Counter the Land: Photography and the Landscape

Catalog description

Starting with the representation of landscape in painting in the early 1800s, the course will then move through Pictorialism and the Modernist movement in photography. Revisiting the later half of the 20th century, we will begin to consider the shifting practices of landscape and the ways it has been photographically depicted up to the present. Collaborating with the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, students will begin their photographic exploration with the work of Andrea Wyeth and the landscape of the Brandywine Valley. As we consider Wyeth, the images of James Welling will also be introduced. Credited for pioneering new forms of representation in photography in the 1970s, Welling also revisited the work of Wyeth from 2010-2015, and committed to a fresh (and challenging) look at tradition. Working with imagery and text, this class will also touch on conceptual art, the New Topographics, and postmodernism. Through these various concentrations, students will consider and counter the traditions that they are already familiar with, while creating work based on issues of the landscape today. Questions about meaning, politics, social critique, land rights, technology and methods of presentation will be encouraged and explored throughout the course.