This course will survey the rise of a new style and ideology of painting (which embraced landscape, portraiture and genre painting) based in and around the city of Paris in the final years of the Second Empire. A loosely-affiliated assembly of young artists attained a group identity through a series of eight irregularly held exhibitions (between 1874 and 1886). This course will follow what was eventually dubbed "Impressionism" by a wise-cracking art critic through to the moment of the dissolution of the exhibiting society in 1886. The art historical literature on this very consequential "event" in the history of modernist painting is voluminous, diverse and contradictory. The goals of the course will hence be twofold: it will acquaint students with the rise and development of Impressionist art, and will at the same time survey the historiography of the movement, by looking at its interpretation in the art criticism of the 1870s through to the work of early 21st-century art historians. Impressionist art works in the collection of the Clark Art Institute will constitute our laboratory. Format: lecture/discussion. Each member of the class will choose one of the artworks in the collection and write a (10-page) paper on it. There will also be regular class discussions of the assigned readings, and midterm and final exams. We will also endeavor to visit the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts or the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City). Prerequisites: ArtH 101-102. Enrollment limit: 40 (expected: 40). Preference given to Art History majors.

Hour: CLAYSON