ARHS 2250 - Modern Art, Modernity, and Modernism

The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed the rise of the European avant-garde: the Realists, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Symbolists, Cubists, and Surrealists. Rapid social, economic, and political changes encompassed a revolution in communication systems and technology. The first half of the twentieth century saw a shift from European to American modernism and the rise of abstract expressionism as Clement Greenberg's answer to a purely autonomous art form. This course will explore art and visual culture in relation to urban capitalism, colonialism, nationalism and internationalism tracing theories of representation, perception, and modernism from the 19th to the 20th centuries. 3 credits.