A re-examination of the social and cultural meanings of American painting (as well as some sculpture and decorative arts objects) of the 18^th, 19^th,  and 20^th centuries, focusing on works in the collection of the deYoung Museum, San Francisco.  The class will meet most weeks at the deYoung, where we will be joined by Prof. Bryan Wolf and students from Stanford University.  Each student will pursue an in-depth study of a single work in the Museum’s superb collection.  We will pay particular attention to recent scholarship, genre (landscape, portrait, still life, and subject pictures), historic context, and the “biography of objects” as they shift in context and meaning over time.