History B421 V610

(Herron H495 V098)

Topics in European History:

The City as a Work of Art in Modern Europe: 1850-1925

 

 

Summer Term I, 2001 (May 9-June 20, 2001)                   Instructor: Dr. Kevin C. Robbins,

Class Meetings: Wednesdays, 5:45-8:45 p.m.                    Associate Professor, History, IUPUI

                          Saturdays, 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m..             Telephone: 317-274-5819   

Place:     Indianapolis Museum of Art,                              FAX: 317-278-7800

               Deboest Lecture Hall                                         E-Mail: krobbin1@iupui.edu

                                                                                          Office: 504Q Cavanaugh Hall

                                                                                          Office Hours: IMA Art Library, Sats.

                                                                                          12:00-1:00 and by appointment.

 

Course Required Readings:

 

            Brettell, Richard, Modern Art, 1851-1929, Oxford History of Art, Oxford Univ.

Press, 1999. (To be sold to students with museum member discount on at class on Wednesday 05/16.)

 

            Olsen, D.J., The City as a Work of Art, London, Paris, Vienna, Yale Univ. Press, 1986.

            (Free copies of all assigned chapters to be distributed to students in advance and in

            class.)

 

Course Requirements: Regular student attendance at all course lectures, discussions, presentations by museum staff, and gallery visits.  Course attendance rosters will be circulated at all class sessions and students must make certain to sign them at each session.  All unavoidable student absences from this intense and brief summer course should be signaled to the instructor in advance if at all possible.  More than one unexcused absence from this course will lower your final grade.  Be warned. Student completion of all reading assignments and active student participation in post-lecture discussions of course themes.  Student completion of one short essay (4 pages minimum) on an assigned topic to be distributed in class and one course independent research paper (10 pages minimum) complete with notes and bibliography on a topic relevant to course themes and museum resources to be approved in advance by the instructor.  Student completion of course final written examination in essay format.

 

No late work will be accepted for this course.  Make-up exams or exams at some other time than the scheduled final may be arranged but only if absolutely necessary and at the complete discretion of the instructor.

 

Course Grading Standards:  first student essay 15% of final grade,  research paper 50% of final grade, final essay examination 20% of final grade, course attendance and participation 15% of final course grade as measured by signed course rosters and instructor's personal assessment of frequency and quality of student's active participation in discussion sessions.

 

Course Objectives: This class on the socio-political and socio-cultural history of European metropolises in modern times seeks to familiarize students with the impact of great cities on the forms, themes, problems, and modes of artistic production and display during this era.  The course will work to impress upon students how trends in the fine arts but also in the decorative arts, interior decoration, architecture, and industrial design reflect the opportunities, tensions, and challenges artists faced in the great urban communities of the era.  How artists working in multiple genres sought to represent, critique, celebrate, and mitigate what they perceived as the effects of modern city life on the environments and psyches of urbanites will be sustained themes of course inquiry.  The essentially urban genesis of modernism as an artistic and cultural movement will be surveyed, investigated,  and verified.  To accomplish these goals the course will take full advantage of the permanent collections of fine, graphic, and decorative arts on display and in storage at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  Especially relevant to the pedagogical objectives of this course will be the rich Josefowitz Collection of late Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings and prints recently acquired and installed by the IMA.  This collection, in conjunction with the IMA's already respected holdings of European fine art of the era, furniture, and decorative arts will provide students with individual objects or suites of objects on which to focus their attention as cultural historians of European modernism.  This course will include gallery tours, special guest lectures, and tours of the IMA print vaults by museum staff whose curatorial specialties are relevant to course themes.  Through a better understanding of modern artistic production in multiple genres of expression students will come to appreciate not only how the great cities of modern times became objects themselves of representation, but also how the metropolis came to be regarded by many artists and cultural critics as an art form in itself whose manifold beauties and inventions embodied modern life for good and ill.

 

Museum Resources to Aid Students in Class Work:  The IMA contains excellent research library facilities ( second floor of the main museum building, open 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. M,T,W,F,and S, and until 8:00 p.m. Thursdays) and the Dutton Educational Resource Center (adjacent to Deboest Lecture Hall) with a complete slide library and video collection containing materials highly relevant to this course.  All Students Should Note that a research carrel will be created for this course in the IMA main library with a suite of relevant books for student use in the library only.  In addition, slide boxes of images utilized in class lectures will also be kept for student use and consultation in the Dutton Center.  Students should feel free to contact museum librarians and Resource Center staff for assistance with their class written work. Note also that the instructor has scheduled regular office hours at the IMA main library on Saturdays to meet with students independently as to aid them in all phases of their class work.  The instructor is happy to provide this service and only requests that students inform him in advance if at all possible of their intention to meet during scheduled office hours.

 

Student Responsibilities For Good Academic Conduct:  In accord with Indiana University policies, the instructor is obligated to remind all students of the following regulations governing appropriate use of University resources and proper academic conduct.

 

First, all students are personally responsible for all activity on their university computer accounts, including e-mail and web use.  Regulations of I.U.'s IT Policy Office state:

"use of Indiana University technology resources (computing, networks, phones, etc.) is restricted to purposes related to the university's mission of education, research, and public service.  Access to I.U. technology resources is a privilege granted…to students in support of their studies, instruction…official business with the university and other university-sanctioned activities."  Abuse of this privilege may lead to its revocation.

 

Second,  students are here advised that any and all forms of plagiarism will not be tolerated by the instructor and may lead to the student's failure on key assignments and failure in the course.  According to the I.U. Bulletin of the School of Liberal Arts, "Plagiarism is the offering of the work of someone else as one's own.  Honesty requires that any ideas or materials taken from another source for either written or oral use must be fully acknowledged.  The language or ideas taken from another may range from isolated formulas, sentences, or paragraphs to entire articles copied from books, periodicals, speeches, or the writings of other students.  The offering of materials assembled or collected by others in the form of projects or collections without acknowledgment is also considered plagiarism.  Any student who fails to give credit for ideas or materials taken from another source is guilty of plagiarism."  In academic written work, proper acknowledgment of ideas and materials taken from another person or source is accomplished through careful, accurate, and consistent use of footnote or endnotes in the student's own text.  Students should consult standard guides to paper writing and presentation for guidance on this basic and required process of paper composition.

                                    Course Outline, Readings, and Assignments

 

(N.B. The Course Syllabus Below Has Been Very Carefully Planned, It is Neither Tentative

           Nor Likely to Change in Any Way.  All Readings Are to Be Completed By The

Date on Which They Are Listed.)

 

Wed. 5/9   Course Introduction, Distribution of Syllabus. Introductory Remarks on Course

      Themes, Methods, and Goals.  What It Means to Investigate the Cultural History

      of the Modernizing European Metropolis.  First Readings to be Distributed in

      Class.

 

Sat. 5/12   Reading Assignment: Olsen, City as a Work of Art, Chapts. 1-3, pp. 3-34.

                  Lecture: London as the First Modern Metropolis.

                  Discussion: What are the Sources, Historic and Artistic, Exemplified in

                  Olsen's Modern Urban History?

 

Wed. 5/16 Reading Assignment: Olsen, City as Work of Art, Chapts. 4-5, pp. 35-81.

                  Lecture: The New Paris, The New Vienna, and the Processes of

                  Urban Embellishment. 

                  Discussion: The Aesthetics and the Ethics of Urban "Renewal."

                  First Essay Topics Distributed in Class.

                  Second Readings to be Distributed in Class. Brettell Text on Sale in Class.

 

Sat. 5/19   Reading Assignment: Olsen, City as a Work of Art, Chapts. 6-8, pp. 82-131.

                  Lecture: Making and Filling the Modern Urban House: What are the

                  Necessary Accoutrements of City Life?

                  IMA Gallery Tour: Nineteenth-Century Furniture and Decorative Arts.

                  Discussion: The Bourgeois Interior: Refuge or Theatre of Conspicuous

                  Consumption?

 

Wed. 5/23 Reading Assignment: Olsen, City as a Work of Art, Chapts. 9-11, pp. 132-185.

                  Lecture: Reading the Social Geographies and Pathologies of Modern Cities.

                  What is the Purpose and Cultural Significance of "Villa Suburbia?"

                  Discussion: What Material Artifacts Reveal the Most about the Lives of

                  Urbanites in the Modern Metropolis?

                  Third Readings to Be Distributed in Class.

 

Sat. 5/26    Reading Assignment: Olsen, City as a Work of Art, Chapts. 12-14, pp. 189-248.

                  Lecture: The City as Playground and Modern Urban Opportunities for the

                  Display and Amusement of the Self.

      Discussion: Nervous Citizens and Their Urban Personas: Showing Off and

      Questionable Characters in the Metropolis.

                  First Essay Due in Class.

                  Final Paper Research Topics to be Submitted to Instructor for Approval.

 

Wed. 5/30  Reading Assignment: Olsen, City as Work of Art, Chapts. 15-17, pp. 251-294

                  Lecture: Modern Urban Architecture and the Embodiment of Metropolitan

                  Beauty.

Discussion: Architecture: The Modern Art You Can't Escape: What do the   Details of Buildings Tell Us About the Lives, Emotions, and Psyches of

Captive Urban Audiences?

 

 Sat. 6/2    Reading Assignment: Brettell, Modern Art, Introduction and Part I, pp. 1-47.

                  Lecture: The Movements of Modern Art: Distinctions and Commonalities.

                  Discussion: Why the Movements of Modern Art?  The Cosmopolis as

                  Site and Instigation of Artistic Innovation.

 

Wed. 6/6   Reading Assignment: Brettell, Modern Art, Part II, Chapts1-2, pp. 49-78.

                  Lecture: The Intertwined Dynamics of Capitalism, Commodification of 

                  Culture, and the Circulation of Images.

                  Discussion: How Many Reproductions Do You Have on Your Walls--or Why

      Do Museums Have Shops?

 

Sat. 6/9     Reading Assignment: Brettell, Modern Art, Part III,  Chapts. 3-4, pp. 81-123.

                 Lecture: The Artist's Response to Urban Life and Traffic in the Graphic.

                 Discussion:  Why are Fragmentation, Dislocation, and Recombination in the

                 Arts the Central Themes of Brettell's Book Now?

                 Private Tour of IMA Print Vaults and Guest Lecture by Martin Krause, IMA

                 Curator of Prints and Drawings, on The Markets and Marketing of Graphic

                 Art in the Modern Metropolis.

 

Wed. 6/13 Reading Assignment: Brettell, Modern Art, Part IV,  Chapts. 5-6, pp. 125-178.

                  Lecture: Picturing the Citizen's Body: Themes of Dress and Undress.

                  Discussion: What's the Modern City Got to do with Sex in Pictures?

 

Sat. 6/16    Reading Assignment: Brettell, Modern Art, Part IV, Chapts. 7-8, pp. 181-209.

                   Lecture: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and New Images of Identity in

                   European Modern Art.

                   Discussion: How Do These Pictures Tell You Who "You" Are?

 

Wed. 6/20  Final Exam in Class at IMA.  Room Location TBA.

                   Final Research Paper Due in Class.