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Th 1:00PM-4:00PM, 270 Tappan Hall Special Studies in the
Art of China: Uses of Tradition in China (3)
The aim of this course is to examine the impact of historical consciousness on the production and interpretationof painting. When artists become highly conscious of the history of art and their own role in the formation of that history, references to past traditions can become an important and highly sophisticated means of shaping a painting’s content. By utilizing past traditions in their choice of emblems, subject matter or style, artists can draw upon a range of expressive strategies not available to historically "naïve" painting. But consciousness of the past also raises thorny issues recognized in critical writing about art in both China and Europe. Among these are: 1) The relationship of a painting to "reality." If style is historically specific, how can one mode of representation be "more correct" than another? What happens to the historical canon? 2) Originality and the "burden of the past." If a painting refers to past masters, how does the artist establish an independent identity? 3) The evolution of the artist’s "public persona." Historical consciousness often entails that the artist sees him or herself as actively shaping history. How does this concern reveal itself in painting? The seminar is conceived as an interdisciplinary forum and is open to graduate students in all fields of culture studies. We shall discuss reading by Norman Bryson, James Cahill, E.H. Gombrich, Joseph Koerner, A.C. Soper, Richard Vinograd and others. Students will prepare papers of a historiographical or interpretive nature to be presented in a workshop-like environment in which discussants will be assigned to each paper. Grading will be based upon the quality of the student’s presentation, workshop discussion, research paper, and class discussion. (Powers) |
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