (whether in terms of subject or style) and going beyond European-based criteria for definitions of “modernity” in art, which focus on “pure” abstraction. The fact that Pop and Photorealism were “modern” offered other ideas, as well. Postmodernism is most often characterized by specific expressions of ethnic, racial and gender identities previously “hidden” in modernist styles. Mixed media and new media based on new technologies all made for an unprecedented, pluralistic scene by the 1980s. The Faith Ringgold website linked above is the first in a series of websites featuring a number of diverse (in terms of background, styles, and content) artists, who could be placed under this umbrella.
On the Faith Ringgold site, scroll down to “Images”; click on and begin with “1991,” which includes her best-known works. These works feature her “signature” style, making use of a medium she developed that combines quilting (in reference to folk traditions among African American women) and painting. In several series, she appropriates European “modernist” art in her new form to create new messages. Like Saar (above), Ringgold did important feminist work in the late 1960s and 1970s (some can be viewed at this site), and is still working and exhibiting prolifically. (Please note that some of the “enlargement” links on the site may not work; however, most images as provided are adequate for an introduction.)

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Web Media: Arthur Rogers Gallery: Robert Colescott
Link: Arthur Rogers Gallery: Robert Colescott (HTML)

Instructions: Beginning in the 1970s, Colescott relied heavily on appropriating compositions and subjects from art-historical masterpieces to create satiric paintings about the exclusion of African Americans from art history and history more generally. He adopted a purposefully crude style influenced by comics and European “primitivism.” Later, he expanded his oeuvre to include large-scale paintings jam-packed with darkly humorous iconography related to postcolonial reinterpretations of history, as well as political commentary on continuing racial tensions, crime, and consumerism engulfing American society.

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Reading: Americana: Journal of American Popular Culture: Jody B. Cutler’s “Art Revolution: Politics and Pop in the Robert Colescott Painting George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware”
Link: Americana: Journal of American Popular Culture: Jody B. Cutler’s “Art Revolution: Politics and Pop in the Robert Colescott Painting George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware” (HTML)

Instructions: Read the linked article (2010).

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Web Media: Artnet.com: Peter Schjeldahl’s “The Social Comedian”
Link: Artnet.com: Peter Schjeldahl’s “The Social Comedian” (HTML)

Instructions: Read this exhibition review, taking a look at the embedded images (1998).

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Web Media: The Broad Art Foundation: “Julian Schnabel”
Link: The Broad Art Foundation: “Julian Schnabel” (Adobe Flash)

Instructions: Schnabel was perhaps the first major American “art star” of the postmodern era. He broke onto the scene in the early 1980s with paintings that brought back the intuitive brushwork of the Abstract Expressionists and figuration related to European Expressionist style of the 19^th century. His imagery remains enigmatic, but he has also done portraits and narrative works harking back to art history and used collage elements for bold, physical effects in much of his work. He is often categorized as a “Neo-Expressionist.” Visit the website above for some good examples of his work.

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Web Media: Saatchi Gallery: “David Salle”
Link: Saatchi Gallery: “David Salle” (HTML and Adobe Flash)

Instructions: Salle is a contemporary of Schnabel who broke onto the American art scene around the same time. Borrowing from Photorealism, Salle expresses the flux of “visual culture” characteristic of “postmodern” at the start of the electronic revolution. His juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated images are like puzzles; the question of how and whether they add up to particular meanings is ambiguous.

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Web Media: Museum of Modern Art: “David Hammons”
Link: Museum of Modern Art: “David Hammons” (HTML)

Instructions: Click on the link above for an introduction and several images of works by Hammons in the MOMA’s collection. Hammons is a multi-media artist, with Conceptual underpinnings. Several of his “breakthrough” works in the 1980s were site-specific projects in New York that made use of playground basketball hoops. Good reproductions of one of them are posted on this Visual Resources webpage, published by Franklin & Marshall College.

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Web Media: Barbara Kruger Website and Cindy Sherman Website
Links: Barbara Kruger Website (HTML) and Cindy Sherman Website (HTML)

Instructions: These photography-based artists are sometimes referred to as “second generation feminists”—especially Kruger, who brings her background in advertising to the fine art world, using language as a kind of new iconography. Sherman has used herself in virtually all of her work for several decades, though she always appears in different disguises and contexts, obscuring and complicating the notion of self-portraiture. Visit the sites above to review their work.

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Web Media: PBS: “Art 21: Peon Osorio”
Link: PBS: “Art 21: Pepon Osorio” (HTML)

Instructions: The website above presents an abundance of information on renowned Puerto Rican artist Pepon Osorio, who works in mixed media, focusing on full-scale installations.

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Web Media: Keith Haring Foundation Website
Link: Keith Haring Foundation Website (HTML)

Instructions: Visit the website above for information on Keith Haring, who is famous for bringing graffiti art into the international “fine art” world through his distinctive linear style. His works often focus on gay politics and activism (the artist died of AIDS at the age of 31).

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Web Media: The Brooklyn Museum: “Basquiat”
Link: The Brooklyn Museum: “Basquiat” (HTML)

Instructions: Like Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat began as a street-graffiti artist, with a particularly raw style. He was “discovered” by a prominent New York art dealer and became internationally famous before his tragic death at the age of 27. He hedged his public identity as a mainstream Neo-expressionist and African American artist (of Caribbean heritage), bringing his unique concerns into the elite art world. Read about him and his work on the linked page above.

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Web Media: The Aids Quilt Website
Link: The Aids Quilt Website (HTML)

Instructions: The Aids Quilt is a unique, ongoing, and public American art project, begun in 1987 and with headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Anyone may contribute and portions are continually exhibited throughout the country. See the history and images linked above.

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7.5 Case Studies: Public Monuments and Sculpture

Note: In a country predicated on government and taxation by the people, decisions about the art that will be publicly sponsored and displayed are complicated and widely debated, with tensions often arising between professionals in the visual arts and the lay public. A look at two cases, Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc for Foley Square,” New York City (1981), and Maya Lin’s “Viet Nam Veterans Memorial” for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (1982) give some insight into the nature of these ongoing negotiations as they arise. (Many additional photographs of these projects can be found via web searches.)

Web Media: WUST TV/PBS: “Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc, 1981”; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: Titled Arc; Wikipedia: “Tilted Arc”
Link: WUST TV/PBS: “Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc, 1981” (HTML) and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: Titled Arc; (Adobe Flash) Wikipedia: “Tilted Arc” (HTML)

Instructions: Explore the links above for information about Serra’s work.

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Web Media: Bluffton College: Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial; American Architecture: “Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial”; Wikipedia: “Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial”
Link: Bluffton College: Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial;(HTML) American Architecture: “Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial”; (HTML) Wikipedia: “Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial” (HTML)

Instructions: Explore the linked material above for information on the Vietnam Veterans’ memorial.

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Final Exam

Final Exam: The Saylor Foundation's "ARTH210 Final Exam"
Link: The Saylor Foundation's "ARTH210 Final Exam"

Instructions: You must be logged into your Saylor Foundation School account in order to access this exam. If you do not yet have an account, you will be able to create one, free of charge, after clicking the link.
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American Art

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