Meets Together: ENVIRON TBD

Today we might think of landscape paintings as the ultimate form of motel art, or at least the opposite of experimental contemporary art, but landscape appears across mediums, geographies, and time periods. This course will survey the long history of landscape art, from Renaissance pastorals to contemporary reinventions. We will ask what a global history of the genre looks like and if we can find examples of landscape art outside of representational mediums like painting and photography. We will discuss the genre's role in colonization and oppression, but we will also look at artists who have been excluded from many standard histories of landscape, like nineteenth-century African American painter Robert S. Duncanson. Finally, we will discuss how artists are remaking the landscape genre in our time of environmental crisis and climate change.

Students will complete this course with a broad understanding of an art historical genre. You will develop the skills needed to make visual connections across geographies and time periods through historical study and visual analysis. For students new to art history, this course can also serve as an introduction to the field's fundamental tools.

Textbooks/Other Materials: Malcom Andrews, Landscape and Western Art (required) and readings posted to Canvas.

Course Requirements: Engagement 10%, Reading journal 30%, Mock exhibition project 30%, Final exam 30%

Intended Audience: Anyone welcome

Class Format: Two 80-minute lectures per week with opportunity for questions and discussion; occasional campus museum visits.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0-50

HISTART Distribution Requirements: Europe and the US; Early Modern and Modern and Contemporary

Fulfills LSA Humanities Requirements