Surveys of 19th century Western art conventionally focus on
the rise and development of the century’s avant-garde movements. Following
larger narratives of progress as defined by industrial development, and later
by modernist discourse, Nineteenth-century art is thus defined by its rejection of
tradition and the past, and its search for forms that somehow engage with
modernity or reflect critically upon it. However, this is only part of the
story in 19th century visual culture. Modern, industrializing nation-states and
their attendant upheavals to labor, social relations, identity, and
consciousness created the ground for a very wide range of new visual forms,
artistic practices, and audiences. The majority of these do not fit the pattern
outlined by modernism. Though they, too, reflect critically on modernity, they
are frequently relegated to categories that imply entrenchment in tradition or
simple rejection of the modern.
This course studies major movements, artists, critics, and
forms of visual art that held the attention of huge sectors of society, from
the masses to sophisticated collectors. Despite later rewritings of the century's history, which created stark
simplifications of new versus old and high art versus popular cutlure, the movements and figures covered in this course—including the Gothic revival and the Arts and
Crafts movements, theorists John Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc, artists such as Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris, G. F. Watts, Elihu Vedder—succeeded
precisely because they did express modern dreams, fears, and imaginative
relations to the world. The course will therefore undertake a dialectical
approach to the modern and the antimodern to learn about their
particular forms, representational strategies, patronage, and conditions of
production and reception.