ARTH 20400 - American Art

Course Credit: 1
This course examines social, ideological, and economic forces that shaped American painting, sculpture, and architecture from the colonial period to around 1940. Issues considered include representing “nation” in portrait, landscape, and genre painting; constructions of race in ante- and post-bellum America; the expatriation of American artists after the Civil War; the identification of an abstract style with political ascendance in the U.S.; and tensions between the ideal and the real in American cultural expression. Recommended: ARTH 10100 or ARTH 10200 is recommended as a prior course. [AH]