British Art in Context

Catalog description

This course examines the history of art in Britain, with particular attention to the 18th and 19th centuries (1707 to 1914). Works of visual art are considered in close relation to history, especially the history of the British imperialism and evolving notions of British culture and identity. Among the artists whose works are addressed in this course are William Hogarth, Angelica Kauffman, Joshua Reynolds, Mary Moser, J.M.W. Turner, William Blake, the Pre-Raphaelites, Julia Margaret Cameron, James McNeill Whistler, and Vanessa Bell. Along with contextualizing works of art in their socio-historical milieu, this course also attends to the historiography of British visual culture to show how art historical scholarship propels or disrupts prevailing beliefs regarding aesthetic value, nationalism, and cultural identity. Study of the visual arts will be further augmented by selected works of relevant literature by such authors as Henry Fielding, William Wordsworth, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf.