Beyond Tradition: The Crisis of Modernity: Art
This course was available in the past and may be presented again as part of the Basic Program of Liberal Education curriculum.
It has been said that the most difficult question for the art critic today is not whether a given work of art is good or bad, but whether it is in fact “art.” We take this as an index of how the crisis of modernity is reflected in and through modern art—and, for this class, as a point of departure. In the seminar, we will read three seminal theoretical texts on the meaning of art in modernity: Hegel, Introduction to Aesthetics, Tolstoy, What Is Art?, and Ortega y Gassett, The Dehumanization of Art—together with some shorter essays by Paul Tillich and Arthur Danto. In the tutorial, we trace this crisis in lives and works of four representative modern artists: Van Gogh (Letters to Theo), Edvard Munch (Journals, supplemented by Knausgaard, So Much Longing in So Little Space), Alberto Giacometti (Lord, A Giacometti Portrait), and Robert Motherwell (“Writings”). Course Syllabus
Course Outline
Course SyllabusNotes
Online registration deadline: Tuesday, September 19 at 5 pm CT
No class November 21 (Thanksgiving week)