ART 3352 - Commercial Modernism in America 1865-1965

Institution:

Washington University in St Louis

Subject:

Description:

This course explores contributions to and expressions of image-based visual modernism in the commercial tradition. We focus on periodical illustration, the comic strip, and animated film. Content addresses the birth and expansion of industrial image production; the history of relevant technologies; modernist art theory and the experience of modernity; the parallel but culturally distinct traditions of illustration and cartooning; and issues of race and gender in the production and reception of these works. A sampling of practitioners to be considered: E.W. Kemble, Howard Pyle, Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, N.C. Wyeth, Winsor McCay, J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, Chester Gould, Milton Caniff, Al Parker, Robert Weaver, Mary Blair, Saul Bass, Paul Rand, Ezra Jack Keats, and Jack Kirby. Three required film screenings are scheduled during the semester. Images from the commercial tradition typically fall into a cultural and academic blind spot. They exist outside the realm of art history as traditionally defined and receive primarily textual analyses in culture studies contexts. As a result, many careers and works that would otherwise attract interest remain effectively invisible. This course seeks to integrate the close study of objects associated with art history and the embrace of the embedded in culture studies. We draw on the collections of the recently founded Modern Graphic History Library at Washington University.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.wustl.edu

Phone Number:

(314) 935-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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