What's so American about American art? Pt. I

"Of course, it is well to go abroad and see the works of the Old Masters, but Americans [must] strike out for themselves, and only by doing this will we create a great and distinctly American art." -- Thomas Eakins (1844-1916)

This was made by an American*:

Thomas Cole, The Oxbow, 1836, oil on canvas, 51.5" x 76 inches.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

So was this:

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled, 1981, oil stick on paper, 40" x 60".
Museum of Modern Art, New York City

And this:

John Steuart Curry, Tornado Over Kansas (1929), oil on canvas, approx. 47" x 60".
Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, Michigan

This too:

Ann Hamilton, Reflection (12:00 to 12:55), 1999-2001, suite of twelve iris prints.
Alrbright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.

And also this:

Robert Henri, Betalo Nude (1916), oil on canvas, 41" x 33".
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We are a unique people (or so we like to believe): our ancestors/grandparents/parents/ourselves had enough hope and optimism to leave behind friends and family, to leave behind a threatening political/military situation, with the determination that they (we?) could make it in the new land. This promise of freedom has brought immigrants from literally every country in the world, and created our great melting pot of diversity.

But then if we are a melting pot of diversity, how can we categorize ourselves? Sure, "American" food is hotdogs, hamburgers, and apple pie. But when I really think "American" and "food," I think of diversity and access: that in one town, I get a mulitude of different types of foods whenever I want. What's more American than eggs from a local diner for breakfast, Thai food for lunch, ordering a pizza for dinner, and then going out and drinking a Chinese beer?

But I digress. Pretty much since the inception of the British colonies and then the nation, the United States, Americans have long-struggled with their cultural and artistic identity. How are we the same, but different from Europe? In some cases, how are we better than Europe? It's hard to stack up a measly two centuries of history when places like India, China, Italy, and Greece have traditions of artistic production dating back to BCE? Or places like London and Paris, which just reek of artistry, architecture, and culture?

When we teach art history, we can give characteristics for regional styles: Italian Renaissance art shows the influence of classical humanism, Dutch art has a lot of landscapes and still lifes, etc. What characteristics can we assign art that has been created since 1776? In other words: what's so American about American art? Is it desirable in a nation of immigrants that all proudly, simultaneously claim their old and new nationalities (German-American, Asian-American, etc.) to stylistically categorize it all as "American"?

This topic can clearly be controversial and personal. Rather than try to answer questions or propose solutions, I'll try steer this post series towards the history of how Americans have tried to define their artistic identity. What did "American art" mean in in 1853, 1933, 1953, 1973 or 2003? Who were the Americans creating art of the colonial settlers? Who was writing about art at those times? Where were artists being trained? Which artists conscioiusly tried to create "American art" and which ones created art that has become perceived as quintessentially American? What does that tell us about the history of the United States?

*Note: the term "American" has recently become an ideological minefield, mostly concerning colonialism, post-colonialism, imperialism, and nationalism. The term "American" does not inherently mean "from the United States of America" but can also be applied to those of North, Central, and South American. To write that something is American and have it instantly mean "United States" has come under fire by those from other countries in the Americas, as qualifying that something is Central or Southern American may inadvertantly (one may hope) mark it is from the Other. Rodolfo Acuna's essay "Occupied America" uses the specific case of the Southwest United States to demonstrate how colonization has taken not only land but also appropriated an "Other" culture in the name of "American" (United States) identity. In this post, the term "American" is used to denote "from the United States of American." In no way does this intend to denegrate or disrespect those from other Americas. Rather, it is out of convenience for a catchy title. However, I also think that adding this bit of information can also open new avenues of discussion in hopes of achieving a new understanding between cultures and countries.

How can one painting mean different things, and all be right?

Art historians deal with concrete facts: names, dates, places, provenance, materials, techniques. Supporting these facts is one real, tangible item: the actual work of art. Between these two concretes lies a great deal of space for interpretation. In my experience, students see a work of art and expect it to have a single, concrete meaning that answers any and all questions about the work: Leonardo's Last Supper is the Last Supper, Michelangelo's David is "only" the sculptural illustration of the Biblical David and sign of Florentine pride, Monet's Impression, Sunrise is just the "impression" of a scene.

What takes students a longer time to learn is that art history is often about holding diverse, and sometimes conflicting, ideas simultaneously. Not only is that a delicate balancing act, but then art history asks students to use those ideas as a foundation for their own analysis. Adding to students' difficulties is that art historians specialize in methodologies: iconography, feminism, Marxism, New Art History, biography, etc. Think of these methodologies as a lens that color perception of a work of art. To one art historian, Titian's Venus of Urbino is a nude representative of a way for artists to make money in addition to religious commissions: marriage pictures and softcore porn for the wealthy. To another art historian, the very act of drawing and purchasing a picture of a nude woman is akin to the prostitutes modeling for Titian, both painting and woman can be bought and sold. (No self-respecting wealthy Venetian woman would have been posing nude during this time period!)

This post intends to introduce the casual reader to different types of art historical methodologies, and also to explore how different interpretations of the same facts can be "right."

We start by looking at this painting by Vermeer:

Johann Vermeer, The Art of Painting, c. 1662-1668, oil on canvas, approx. 29" x 25."
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Vermeer shows an artist sitting at his easel painting a model. The artist and easel are located on the right half of the canvas, and the left half is crowded with a cluttered table, and behind the table, the artist's model. She holds a book and trumpet, and wears a blue dress and a wreath on her head. Vermeer has overlapped textures, colors, and patterns: the curtain at left, a tiled floor, the artist's red socks, the model's blue dress, a map on the wall. At left, closest to the viewer, a curtain is pulled back and the effect is as though the viewer is encroaching on a private scene. The glow of the light source from the upper left corner and hidden by the curtain reinforces this intimacy.

Vermeer historians and connoisseurs might focus on the curious light source: how it is obscured from the viewer, and how it ripples across the different objects/colors/textures in the room. They might note that the placement of the light source in the upper left corner is similar to Vermeer's other paintings (examples here and here). Renaissance historians may note the general rise during the Baroque of pictures of artists in their studios, the result of Renaissance artists striving to raise the status of the artist from craftsman to talented genius.

Conservators might examine The Art of Painting with scientific instruments and find out the whiteness of the back wall mixes lead white with alabaster and quartz. The inherent sparkle of quartz and the rough texture of the painting captures the cool light of Northern Europe both within Vermeer's scene, and then also when viewed in person - the light as it hits the canvas has a unique luminosity. Simultaneously, the painting is familiar to the 17th century viewer who is accustomed to the same light as Vermeer, and also charactertistic of Vermeer's eye for capturing the many dimensions of light and color.

The traditional interpretation of The Art of Painting examines the painting in terms of symbols: the model has the attributes of Clio, one of the original nine muses that also stood for Fame. Painters would use Iconologia by Cesare Ripa, printed in the Netherlands in 1644 and 1699, to find out what accessories to add to a figure so that the viewer would understand that it wasn't "just" a woman holding a trumpet with a wreath, but to stand for the abstract idea of Fame. Vermeer has included attributes that could remind us of an artist: black and white tile are symbolic of chiaroscuro, and the sketchbook of disegno. The map is symbolic of Dutch pride in their free nation (Dutch independence from Spain ocurred in 1634) and also their pride in their mapmaking, which was the best in the world. All of the symbols are housed in a cozy Dutch interior (a popular 17th century subject and a specialty of Vermeer's).

Altogether, this view sees the realities and act of painting, as Vermeer making a case for the higher status of the artist. The artist is both creator and interpreter, and gifted with the talent to draw and paint. In this interpretation, art history is similar to math: 1 + 2 + 3 = 6; all the symbols add up to one neat and tidy meaning that "explains" the painting's meaning, which otherwise looks like a regular genre scene. Since the Baroque, art historians have used symbolism to "decode" Dutch paintings; once decoded, these symbols create an overall message to the viewer.

More recently, eminent art historian Svetlana Alpers rejected this symoblic interpretation in favor of what she sees as the "mapmaking impulse." She views Vermeer's The Art of Painting as evidence of a broader context, the Dutch scientific vision for ordering knowledge and how that affected their worldview. Evidence supporting Alpers's vision are the various Dutch developments in the 17th century: the previously mentioned mapmaking industry (and subsequent naval prowess), and the invention of the microscope. Essentially, Alpers is proposing a new way to "read" a painting. Rather than decoding symbols to find an overall message, Alpers situates Vermeer's painting within the larger context of Dutch culture. Dutch Baroque artists, originally seen as realists, are now studying the idea of what can be real, rather than straightforwardly presenting reality.

So now what? We have different ways to analyze this painting: as part of Vermeer's entire oeuvre, evidence of Vermeer's innovative approach to pigmentation and light, Dutch realism, symbolis, and the Dutch "mapmaking" impulse. Which interpretation is right?

The answer: all of them!

Notice how all the above interpretations all rest on the same facts: artist, name, date, and place/style. Yet each of the facts about the period, artist, context, and the individual work of art can be read in several different ways. When beginning to weed through the amount of information and interpretations offered about a painting/artist/work of art, one should always begin with the concrete facts, and then a close looking at the concrete object. So long as an interpretation has solid facts as the foundation of the analysis, then a student shouldn't worry too much about what something "means."

The best paintings in the world are not what they "mean," but what they represent to many people. The best paintings in the world inspire countless interpretations because of the ambiguity, and inspire viewers to hold several conflicting or differing interpretations in their mind at once. When doing this, the painting, just by its very existence, forces the viewer to increase their mental dexterity through organization of information, critical thinking about the sources, and the memorization of facts. All just because it exists, the painting can make someone more aware of art, history, and life.

Intro to the Italian Renaissance

Note: Because I know Renaissance scholars are a finicky, methodical group, I'd like to clarify that I understand a few of my definitions and art choices are problematic: the lack of distinction between Early and High Renaissance art, no references to the Siena school, the simplified definition of humanism, the cursory introduction to illusionism, etc. All I can say is this is an introductory post for people who have NEVER HEARD OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE, EVER. (Unbelievable, I know!)

Okay, moving on....

Quite often, the undergraduate art history survey course is divided into two sections: Ancient and Medieval, and Renaissance and Modern. Renaissance means "rebirth," from the Latin renasci, "be born again." What exactly was this "rebirth"?

Understanding the Renaissance means understanding our present historical situation, as the Renaissance is generally identified by historians as the Early Modern period. Many cultural, social, religious, technological, scientific, historical, political, and economic structures of our contemporary society have their roots in this period. In art, it is both the standard bearer for great art, and what all artists have rebelled against. And while it is generally understood that all of Europe underwent this rebirth, this post will specifically deal with the Italian Renaissance, with later posts devoted to the equally interesting Northern Renaissance.

As with the survey course, we begin with discussing late medievalism because to understand what was reborn, we must understand what was left for dead. Medieval Europe is the period after the fall of Rome through the Renaissance, and is (unfairly) called the Dark Ages. For some historians, medieval Europe shows a stagnation of learning, incredibly low mortality rates, and an unfair socioeconomic/political structure known as feudalism. (It is also the period that brings us soaring Gothic cathedrals, beautiful illuminated manuscripts, and the formations of the present-day nations.) Furthermore, this "darkness" was seen in comparison to the perceived learning, light, and progressive nature of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Both the term "dark ages" and the idealization of Greco-Roman antiquity indicate how history can be manipulated through bias.

Anyways, late medieval art in Italy looks like this:

Bonaventura Berlinghieri, panel from the St. Francis altarpiece, 1235, tempera on wood,
5' x 3' x 6'. Church of San Francesco, Pescia.

Ancient Greek and Roman art looked like this:

Polykleitos, Doryphoros, c. 450-440 BCE, front is 212 cm, from Pompeii.

And Italian Renaissance art looks like this:

Michelangelo, David, 1504, marble, approx. 14'3". Galleria d'Accademia, Florence, Italy.

You can see from the naturalistic volume, idealized anatomy and proportions that Renaissance art looks a lot like ancient Greco-Roman art. Renaissance artists are credited with reviving the idealized and naturalistic forms of antiquity. This revival accompanied a general rebirth of the liberal arts for the aristocratic classes, an emerging middle class, vernacular Latin dialect, and the repopulation after the Black Death that reached Italy in 1348. (For the purposes of this post, the Renaissance took place 1400-1600 but I ask that you see these dates with some nuanced understanding. People didn't wake up on January 1, 1400 and say, "Well, now we're in a Renaissance! Lets start printing books and imitating the Greeks!" Rather, the developments that came into fruition during those dates had their roots in the late medieval period.)

Most importantly, a new mindset began to take place: humanism. Human-ism. I call it the "humans first!" ideology; humans begin to start questioning their own place in the world and through the accumulation of new knowledge, begin to theorize about individual potential. To slightly stereotype the medieval mindset, people were told by the main authority (the Church) that they were lowly, weak creatures who endure lives of pain and labor, and by the grace of God, if you were pious enough, you may reach the rapture of the heavenly afterlife. To slightly generalize the Renaissance mindset, people began to ask, "really? That's the way it has to be?'

For artists, there was a new interest in representing the world as the eye saw it, and an increased artistic drive to not only depict the real world, but to make it perfect. No longer do images need to flat and otherworldly but the can be, well, real. Beauty = truth; truth = perfection; ergo, beauty = perfection, another way to achieve heaven. Artists experimented with a variety of techniques and devices that craft a real-looking appearance: linear perspective and single-light source modeling. Significantly, we start seeing idealized proportions and anatomy: humans start to look like Greek (pagan) gods. Here, Jesus has taken on an appropriately idealized, godly form:

Piero della Francesca, Resurrection, 1463, mural in fresco and tempera, 7.38' x 6.56'.
Museo Civico, Sansepolcro, Italy.

And figures no longer stand stiffly. Bonaventura Berlingheri's St. Francis looks timeless, permanent; his body is concealed under his thick robe, his feet hover off the ground (only the blessed do that) and he exists in a heavenly gold world (achieved by the use of gold leaf). Piero della Francesca's Jesus looks like a proud man, and has returned to a world with realistic space, trees, and sleeping guards.

In the Italian Renaissance, sculptures exist in the same world and move the same way as humans. Here is Donatello's David, considered the first freestanding nude sculpture created since antiquity:

Donatello, David, c. 1444-46, bronze, approx. 5' high. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

David stands in contrapposto ("counter pose"), shifting his body weight onto one leg as he contemplates Goliath's head at his feet. Contrapposto creates a beautiful harmony of opposites: one bent leg across from a straight arm, a straight leg opposite a bent arm. It is how humans stand and move through the world, letting gravity pull weight onto one leg and to compensate, the other leg bends. Art is no longer reserved for the holy and righteous; Donatello's David's small shift of the body brings the world of art back to the world of man. Hence, rebirth.

... we all Scream!

One way or another, we're all familiar with this image of the Christiana fjord in Oslo, Norway:

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, oil on canvas, approx. 35" x 28".
National Gallery, Oslo.

Perhaps Munch's painting is familiar to you because of the many pop culture parodies and merchandise it has inspired? Here are just a few that popped up with a quick Google Image search:


This post deals with the intersection of the fine arts and pop culture: how does the latter affect the original intent/meaning of the former?

From The Scream, Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is perceived by viewers as a tortured soul. We know he had addiction issues, mental health issues, and was agoraphobic. His family life was fractured - his father was strict and religious, and his mother and sister both died of tuberculosis. (A recent exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago tackles the notion of the mentally-ill and tragic artist.) About The Scream, he wrote,

"I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting- suddenly the sky turned blood red- I paused, feeling exhausted and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety- and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."

Munch's Scream exists in several paintings and prints. Each piece shows a man clutching the sides of his face in the foreground while standing on a bridge, and two figures in the background. The triangular shape and composition of the bridge dislocates the viewer: there is plenty of space for the man in the foreground, but the bridge looks "fast" - the diagonal of the bridge races to the back left corner. The bridge's ground pushes toward the picture plane. Munch's wavy lines of the man are echoed in the lines/shapes of the colors in the sky as the scream (heard inside the man's head?) fills the his psyche and the external environment. The viewer is left with the impression that the man is psychologically and physically compressed.

Munch denied that his work referenced Nietzsche's own theory about the scream. Research about the geography of Oslo shows that in this particular area of Oslo included a slaughterhouse and the mental institution where Munch's sister, Laura, was housed. Sue Prideaux reports in her biography of Munch that "the screams of animals being slaughtered in combination with the screams of the insane were reported to be a terrible thing to hear." The Scream takes on a new dimension of psychological, biographical, and visual intensity when we consider this fact.

The Scream's appearance lends itself to pop culture imagery because of its efficiency: the elongated and wavy lines, the gesture and expression of the man, and the dizzying diagonal of the bridge - all these elements instantly conjure a moment of a terror. And late 20th century pop culture imagery, based on the modes of mass marketing, demands an image where the physical appearance instantly conveys a message. Constant reproductions and parodies like the ones posted above are the equivalent of an art history shortcut - no need to know the original, we get enough from the parodies.

How do processes like reproduction and parody affect our understanding of the original? I'm guessing that most audiences don't know Munch, his writings, or his biography. I wonder if audiences would feel like they need to know any of that information when the image, as noted earlier, is compact in its presentation of emotion. Or to viewers out there who were only familiar with The Scream's pop culture references: does The Scream take on a new, significant dimension when learning a bit about the history of the art and artist? Or does The Scream have, to quote Mia Fineman, a "correspondingly fall in gravitas" when looking at the parodies/reproductions? Is a keychain of The Scream somehow disrespectful to the original work of art or Munch?

For me, I'm unresolved. I'm mostly interested in the broader themes raised by this discussion: the distinctions drawn between fine art and pop culture, the role of the media/marketing in creating a mass consciousness of an image, and the distance between the original work of art and future viewers. In many ways, the durability of a work hinges on its ability to be relevant to future, anonymous generations. And in this regard, The Scream has become relevant via the reproductive mechanisms of mass media and capitalist consumerism. The Scream has produced endless amounts of scholarly writing, research, and history so that anyone who wants to learn more will be able to do so. Does Munch deserve better? Probably, but we can't control who steals your image - for a necktie, or an actual art heist. At the very least, those who care about art and write the history will try to be objective and fair to the artist and his work.

Juan Sanchez Cotan's Still-Lifes

Full disclosure: I'm a still-life junkie. From flower pictures to laid tables, I never tire examining how an artist mixes realism and aesthetics. The history of art is sometimes told through the grandiose, magnificant, and tragic but the history of man can be told through the things with which he surrounds himself. In my mind, still-lifes are the ultimate "art for art's sake" genre because it allows you to mix flowers and foods from different seasons, you can be ahistorical and impractical all for the sake of beauty and composition.

Spanish Baroque painter Juan Sanchez Cotan (1561-1627) painted some of the most compelling food pictures. In 1603, he became a Carthusian monk and most of his paintings date before his entry into monastic life. His best known picture is Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber:

Juan Sanchez Cotan, Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber, c. 1600, approx. 27" x 33.5".
San Diego Museum of Art.

Cotan's still lifes take place in stage-like setting, most likely a cooling window found in Spanish homes. Foodstuffs were placed in this window so that cool air rushes over the food, keeping it fresh. Scholars debate whether this space is a cantarero or a dispensa. Both serve the same function though the latter is found in the cellar.

I often look for "entries" into a painting; here, our entry into the painting is the cucumber and melon slice. Each of these objects hangs over the ledge and brings us into the space. Cotan's pictures invite contemplation. He draws us in with the black space, the depth of the color preventing our eye from moving into the space and beyond the objects. Once our eyes adjust and recognize the forms, we start noticing how the individual textures of each object. The bright light from outside the canvas highlights every fold, crevice, and bump. And because of this light, each object gradually changes color - notice the cucumber's transition from light spring green to a darker, murkier olive. The sharp, nearly-white peach of the melon's flesh becomes a dark orange in shadow. The black background, the piercing spotlight from outside the canvas- from our space, the meticulous rendering of texture - this is food treated as theater. Visual tension arises from the simple foods and the dramatic presentation.

Cotan's composition is fabulous. The quince and cabbage are suspended in air by strings, a technique for retaining freshness. Cotan hangs them from different lengths, creating a curve spanning from the upper left corner to the lower right. Our eye travels over this parabolic curve in a swoop, and then with the cucumber, we begin the close looking of texture, light, and color. Overall, I love how Cotan's startling design balances form to space to color. It is asymmetrical but still harmonious.

Cotan utilizes the same window-stage setting in most of his paintings. Here is a photograph I took at the Art Institute of Chicago. It is a bit more crowded, but Cotan retains the same compositional structure and light treatment:

Juan Sanchez Cotan, Still-Life with Fowl, c. 1600-1603, 26 11/16" x 34 15/16".
Art Institute of Chicago

Details of the Art Institute painting:

Originally, art historians understood Cotan's still lifes as humble displays of food consumed by lower classes. However, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor Kenneth Bendiner points out that in 17th century Spain, all social classes ate cooked foods, not raw ones. Cotan, presenting food in its original state, invites us to look at what is overlooked - food before it becomes a meal.

As our eye studies Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, we may notice how the curve of the melon slice is the same parabolic compositional curve turned almost-but-not-quite perpendicular to the picture plane. Or we might look at three round forms balanced against two elongated ones, which balance the negative space in the upper right quadrant of the canvas. We may even wonder what type of meal can be composed of a quince, cabbage, melon and cucumber. And then we realize we've been entranced by this painting for several moments, musing over foods, meals, technique, presentation, all because of "just" a food painting.

Sources: Kenneth Bendiner, Food in Painting: From the Renaissance to the Present, London: Reakton Books, 2007.

Clueless about Monet?

Cher: She's a full on Monet.
Tai: What's a monet?
Cher: It's like a painting, see? From far away it's okay, but up close it's a big ol' mess.

While this is a pithy dialogue excerpt from a great 90s movie, it is also a good starting point to discuss an Impressionist painting. For most people, Claude Monet (1840-1926) is the most recognizable name associated with French Impressionism, an outgrowth of the Realist movement. (Future posts will be dedicated to Realism, and also how Impressionism is also realism.) Here is his painting that led a critic to coin the term "Impressionism." It debuted in 1874 at what is now recognized as the first Impressionist exhibit:

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1873, oil on canvas, 19 5/8 x 25 1/2 inches.
Musee Marmottan, Paris.

As Cher notices, from a distance it is easy for us to see Impression: Sunrise as a three-dimensional view of Port Le Havre. However, a closer inspection of the canvas shows how Monet left his brushstrokes unblended so they rest, quite visibly, on top of the canvas surface:


Impression: Sunrise was shocking and crude to the 19th century eye. This is more apparent when looking at the highly-finished Academic canvases like this one, which debuted to critical acclaim at the Salon of 1874:

William Bouguereau, Nymphs and a Satyr, 1874, oil on canvas,
9'3/8" x 5'10 7/8".
Sterling and Francis Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA.

Bouguereau's classical subject, large size, inclusion of nudes, and the naturalistic style were all the hallmarks of the conservative Academy's tastes. In contrast, Impression: Sunrise defiantly rejected the Academy's expectations. The canvas is relatively small (19 1/8 x 25 1/2 inches), and landscapes were viewed as impromper subjects for ambitious painters.

Most insulting to critics were Monet's brushstrokes because they weren't paint pretending to be flesh or water, but just boldly declaring their material as paint. Monet uses paint to suggest the changing light and and atmosphere at sunrise, and anyone who has seen the moment when a sun bursts on the horizon knows how quickly the phenomenon happens. As the viewer, we get the sense that the artist is working very quickly to capture that specific moment; notice how the speed of the artist's hand is indicated by the direction of the brushstrokes, and the distance in between the individual strokes. Suddenly, the brushstroke becomes a vehicle to capture not just the physical appearance of a scene but also the artist's gut response to visual sensation. In that regard, Monet's brushstroke is complex because it is both objective and subjective.

The total effect when viewing Impression: Sunrise is that we expect a three-dimensional representation of a real place, but the brushstroke prevents our eye from sinking into illusionistic three-dimensional space. In other words, we want to see a "real" view but the blatant marks on the top of the canvas deny any recessive space. This effect is what art historians and critics call "visual tension." The brushstroke is our entry into the painting, and also what prevents us from seeing anything but a flat surface. For some critics and historians, a defining characteristic of modernism in any artistic medium (poetry, sculpture, etc.) will be evidence of the creation of process, and the self-referentiality of the medium. The visual paradox of an Impressionist painting lies in visual and mental tension: knowing that it is a finished product vs. the sketch-like appearnce; the desire to see Impression: Sunrise as a three-dimensional view but being acutely aware of the two-dimensional nature of the canvas.

However, we know this because of our retrospective perch in 2009. At the time, 19th century writers couldn't handle Monet's style. Critic Louis Leroy dismissed it as "wallpaper in its embryonic state." To critics, it looked like an oil sketch but Monet indicates the finished status by signing and dating the lower left corner. It was perceived by Leroy as a slap in the face to 400 years of artistic development that stressed modeling, line, and perspective.

Finally, Bouguereau's Nymphs and a Satyr offers a safe, objective view of the subject. To 19th century critics and Salon-goers, the artist's intelligence is implied through this restraint and objectivity. By comparison, Monet's Impression: Sunrise is a sensual plunge into atmosphere, light, color, and tactility. The durability (lasting appeal) of Impression: Sunrise hinges on Monet's ability to let the 21st century see what he saw, to feel what he felt as he painted the Port of Le Havre.

Art History 101: the problem with the introductory survey course

I'm sure many people have taken the 100-level art history class to satisfy some sort of requirement: the general education "humanities" requirement, or perhaps you are an art history major and the 100 level intro class is required for your degree. Other people take the art history survey class as an upperclassmen who needs to fill their course schedule and figure, "Hey, it's a 100-level class. How hard could it be?"

As someone who has both taught and taken the 100 level class, it's rarely as easy as people want it to be. First: it's art history which many people fail to realize is NOT the same as art appreciation. Secondly: it requires memorization of names, dates, facts, styles and *gasp* requires you to match those facts with the image. If you fail to do so, you get the question wrong. And there's no way around memorizing - you just gotta do it, by any means necessary and pedagogical methods as of late really don't stress memorization or repetition. Third: 99% of survey courses fail to give any sort of depth. Instructors refer to the 100-level survey course as "Art History's Greatest Hits." This is akin to any "Greatest Hits" album: sure, Miles Davis Greatest Hits album gives you some stuff from Kind of Blue but it really neglects the more experimental and sometimes more exciting work from On the Corner. It's hard to give art historical context, significance, and formal technique within the confines of the survey course. Thus, students walk away from the survey class with a somewhat constricted point of view.

The survey course poses problems not only for the students, but the whole idea of the survey course is fraught with ideological turmoil for instructors. The Greatest Hits analogy aside, most 100-level courses are decidedly Euro-centric. If a student wants to see any of the Asian, African, Latin, native, or outsider art, then it will be given it's own, separate 100-level course: "Intro to African Art" or "Asian Art Survey." This move makes those types of art anterior (read: lesser) than the art covered in the "Art History: Ancient to Medieval" and "Art History: Renaissance to Modern" courses, which are mostly Western European and North American in its scope. The whole idea of an art historical canon has been attacked for being: patriarchal, oppressive, insensitive to the treatment of women and minorities, biased, and inaccurate. Which is to say, it has been attacked for the same reasons the history of the world has been attacked.

The structure of the course is also controversial for instructors and departments: how do we both introduce the subject and its methods to students? To ask students for a 2 page visual analysis is one thing, but a 5-7 page comparison paper is usually out of the question. And god forbid the paper's final grade be dependent upon grammar and writing style: you'll be bombarded with statements from students like, "THIS ISN'T AN ENGLISH CLASS, I REALLY DON'T THINK IT'S FAIR YOU MARKED ME OFF FOR RUN-ON SENTENCES."

So to summarize, here are the major problems with the survey art history course:
- limited in its treatment of art, and the works chosen are usually of the oppressive Euro-centric patriarchal type
- the textbooks are usually atrocious (As a side note: even deciding which works of art make it into the giant survey textbooks is completely crazy. See this article from nytimes.com for an example of the debate.)
- students confusing art appreciation and art history; general cynicism about what art is, and can be
- problems with the general structure of higher education

I've taken the 100-level survey course at a small, private, top 50 liberal arts college. And I've taught the 100-level survey course at large, anonymous state universities. So I've seen both sides of the debate and reallybecome more puzzled at how to fix the problem of the surve course. Unless there are major changes to both the discipline and the structure of higher education, I'm unsure how to fix the major concerns.

At the very least, I hope this blog fills in the gaps for people who never took the survey class, for those who took it but all knowledge flew out of their mind as soon as they took the final, and for those who are skeptical about art.