Session A (First 6-week session): May 28–July 3, 2013
 
This course will examine the visual culture of France during the period between 1852 and 1900 with a particular focus on Paris as it was depicted in the arts of the time and as a work of art itself. Though we will consider the painting movements typically known as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, we will also discuss the gargoyles installed on the façade of Notre Dame as re-imaginings of France’s medieval past, the use of photography in Haussmann’s dramatic restructuring of Paris, public sculpture and the revival of French Rococo, and the Universal Exposition of 1889 to get a broader sense of the city as well as its major monuments and collections.
 
Readings will include texts by major scholars of the period as well as primary sources including excerpts from Zola and Baudelaire. The course includes one mandatory trip to the Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco as students will be required to write an analysis of a work in that collection.