This course examines the fundamental issues and theories surrounding the art production and reception of Modern Art in Europe and America through the twentieth century. Framed by discussions of Post-Impressionist painting of the 1880s and the Post-Modern pluralist art of the 1980s, we will examine how theories of human nature, art, and spirituality informed the creation and interpretation of painting, sculpture, architecture and mixed-media works in their specific cultural, social and political arenas. This class will trace two major tendencies in Modern Art in a basically chronological fashion: first, abstraction from nature or “reality” to locate an objective essence of form and vision in artworks from Cubism, Purism, Futurism, De Stijl, Bauhaus, Minimalism and Pop; second the more subjective and romantic “turning within” that constitutes the artworks and theories of Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Neo-Expressionism.
