Structuring an Art Course

To structure an outstanding course in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism the instructor should seek out materials which cover its most elemental points as well as the latest developments in the field. In the case of an art history course this implies offering students books which both outline the history and traditions of the era as well as newer approaches which often question and broaden the premises (with their subtle and often undetected biases) of these earlier works. To that end, in structuring a course on Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, a strong mix of the traditional and progressive might consist of the classical John Rewald's Studies in Impressionism, Francis Frascina's Modernism and modernity: French painting in the nineteenth century, T. J. Clark's The Absolute bourgeois: Artists and politics in France (1848-1851) and a choice of either a) Norma Broude's Impressionism: A Feminist reading, the gendering of art, science and nature in the nineteenth century; b) Richard Shiff's Cézanne and the end of Impressionism; c) Modernism and hegemony: A materialist critique of aesthetic agencies; d) Charles Baudelaire's The painter of modern life and other essays as the fourth book.

In conjunction with the above texts, students would be assigned these four supplementary essays: 1) Griselda Pollock's "What can we say about Cézanne these days?"; 2) Charles Bernheimer's "Manet's Olympia: The figuration of s

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to analyze "The Art of the Republic" with specific attention given to the paintings of Millet, Daumier, Delacroix and Baudelaire. For the fourth major text to be read, it could prove very useful to offer student an option of four different books. Since this fourth book would be attempting to broaden even further the student's base of knowledge asking the student to chose what sub-specialization most interests him or her helps prod them into self-actualization. The teacher should try to distribute these four text evenly throughout the class. Then the students could be asked to do brief in-class presentations on the contents of these four books. In this way, the entire class would benefit by being exposed to a diversity of sophisticated approaches to the material. Baudelaire's book might prove the most elemental of these four. However, its poetic use of logic might escape a more rationally-oriented student. Modernism and hegemony would offer students with a more political leaning a strong outlet for their materialist concerns. Since the fusion of art history and materialism is still fairly new students should be encouraged to hash out the strengths and weaknesses embedded in such an approach. Students interested in fo
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1676
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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