American Landscape in 19th- and 20th-Century Visual Arts

elective courses

Blended learning
Classroom
Remote learning

This course explores representation of the American landscape in US painting and photography in the 19th and 20th century. Throughout the years, America’s peculiar relationship with nature has functioned as a constructive, bilateral force, as it both changed the US natural scenery and shaped the nation’s identity. Therefore, we will look at the analyzed images as both an inherent element of national heritage and a commentary on cultural, social and/or political issues.


We will examine the intersection of politics, nature, and culture by referring to key American cultural beliefs (Manifest Destiny), icons (“the American wilderness,” Route 66), and problems (solitude, human vulnerability to nature, climate change). To provide the students with comprehensive and sufficient knowledge in the field, the course offers a cross-sectional survey into the most important and/or outstanding works by artists such as: Hudson River School representatives (e.g., Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, Samual Colman, William Hart), Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, Ansel Adams, Carleton E. Watkins, Timothy O’Sullivan, Edward Weston, William Henry Jackson, Brett Weston, Ed Ruscha, Norman Rockwell, Charles Sheeler, New Topographics movement representatives (e.g., Lewis Baltz, Stephen Shore, Robert Adams), and Richard Misrach.

Berger, Martin A. “Landscape Photography and the White Gaze.” In Sight Unseen: Whiteness and American Visual Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005.

Boime, Albert. The Magisterial Gaze: Manifest Destiny and American Landscape Painting c. 1830–1865. Washington, DC: Smithsonian University Press, 1991.

Elkins, James, and Rachael Ziady DeLue, eds. Landscape Theory. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Guardiano, Nicholas L. “The Philosophy of Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Painting.” In: Aesthetic Transcendentalism in Emerson, Peirce, and Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Painting. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017.

Howat, John K., ed. American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987.

Lewis, Michael, ed. American Wilderness: A New History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Meier, Allison C. “When Landscape Painting Was Protest Art.” JSTOR Daily, April 13, 2018. https://daily.jstor.org/when-landscape-painting-was-protest-art/.

Miller, Angela. Empire of the Eye: Landscape, Representation and American Cultural Politics, 1825–1875. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.

Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.

Novak, Barbara. American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.


---. Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting 1825–1875. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Rosenblum, Robert. Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977.

Szarkowski, John, ed. The Photographer and the American Landscape. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963.

Wilmerding, John. American Art. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.

KNOWLEDGE

Upon completing this course, a student:

– is aware of the representation of social, political, and cultural phenomena in American visual arts

– knows and applies methods of analyzing visual texts

– knows key works of American landscape painting and landscape photography

SKILLS

Upon completing this course, a student:

– is able to analyze visual texts

– is able to apply theoretical tools to analyze cultural texts

– is able to write a short research paper on a selected visual text and US American sociocultural phenomena

SOCIAL COMPETENCES

Upon completing this course, a student:

– understands the crucial role of basic knowledge of visual art in comprehending the cultural changes and phenomena in the US

– actively participates in group work and takes part in discussions

– uses the knowledge gained during the course for further studies on the American culture

Preparation for class and active participation in class discussions—30%

Final paper project—30%

Final paper—40%

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