20 century art. Some of these approaches follow the tradition of the art history
survey th textbook but they focus on the 20 century (as opposed to all of history).
Paper Topic: Representing the 20th century in art history textbooks The purpose of this paper is to critique and review varying approaches to telling the “story” of 20th century art. Some of these approaches follow the tradition of the art history survey textbook but they focus on the 20th century (as opposed to all of history). Survey style books are generally organized in a chronological fashion. Other approaches to the history of 20th century art have departed from the survey approach and organized the material according to themes chosen by the author. These books generally do not deal with the entire 20th century and usually focus on either the first half of the century or the second half. Your textbook this semester is in this category although it is an edited book, which means that there may be some inconsistencies in how the themes are presented, and the time period it has chosen to cover begins at approximately 1930 and then continues to close to the end of the 20th century. Your task: Choose 3 (or more) books from the list below (I will put them on reserve in the library): the decision of how many will probably be affected by whether you choose the survey type of book or the thematic book. The thematic books tend to be shorter (and are often more interesting!) but you probably need to use more in order to get a picture of the entire 20th century. The “umbrella” question for your analysis of each book is this: What general and specific picture of the 20th century is the author trying to convey? In order to answer this question, you should: examine the organizational premises of the book: does the book deal with the entire 20th century or part of it? Which part and why? is it strictly chronological? Is it organized by something other than chronology? Does the author use a combination of organizational devices? The answer to these questions is generally not hard to find: the table of contents is a primary tool but so is the author’s preface or introduction. Sometimes, the actual text of the book may contradict the information you get from the T o C or the preface – discuss that, if it happens. What artists and/or movements are included in the book? Of those artists/movements, are they treated equally or are some treated in more depth than others? If so, are there any similarities or reasons that you can identify which lead to the author’s decision to treat some in more depth? Finally, if someone reads the entire book, what picture of the 20th century will he or she be left with? This question requires you to provide a general synopsis of the main themes and ideas in the book and to interpret the answers you’ve arrived at for the previous questions. Keep in mind that you do not actually have to read these books from the first page to the last page, but you do have to read significant portions of the books. To make your comparisons meaningful, you should try to read comparable material in each book. For example, you should definitely read the introduction to each book in your paper. Then you should choose topics or chapters which relate to parts of the twentieth century or movements or artists which interest you. If you read a chapter on surrealism in one book, find the material on surrealism in the
other books you study. That allows you to make meaningful comparisons about how differences or similarities in how the authors treat their material. Most of your research for this paper is limited to your reading of these books. Additional research might help if you have questions about some of the author’s assumptions about an artist or theme or if two of your books offer dramatically different pictures of the period. Which one is correct? You might also want to locate reviews of the books – if they exist, you can probably find them through Jstor. And if you do use these reviews, they should not take the place of your own analysis, and they should be footnoted. The organization of your paper will be important. This is a comparison type of paper and you can choose to do it as either a point-by-point comparison or a paper which involves a lengthier discussion of each book you choose followed by the comparison. In either case, the same content is necessary and your paper should have a recognizable and clear conclusion which may take the form of your personal opinion: which book provides the richest sense of 20th century art history? Which book would you choose to use if you were the instructor? These last questions are suggested questions; you do not have to use them if you don’t want to. Length and formatting requirements are the same as for the other term papers in class. Resources: Fineberg, Jonathan David. Art since 1940: Strategies of Being, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000). N6512.5.M63 F56 2000 Hopkins, David. After Modern Art: 1945-2000. (Oxford and NY: Oxford University Press, 2000). N6512.H657 2000 Harrison, Charles, Francis Frascina, and Gill Perry. Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993). Pery, Gill and Paul Wood, eds. Themes in Contemporary Art. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004). N6494.P66 T53 2004 Selz, Peter Howard. Beyond the Mainstream: Essays on Modern and Contemporary Art. (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). N6494. M64 S43 1997 Foster, Hal, et al. Art since 1900: Modernism, antimodernism, postmodernism. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004). NX456 .A78 2004 Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. (Oxford and NY: Oxford University Press, 2005). Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Photography. 3rd edition. (NY: Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2004).
