U.C. Berkeley History of Art

Histart N180C

MODERN ART: 1860-1914 (3 units)

This course surveys the rise of modernist painting in Europe from the 1860s to the start of the First World War. It focuses on the formation of avant-garde cultures in two national contexts: in Paris, from the Impressionists to the heyday of Cubism; and in London, from late Pre-Raphaelitism to the tortured modernism of the Vorticists. Artists considered will include Manet, Degas, Pissarro, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Berthe Morisot, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gaughin, Matisse, Picasso, and others. We will explore not only the great differences, but also concrete points of interaction between French and British painting at this time. Through this lens, we will work to recover the strange intensity of these works of art, as well as their situation within the sweeping transformations of the modern era. In what ways did artists resist such traumatic upheavals? How did they help to hurry them along? What kinds of new classed and gendered identities did this art wish to produce? Could modernity be staged in paint? These and other questions will be grounded in discussion of particular works of art as we attempt to come to terms with the strategies of the historical avant-gardes, as well as with their continued relevance.