AMERICAN ART I: INDIAN WARS TO CIVIL WAR

Catalog description

(Slashed with ARTH 52056 ) In this first section of American art history, students will explore the evolution of American art from European conquest through the American Revolution, and stretching to the Civil War. This time period in American history is characterized by waves of social unrest followed by periods of peace that American artists reflected and shaped in their work. The American-Indian Wars and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade also profoundly impacted the art and politics of the early United States, inspiring artists to support or protest conflicts in society with their art. Exchanges with African, Indigenous, as well as Asian and European peoples pervaded every aspect of art in the United States. In looking widely at objects such as paintings, clothing, food advertisements, and furniture, this class will examine debates about nationhood in early American art that exploded by the Civil War.