A study of modern art history tracing the relationship between the artistic avant garde and the development of modern design concepts in the applied arts. Contemporary developments will be discussed. A field trip is required. The course may focus on a area such as museum management or be a specialized course on, for example, Impressionism or Dutch Baroque art. The course offers the student the close intellectual scrutiny that accompanies scholarly readings not always tenable in a survey course.
Considerable attention is given to issues of mass culture.
A field trip is required. Considerable attention will be given to the question of how photography has impacted the aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual values of modern civilization, a question which has preoccupied thinkers from Walter Benjamin to Susan Sontag.