The Aesthetics of Bling

Catalog description

This course explores the bizarre fantasies of the metaphysical poets alongside the parallel works of strange imagination that we have seen emerging in our own time. Some of these weird creative works contrast with the stark minimalism and plain speech that are found in a Hemingway or a Raymond Carver. We pay attention to the visual arts, especially to the painting of Kehinde Wiley, who is best known for his portrait of Barack Obama but is actually a deeply neo-baroque artist who paints men striding like Renaissance knights through the inner city.