Spring 2005

AMS 370 • American Landscape Art-W

Course Description

This course offers an opportunity to explore aspects of what is probably the most beloved but least understood kind of American art. the American land (and by implication, coasts, waterways, etc.) has a privileged position in the national imagination--a locus of patriotic feeling, collective sense of identity, spirituality. It is the major premise of this course that landscape art, although nature-based, is nevertheless a cultural construction, that is, that the motives to make such art, the artistic conventions that govern its representation, and the uses to which it is put, derive most of their meaning from specific cultural needs. the course is loosely organized along chronological lines, from the 17th century to the present, although there will be some leapfrogging along the way.

Texts

Barbara C. Matilsky, Fragile Ecologies Packet of Readings (other readings on reserve at the Fine Arts Library)

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