Self-Reflexivity, Medium and Meaning in 20thCentury Art: Philosophical Responses to Modernism in the Visual Arts 3700-KON379-AL
Modernist works of art respond to Ezra Pound’s call to `Make it new!’ by becoming self-reflexive and self-definitional within their very medium: the different “isms” for instance represent different stylistic and formal responses to what it involves for an object to claim the status of a genuinely new kind of work of art. It is a recognition that self-reflexivity has become ontologically definitional of artworks that lead philosophers as different as Stanley Cavell or Merleau-Ponty to claim that Modernist artworks assume the “condition of philosophy”. Like philosophy, art under conditions of modernism can no longer exist without constantly inquiring about its own nature as part of its meaning.
One way to understand the history of modern art is therefore as a history of attempts at innovative self-definition in dialogue with a history of philosophical responses to these attempts by art-historians, artists, critics, and philosophers. In this course we will study some of the representative movements and figures participating in this dialogue.
READING/PREPARATION
Bi-weekly meetings are double classes; the reading is therefore twice the amount normal for a single meeting. At the beginning of each class a quiz will be given to evaluate the level of preparation.
CLASS DISCUSSION
The class is discussion-based. Active contribution is expected from all students. The assessment of the quality of these contributions will influence the grade for the class.
27.02 I. Introduction
I.1 Modernity, the Modern, and Modernism
Reading: Stanley Cavell: Music Discomposed
I.2 Sculptural Beginnings
Reading:
Herbert Read: Modern Sculpture, a Concise History (selections)
Rosalind E. Krauss: Passages in Modern Sculpture (selections)
Clement Greenberg: Modernist Sculpture, Its Pictorial Past
Adolf von Hildebrand: The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture (selections)
J.P. Sartre: The Quest for the Absolute
12.03 II. Impressionism and the Transformation of Perception: Manet, Monet, and Seurat
Reading:
Georg Simmel: The Metropolis and Mental Life
Charles Baudelaire: The Painter of Modern Life (selections)
Michel Foucault: Manet and the Object of Painting
Clement Greenberg: The Later Monet
Michel Fried: Manet's Modernism (selections)
26.03 III. Cézanne and the Dissolution of Scientific Perspective
Reading:
Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Cézanne's Doubt; Eye and Mind (selections)
Andrew Harrison: Making and Thinking: A Study of Intelligent Activities (selections)
Richard Shiff: Cézanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art (selections)
Clement Greenberg: Cézanne
23.04 IV. The Crisis of the Self and the Search for Authenticity: Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Csontváry
Reading:
Clive Bell: The Artistic Problem
Georg Lukács: Paul Gauguin; Aesthetic Culture
Martin Heidegger: On the Origin of the Work of Art (selections)
Meyer Schapiro: The Still Life as Personal Object - a Note on Heidegger and Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh: Letters to Theo (selections)
07.05 V. Abstraction and the Erotic: Picasso, Matisse, and Modigliani
Reading:
José Ortega y Gasset: The Dehumanization of Modern Art (selections)
Clement Greenberg; On the Role of Nature in Modernist Painting; Picasso at Seventy Five; Abstract, Representational and So Forth; Collage
John Berger: Modigliani and Love
Robert Pippin: Fatalism in Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy. 3. Sexual Agency in Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street
FILM: Scarlet Street (1945, d. Fritz Lang)
21.05 VI. The Limits of Objecthood: Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism
Reading:
Arthur Danto: The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art; The End of Art; The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (selections)
Michael Fried: Art and Objecthood
Tom Wolfe: The Painted Word
Peter de Bolla: Serenity: Barnett Newman's `Vir Heroicus Sublimis'
04.06 VII. Art and Social Transformation
Reading:
Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: Architecture and Utopia (text TBA)
Clement Greenberg: Avant-Garde and Kitsch; Towards a Newer Laocoön
T.J. Clark: Clement Greenberg's Theory of Art
René V. Arcilla: Mediumism: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Modernism for Existential Learning. Ch.3. Strangerhood
One way to understand the history of modern art is therefore as a history of attempts at innovative self-definition in dialogue with a history of philosophical responses to these attempts by art-historians, artists, critics, and philosophers. In this course we will study some of the representative movements and figures participating in this dialogue.
Type of course
Learning outcomes
Familiarity with history/philosophy of modernist art. Improvement of analytical writing/rhetorical skills in English.
Assessment criteria
Preparation level for each class evaluated on the basis of graded quizzes, worth 30% of grade for the course.
Participation is assessed at 20% (according to quality as well as quantity)
Final examination (long essay) 50%
Students may volunteer presentations on readings to improve preparation/participation grades.
Bibliography
Recommended General Works:
Gay, P. (2008). Modernism: The Lure of Heresy. London and New York: W.W.Norton & Company Inc.
Le Pichon, Y., & Ferrier, J.-L. (1999). Art of the 20th century : a year-by-year chronicle of painting, architecture, and sculpture. Editions du Chene.
Heller, Á. (1999). A Theory of Modernity. Blackwell Publishers.
Readings
Read, H. (1985). Modern Sculpture: A Concise History. London: Thames & Hudson.
Krauss, R. E. (1981). Passages in Modern Sculpture. Mit Pr; Auflage: Revised.
Greenberg, C. (n.d.). Art and Culture: Critical Essays. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press Ltd.
Hildebrand, A. von. (1907). The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture. New York: G.E. Stechert & Co.
Sartre, J. P. (1948). The Quest for the Absolute. In The Aftermath of War (Situations III) (pp. 333–354). London, New York, Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Simmel, G. (1950). The Metropolis and Mental Life. In D. Weinstein (Ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (pp. 409–424). New York: Free Press.
Baudelaire, C. (1995). The Painter of Modern Life. In J. Mayne (Ed.), The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. New York: Phaidon Press Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/Baudelaire.pdf
Foucault, M. (2009). Manet and the Object of Painting. London: Editions de Seuil, Tate Publishing.
Fried, M. (1996). Manet’s Modernism: or The Face of Painting in the 1860s. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1993). Eye and Mind. In The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting (G. Johnson, pp. 121–149). Evanston, Illinois.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1993). Cézanne’s Doubt. In G. A. Johnson & M. B. Smith (Eds.), The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting (pp. 59–75). Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
Harrison, A. (1978). Making and Thinking: A Study of Intelligent Activities. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Copany.
Shiff, R. (1984). Cézanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Rosenbaum, S. P. (Ed.). (1993). A Bloomsbury Group Reader. Oxford Uk, and Cambridge USA.
Kadarkay, A. (Ed.). (1995). A Lukács Reader. John Wiley and Sons, Australia Lt.
Berkowitz, R. (n.d.). The Origin of the Work of Art, by Martin Heidegger. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/2083177/The_Origin_of_the_Work_of_Art_by_Martin_Heidegger
Schapiro, M. (1999). Worldview in Painting: Art and Society (Selected Papers). New York: George Braziller.
Gogh, V. van, & Leeuw, R. de. (1997). The letters of Vincent van Gogh. Penguin Books.
Ortega y Gasset, J. (1968). The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and Literature. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Berger, J. (1985). The Sense of Sight. New York: Vintage International.
Pippin, R. B. (2012). Fatalism in American Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press.
Danto, A. (1999). Philosophizing Art: Selected Essays. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, LTD.
Fried, M. (1998). Art and Objecthood. In Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from http://atc.berkeley.edu/201/readings/FriedObjcthd.pdf
Wolfe, T. (1975). The Painted Word. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
De Bolla, P. (2003). Art matters. Harvard University Press. Retrieved from
Frascina, F. (Ed.). (1985). Pollock and After: The Critical Debate. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
Arcilla, R. V. (2011). Mediumism: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Modernism for Existential Learning. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Additional information
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