Course Description
This course provides an overview of the development of modernist "art" photography from its beginnings in pictorialism and documentary photography through its absorption of cubism, surrealism, abstraction, and realism. American and European photographers will be examined within the history of modernist art and its philosophical, political and social contexts.
Athena Title
Modernist Photography
Prerequisite
ARHI 2000 or ARHI 2000E or ARHI 2000H or ARHI 2300 or ARHI 2300E or ARHI 2311H or ARHI 2400 or ARHI 2400E or ARHI 2411H
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course will focus on major figures of American and European photography from the late nineteenth through the mid- twentieth centuries. Students will learn to distinguish individual photographic styles and to understand how photographs convey meaning through lighting, imagery, focus, cropping, and printing techniques. Students will also learn how these photographs relate to the historical, philosophical, political, social, and cultural circumstances governing their production, and how photography fits into the broader revolution of artistic modernism.
Topical Outline
Week 1: France's Visionary Documentarian--Eugene Atget Weeks 2 & 3: Pictorialism in America: Day, White, Dow, Kasebier, Brigman Week 4: America's Photo-Secession Movement: Coburn, Steichen, Stieglitz Week 5: Social Documentarian - Lewis Hine Weeks 6 & 7: Camera Work and the American Avant-Garde: Stieglitz, Strand, Steichen Week 8: Californian Abstraction: Weston and Mather Week 9: Dadaist and Surrealist Photographer Man Ray Week 10: European "New Vision" Photography: Moholy-Nagy and Rodchenko Weeks 11 & 12: Surrealist Visions: Maar, Brassai, Kertesz Week 13: Walker Evans and "American Photographs" Week 14: Redefining Journalistic Photography: Lange, Bourke- White, Weegee Week 15: The decisive Moment and Seeing the "In-Between": Cartier-Bresson & Frank Week 16: The Mystical and the Bizarre: White and Arbus
Syllabus