Time Schedule:
Deborah Caplow
BIS 209
Bothell Campus
Foregrounds questions about visual arts: What are the purposes of the visual arts? What approaches might we use to understand them? How do they relate to the societies and cultures in which they are located? May focus on individual writers, movements, historical periods, genres or topics.
Class description
Spring 2009 Engaging Visual Arts: Visual Arts in the Modern Era This course will explore art and social change from around 1800 to the present, looking at literary, political and artistic sources of dynamic shifts in European and American culture through a study of major works of visual art and written texts. Beginning with Neoclassical art and Romantic painting and poetry, the course will examine Realism in art, Impressionism and urban alienation, the rise of the irrational in art, the collapse of tradition at the beginning of the twentieth century, the rise of avant-garde movements such as Futurism, Dadaism and Surrealism, modernism and expressionism in art as a response to the two world wars, and the transition from modernism to post-modernism in a globalized world.
Student learning goals
Students will gain a broad understanding of European and American art and culture since 1800.
Students will learn to identify major trends and movements in art and literature, along with the political and social contexts of these movements.
Students will gain skills in visual and literary analysis through close reading of works of art and texts.
Students will learn to think and to write analytically about art and literature.
Students will learn to work collaboratively, analyzing images and texts and discussing them in context.
Students will gain a strong background for further study in the culture, literature and arts of the time period addressed.
General method of instruction
Lecture, discussion and collaborative group learning
Recommended preparation
Interest in art, literature, history and culture required.
Class assignments and grading
Short writing assignments, two tests, term paper, with final presentation.
Writing assignments, tests and class participation.
