The work of these three international artists with distinct Catalan roots is explored on an individual basis within the wider framework of European art movements. In each case, we will study the acceptance and/or rejection of tradition, the interaction with French art and artists, and personal experience. We will also pay attention to the role of both outside stimuli (war, relationships) and inner forces (memory, imagination). The course will include guided tours of the Picasso Museum, the MNAC (Catalan National Museum of Art) and the Mir? Foundation in Barcelona and visiting the Dal? Theater Museum in Figueres is highly recommended.
Attendance policy:
Attendance is mandatory for all IES classes, including field studies. Any exams, tests, presentations, or other work missed due to student absences can only be rescheduled in cases of documented medical or family emergencies. If a student misses more than three classes in any course half a letter grade will be deducted from the final grade for every additional absence. Seven absences in any course will result in a failing grade.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course students are able to:
• apply basic art historical tools to describe and explain a painting
• identify the most important facts in the lives of these three painters (Picasso, Dal? and Mir?) and apply them to the analysis of their oeuvre
• distinguish the key features and symbols that appear in the art works and interpret their meaning
• describe the different periods in which their work is classified
• compare the most important avant-garde movements of the late 19th century
Method of presentation:
Lectures, readings, class activities, field studies and student presentations.
Required work and form of assessment:
• MIDTERM AND FINAL EXAMS (60%): slide test and short essay questions on course content, two of them based on images of paintings that we analysed in greater depth in class.
• CLASS PRESENTATION (10%): Students must give the rest of the class a 10 to 15-minute presentation on a specific aspect of one of the three artists studied, individually of in groups of up to three. This normally consists of preliminary preparation for the student’s term paper. A clear PowerPoint will be
required and other material is also encouraged (films clips, handouts etc.).
• TERM PAPER (15%): Individually or in groups of up to three students choose a topic suitable for a research paper. The teacher will approve topics and aid students in locating valid sources (libraries, museums, etc). This paper has a minimum length of 2600 words (1 students), 3700 (2 students),
4300 (3 students).
• PARTICIPATION (15%): This includes attendance, participation in class discussions, the forwarding of pertinent questions, familiarity with the Reader texts and the submission of a 700-word field trip
report for one of the museum visits.
content:
Session 1: Introduction. How to look at paintings.
Session 2: Social and Cultural Frame. The Beginnings of Modern Art I: Neoclassicism, Romanticism and the Salon System, the Barbizon School.
Required Reading: Bolloch, Jo?lle, ‘Painter, the Salon, and the Critics, 1848-1870’, trans. by Fabrice Troupenat and Steve Taviner, Paris: Mus?e d’Orsay, 2002.
Session 3: The Beginnings of Modern Art II: Impressionism, Postimpressionism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau.
Required Reading: Madeline, Laurence, ‘In the times of the impressionist exhibitions (1874-1886)’, trans. by Fabrice Troupenat and Steve Taviner, Paris: Mus?e d’Orsay, 2002.
Session 4: Picasso 1. Formal apprenticeship and early styles. The Barcelona years: the Four Cats. Blue Period. Rose Period.
Required Reading: Cowling, Elizabeth, Picasso. Style and Meaning, London: Phaidon Press, 2002, 33, 34, 59-69.
Session 5: Field trip to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) to investigate late 19th and early
20th century artistic traditions in situ.
Required Reading: Falg?s, Jordi, ‘Picasso’s fellows at the tavern: beyond Modernisme?’. In W.H. Robinson et al., Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaud?, Mir?, Dal?, New Haven & London: Cleveland Museum of Art / Yale University Press, 2007, 96-103.
Session 6: Picasso 2. Picasso and Cubism. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Analytical and Synthetic Cubism.
Required Reading: The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Winnan, Judith (director), BBC, 2004. DVD
Session 7: Picasso 3. Return to order. Picasso and Surrealism. Guernica and the war period.
Required Reading: Gottlieb, Carla, ‘The Meaning of the Bull and Horse in Guernica’, Art Journal, 24:2 (Winter 1964), 106-112.
Session 8: Picasso 4: The re- interpretation of Old Masters from the past. The final years.
Required Reading: Esteban, Paloma, ‘The Great Series: the artist and the process of creation’. In Exhibition Catalogue, Picasso. Las Grandes Series, Madrid: Aldeasa / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Reina Sof?a, 2001, 539-543,545-547
Session 9: Field Study: Museu Picasso, Barcelona.
Required Reading: Golding, John, ‘Picasso and ceramics. London and New York’.
The Burlington Magazine, 1149: 140 (1998), 838-839.
Session 10: The Beginnings of Modern Art III. Avant-garde art: Fauvism, German Expressionism, Futurism.
Required Reading: Noyes Platt, Susan, ‘Modernism, Formalism, and Politics: the “Cubism and Abstract Art” Exhibition of 1936 at the Museum of Modern Art’, Art Journal, 4: 47 (1998), 284-295.
Session 11: Class presentations I.
Session 12: Midterm exam
Session 13: The Beginning of Modern Art IV. Dadaism and Surrealism.
Required Reading: Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul (eds), Art in Theory 1900-2000. An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, 250-257, 456-463.
Session 14: Dal? 1. The early years from Figueres to the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid. The influence of Lorca.
Required Reading: Gibson, Ian, ‘Salvador Dal?: the Catalan background’. In M. Raeburn (ed.), Salvador Dal?: the Early Years, London: South Bank Centre-Hayward Gallery, 1994, 49-64.
Session 15: Dal? 2. Surrealism. Dal?- Bu?uel: Un chien andalou. The influence of Sigmund Freud. Film viewing: “Un chien andalou”, 1929.
Required Reading: King, Elliott H., Dal?, Surrealism and Cinema, Harpenden: Kamera Books, 2007, 17-27;
Fan?s, F?lix, Salvador Dal?. The Construction of the Image 1925-1930, Yale University Press: New Haven & London, 2007, 60-75.
Session 16: Dal? 3. The Paranoiac- Critical Method. Double image paintings.
Case Study: the Metamorphosis of Narcissus.
Required Reading: Lomas, David, ‘The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Dal?’s Self- Analysis’. In D. Ades, F. Bradly (eds), Salvador Dal?. A Mythology, London: Tate Publishing, 1998, 79-100.
Session 17: Dal? 4. Fame in United States. The return to tradition: Nuclear Mysticism.
Required Reading: Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dal?, London: Faber and Faber, 1997, 448-473.
Session 18: Mir? 1. Childhood, youth and Period of Details.
Required Reading: Llorens, T., Mir?: Earth, Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza,
2008, 29-41.
Session 19: Class presentations II.
Session 20: Mir? 2. Surrealism. Inspiration through the masters of the past. The assassination of painting.
Required Reading: Umland, Anna, ‘Mir? the Assassin’. In Exhibition Catalogue, Joan Mir?. Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937, New York: MoMA, 2008, 1-15.
Session 21: Mir? 3. The impact of war: the Savage paintings, the Constellations.
Required Reading: Hammond, Paul, Constellation of Mir?, Breton, City Light Books: San Francisco, 29-61.
Session 22: Class presentations III.
Session 23: Field Study: Fundaci? Mir?, Barcelona.
Required Reading: Watkins, Nicholas, ‘Joan Mir?. London, Whitechapel Art Gallery’. The Burlington Magazine, 1033:131 (1989), 313-314.
Session 24: Picasso, Dal?, Mir?, a comparative perspective.
Final exam
Required readings:
Bolloch, Jo?lle, ‘Painter, the Salon, and the Critics, 1848-1870’, trans. by Fabrice Troupenat and Steve Taviner, Paris: Mus?e d’Orsay, 2002.
Cowling, Elizabeth, Picasso. Style and Meaning, London: Phaidon Press, 2002, 33, 34, 59-69. Esteban, Paloma, ‘The Great Series: the artist and the process of creation’. In Exhibition Catalogue, Picasso. Las Grandes Series, Madrid: Aldeasa / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof?a, 2001, 539-543,545-547
Falg?s, Jordi, ‘Picasso’s fellows at the tavern: beyond Modernisme?’. In W.H. Robinson et al., Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaud?, Mir?, Dal?, New Haven & London: Cleveland Museum of Art / Yale University Press, 2007, 96-103.
Fan?s, F?lix, Salvador Dal?. The Construction of the Image 1925-1930, Yale University Press: New Haven & London, 2007, 60-75.
Gibson, Ian, ‘Salvador Dal?: the Catalan background’. In M. Raeburn (ed.), Salvador Dal?: the Early Years, London: South Bank Centre-Hayward Gallery, 1994, 49-64.
Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dal?, London: Faber and Faber, 1997, 448-473. Golding, John, ‘Picasso and ceramics. London and New York’. The Burlington Magazine, 1149: 140 (1998), 838-839.
Gottlieb, Carla, ‘The Meaning of the Bull and Horse in Guernica’, Art Journal, 24:2 (Winter 1964), 106-112.
Hammond, Paul, Constellation of Mir?, Breton, City Light Books: San Francisco, 29-61.
Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul (eds), Art in Theory 1900-2000. An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, 250-257, 456-463.
Llorens, T., Mir?: Earth, Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2008, 29-41.
Lomas, David, ‘The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Dal?’s Self-Analysis’. In D. Ades, F. Bradly (eds),
Salvador Dal?. A Mythology, London: Tate Publishing, 1998, 79-100.
Madeline, Laurence, ‘In the times of the impressionist exhibitions (1874-1886)’, trans. by Fabrice Troupenat and Steve Taviner, Paris: Mus?e d’Orsay, 2002.
Noyes Platt, Susan, ‘Modernism, Formalism, and Politics: the “Cubism and Abstract Art” Exhibition of 1936 at the Museum of Modern Art’, Art Journal, 4: 47 (1998), 284-295.
Umland, Anna, ‘Mir? the Assassin’. In Exhibition Catalogue, Joan Mir?. Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937, New York: MoMA, 2008, 1-15.
Watkins, Nicholas, ‘Joan Mir?. London, Whitechapel Art Gallery’. The Burlington Magazine, 1033:131 (1989), 313-314.
Winnan, Judith (director), The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, BBC, 2004
Notes:
This course is offered during the regular semester and in the summer. For summer sections, the course schedule is condensed, but the content, learning outcomes, and contact hours are the same.
Great 20th Century Artists of Catalonia: Picasso, Dalí and Miró
The work of these three international artists with distinct Catalan roots is explored on an individual basis within the wider framework of European art movements. In each case, we will study the acceptance and/or rejection of tradition, the interaction with French art and artists, and personal experience. We will also pay attention to the role of both outside stimuli (war, relationships) and inner forces (memory, imagination). The course will include guided tours of the Picasso Museum, the MNAC (Catalan National Museum of Art) and the Mir? Foundation in Barcelona and visiting the Dal? Theater Museum in Figueres is highly recommended.
Attendance is mandatory for all IES classes, including field studies. Any exams, tests, presentations, or other work missed due to student absences can only be rescheduled in cases of documented medical or family emergencies. If a student misses more than three classes in any course half a letter grade will be deducted from the final grade for every additional absence. Seven absences in any course will result in a failing grade.
By the end of the course students are able to:
• apply basic art historical tools to describe and explain a painting
• identify the most important facts in the lives of these three painters (Picasso, Dal? and Mir?) and apply them to the analysis of their oeuvre
• distinguish the key features and symbols that appear in the art works and interpret their meaning
• describe the different periods in which their work is classified
• compare the most important avant-garde movements of the late 19th century
Lectures, readings, class activities, field studies and student presentations.
• MIDTERM AND FINAL EXAMS (60%): slide test and short essay questions on course content, two of them based on images of paintings that we analysed in greater depth in class.
• CLASS PRESENTATION (10%): Students must give the rest of the class a 10 to 15-minute presentation on a specific aspect of one of the three artists studied, individually of in groups of up to three. This normally consists of preliminary preparation for the student’s term paper. A clear PowerPoint will be
required and other material is also encouraged (films clips, handouts etc.).
• TERM PAPER (15%): Individually or in groups of up to three students choose a topic suitable for a research paper. The teacher will approve topics and aid students in locating valid sources (libraries, museums, etc). This paper has a minimum length of 2600 words (1 students), 3700 (2 students),
4300 (3 students).
• PARTICIPATION (15%): This includes attendance, participation in class discussions, the forwarding of pertinent questions, familiarity with the Reader texts and the submission of a 700-word field trip
report for one of the museum visits.
Session 1: Introduction. How to look at paintings.
Session 2: Social and Cultural Frame. The Beginnings of Modern Art I: Neoclassicism, Romanticism and the Salon System, the Barbizon School.
Required Reading: Bolloch, Jo?lle, ‘Painter, the Salon, and the Critics, 1848-1870’, trans. by Fabrice Troupenat and Steve Taviner, Paris: Mus?e d’Orsay, 2002.
Session 3: The Beginnings of Modern Art II: Impressionism, Postimpressionism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau.
Required Reading: Madeline, Laurence, ‘In the times of the impressionist exhibitions (1874-1886)’, trans. by Fabrice Troupenat and Steve Taviner, Paris: Mus?e d’Orsay, 2002.
Session 4: Picasso 1. Formal apprenticeship and early styles. The Barcelona years: the Four Cats. Blue Period. Rose Period.
Required Reading: Cowling, Elizabeth, Picasso. Style and Meaning, London: Phaidon Press, 2002, 33, 34, 59-69.
Session 5: Field trip to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) to investigate late 19th and early
20th century artistic traditions in situ.
Required Reading: Falg?s, Jordi, ‘Picasso’s fellows at the tavern: beyond Modernisme?’. In W.H. Robinson et al., Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaud?, Mir?, Dal?, New Haven & London: Cleveland Museum of Art / Yale University Press, 2007, 96-103.
Session 6: Picasso 2. Picasso and Cubism. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Analytical and Synthetic Cubism.
Required Reading: The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Winnan, Judith (director), BBC, 2004. DVD
Session 7: Picasso 3. Return to order. Picasso and Surrealism. Guernica and the war period.
Required Reading: Gottlieb, Carla, ‘The Meaning of the Bull and Horse in Guernica’, Art Journal, 24:2 (Winter 1964), 106-112.
Session 8: Picasso 4: The re- interpretation of Old Masters from the past. The final years.
Required Reading: Esteban, Paloma, ‘The Great Series: the artist and the process of creation’. In Exhibition Catalogue, Picasso. Las Grandes Series, Madrid: Aldeasa / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Reina Sof?a, 2001, 539-543,545-547
Session 9: Field Study: Museu Picasso, Barcelona.
Required Reading: Golding, John, ‘Picasso and ceramics. London and New York’.
The Burlington Magazine, 1149: 140 (1998), 838-839.
Session 10: The Beginnings of Modern Art III. Avant-garde art: Fauvism, German Expressionism, Futurism.
Required Reading: Noyes Platt, Susan, ‘Modernism, Formalism, and Politics: the “Cubism and Abstract Art” Exhibition of 1936 at the Museum of Modern Art’, Art Journal, 4: 47 (1998), 284-295.
Session 11: Class presentations I.
Session 12: Midterm exam
Session 13: The Beginning of Modern Art IV. Dadaism and Surrealism.
Required Reading: Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul (eds), Art in Theory 1900-2000. An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, 250-257, 456-463.
Session 14: Dal? 1. The early years from Figueres to the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid. The influence of Lorca.
Required Reading: Gibson, Ian, ‘Salvador Dal?: the Catalan background’. In M. Raeburn (ed.), Salvador Dal?: the Early Years, London: South Bank Centre-Hayward Gallery, 1994, 49-64.
Session 15: Dal? 2. Surrealism. Dal?- Bu?uel: Un chien andalou. The influence of Sigmund Freud. Film viewing: “Un chien andalou”, 1929.
Required Reading: King, Elliott H., Dal?, Surrealism and Cinema, Harpenden: Kamera Books, 2007, 17-27;
Fan?s, F?lix, Salvador Dal?. The Construction of the Image 1925-1930, Yale University Press: New Haven & London, 2007, 60-75.
Session 16: Dal? 3. The Paranoiac- Critical Method. Double image paintings.
Case Study: the Metamorphosis of Narcissus.
Required Reading: Lomas, David, ‘The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Dal?’s Self- Analysis’. In D. Ades, F. Bradly (eds), Salvador Dal?. A Mythology, London: Tate Publishing, 1998, 79-100.
Session 17: Dal? 4. Fame in United States. The return to tradition: Nuclear Mysticism.
Required Reading: Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dal?, London: Faber and Faber, 1997, 448-473.
Session 18: Mir? 1. Childhood, youth and Period of Details.
Required Reading: Llorens, T., Mir?: Earth, Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza,
2008, 29-41.
Session 19: Class presentations II.
Session 20: Mir? 2. Surrealism. Inspiration through the masters of the past. The assassination of painting.
Required Reading: Umland, Anna, ‘Mir? the Assassin’. In Exhibition Catalogue, Joan Mir?. Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937, New York: MoMA, 2008, 1-15.
Session 21: Mir? 3. The impact of war: the Savage paintings, the Constellations.
Required Reading: Hammond, Paul, Constellation of Mir?, Breton, City Light Books: San Francisco, 29-61.
Session 22: Class presentations III.
Session 23: Field Study: Fundaci? Mir?, Barcelona.
Required Reading: Watkins, Nicholas, ‘Joan Mir?. London, Whitechapel Art Gallery’. The Burlington Magazine, 1033:131 (1989), 313-314.
Session 24: Picasso, Dal?, Mir?, a comparative perspective.
Final exam
Bolloch, Jo?lle, ‘Painter, the Salon, and the Critics, 1848-1870’, trans. by Fabrice Troupenat and Steve Taviner, Paris: Mus?e d’Orsay, 2002.
Cowling, Elizabeth, Picasso. Style and Meaning, London: Phaidon Press, 2002, 33, 34, 59-69. Esteban, Paloma, ‘The Great Series: the artist and the process of creation’. In Exhibition Catalogue, Picasso. Las Grandes Series, Madrid: Aldeasa / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof?a, 2001, 539-543,545-547
Falg?s, Jordi, ‘Picasso’s fellows at the tavern: beyond Modernisme?’. In W.H. Robinson et al., Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaud?, Mir?, Dal?, New Haven & London: Cleveland Museum of Art / Yale University Press, 2007, 96-103.
Fan?s, F?lix, Salvador Dal?. The Construction of the Image 1925-1930, Yale University Press: New Haven & London, 2007, 60-75.
Gibson, Ian, ‘Salvador Dal?: the Catalan background’. In M. Raeburn (ed.), Salvador Dal?: the Early Years, London: South Bank Centre-Hayward Gallery, 1994, 49-64.
Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dal?, London: Faber and Faber, 1997, 448-473. Golding, John, ‘Picasso and ceramics. London and New York’. The Burlington Magazine, 1149: 140 (1998), 838-839.
Gottlieb, Carla, ‘The Meaning of the Bull and Horse in Guernica’, Art Journal, 24:2 (Winter 1964), 106-112.
Hammond, Paul, Constellation of Mir?, Breton, City Light Books: San Francisco, 29-61.
Harrison, Charles and Wood, Paul (eds), Art in Theory 1900-2000. An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, 250-257, 456-463.
King, Elliott H., Dal?, Surrealism and Cinema, Harpenden: Kamera Books, 2007, 17-27;
Llorens, T., Mir?: Earth, Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2008, 29-41.
Lomas, David, ‘The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Dal?’s Self-Analysis’. In D. Ades, F. Bradly (eds),
Salvador Dal?. A Mythology, London: Tate Publishing, 1998, 79-100.
Madeline, Laurence, ‘In the times of the impressionist exhibitions (1874-1886)’, trans. by Fabrice Troupenat and Steve Taviner, Paris: Mus?e d’Orsay, 2002.
Noyes Platt, Susan, ‘Modernism, Formalism, and Politics: the “Cubism and Abstract Art” Exhibition of 1936 at the Museum of Modern Art’, Art Journal, 4: 47 (1998), 284-295.
Umland, Anna, ‘Mir? the Assassin’. In Exhibition Catalogue, Joan Mir?. Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937, New York: MoMA, 2008, 1-15.
Watkins, Nicholas, ‘Joan Mir?. London, Whitechapel Art Gallery’. The Burlington Magazine, 1033:131 (1989), 313-314.
Winnan, Judith (director), The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, BBC, 2004
This course is offered during the regular semester and in the summer. For summer sections, the course schedule is condensed, but the content, learning outcomes, and contact hours are the same.