ART AND BIOGRAPHY PROF. MARK ROSEN. Course Information. HUAS 6315 Spring 2014 M 1 3:45. Professor Contact Information

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1 ART AND BIOGRAPHY PROF. MARK ROSEN Course Information HUAS 6315 Spring 2014 M 1 3:45 Professor Contact Information Office: JO mark.rosen@utdallas.edu Office phone: Office hours: Thurs., 10:30 noon or by appointment Course Description When discussing an artist s life, several obvious questions emerge. How is artistic inspiration explained? How do we account for the origins of creativity? Why do the narratives of artist s lives frequently fall into familiar patterns, despite so many cultural and contextual differences among them? Is psychology and psychoanalysis still fundamental to understanding an artist s work? Can anyone other than the artist truly understand and explain the artist s life? This course will focus on the telling of artists lives through reading several early (and more recent) biographies of artists. We will begin The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari, written in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century and hugely influential upon subsequent narratives of artists lives. We will continue forward to studying the lives of other artists who have attracted biographers or who have regularly portrayed themselves and their creative process in their own work. Throughout this course, we will study these texts in tandem with the artists works to see how words attempt to capture and describe visual materials. We will also devote some time to the phenomenon of the biopic to see how film biography attempts to describe the artistic process. Page 1

2 Student Learning Objectives To grasp the interdisciplinary ways that both primary-source texts and works of art can be understood, with the goal that students can carry this skill beyond this class to the study and evaluation of texts and artworks from other periods and cultures. To develop critical skills in reading and evaluating primary-source texts. To engage in acceptable graduate-level research on material students were previously unfamiliar with, gaining an understanding of art-historical methodological practice. Textbooks and Materials Required books: 1. Leonard Barkan, Michelangelo: A Life on Paper (Princeton University Press, 2010) 2. Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist (Yale University Press, 1979) 3. Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and Histories of Art, 3d ed. (Routledge, 2003) 4. Fred Licht, Goya and the Origins of the Modern Temper in Art (Icon, 1983) All other readings will be available online through electronic course reserves. The password will be given out on the first day of class. Readings should be done before each class meeting. Note also that you can compare prices for these textbooks online through which searches a number of online retailers and compares prices for the books. Assignments & Academic Calendar [all readings except those in the four required texts are on electronic reserve] Class Topic Reading 13 Jan. Introduction 20 Jan. MLK HOLIDAY NO CLASS! 27 Jan. Michelangelo, Vasari, and the Roots of Artistic Biography Vasari, Preface to the Lives, Preface to Part Two, Preface to Part Three, Life of Michelangelo (findable at and elsewhere) Barkan, Michelangelo: A Life on Paper (whole book) 3-page essay due Syllabus: HUAS 6315, spring 2014: Art and Biography Page 2

3 3 Feb. The Artist on the Couch Sigmund Freud, Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood (London, 1999) available as an ebook on the library website Meyer Schapiro, Leonardo and Freud: an Art-Historical Study Kristeller and Weiner, eds., Renaissance Essays) 10 Feb. The Biographical Unconscious Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth and Magic in the Image of the Artist Joseph Leo Koerner, Prosopopoeia (The Moment of Self- Portraiture in German Renaissance Art [Chicago, 1993), Feb. Ambition and Violence Philip Sohm, Caravaggio s Deaths, The Art Bulletin 84 (2002): Sarah McPhee, Costanza Bonarelli: Biography versus Archive, in Bernini s Biographies (University Park: Penn State U. Press, 2007), Feb. Modeling the Self Frances Ames-Lewis, Self-Portraiture (The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist [New Haven, 2000]), Mar. Early Modern Women Pollock, intro, chs Mar. SPRING BREAK NO CLASS! 17 Mar. Psychologically Modern Licht, Goya Mariët Westermann, Rembrandt (London, 2000), intro and ch. 2 (pp. 4 18, 63 98) H. Perry Chapman, The Self Fashioned, in Rembrandt s Self-Portraits (Princeton, 1990), Frederika H. Jacobs, Woman s Capacity to Create: The Unusual Case of Sofonisba Anguissola, Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994): Elizabeth S. Cohen, The Trials of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape as History, Sixteenth Century Journal 31 (2000): Syllabus: HUAS 6315, spring 2014: Art and Biography Page 3

4 24 Mar. Old Age and Death Leo Steinberg, Michelangelo s Florentine Pietà: The Missing Leg, Art Bulletin 50 (1968): Mar. Modernity Pollock, chs. 3 5 Marco Ruffini, Michelangelo s Funeral, in Art Without an Author (Fordham, 2011), Philip Sohm, The Artist Grows Old (New Haven, 2007), 1 35 T. J. Clark, Freud s Cezanne, in Farewell to an Idea (Yale, 1999), Apr. Biopics Mary Garrard, Artemisia s Trial by Cinema, Art in America 86, vol. 10 (Oct. 1998): Susan Felleman, Dirty Pictures, Mud Lust, and Abject Desire: Myths of Origin and the Cinematic Object, Film Quarterly 55 (Autumn 2001): Apr. Modern Women Margaret A. A. Lindauer, Devouring Frida: The Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida Kahlo, new ed. (Wesleyan University Press, 2011). Available as an ebook through Project Muse Pollock, chs Apr. Student Presentations 1 Paper drafts due (for students presenting next week) 28 Apr. Student Presentations part 2 Paper drafts due (for students presenting last week) 5 May Historiography Paper Due Syllabus: HUAS 6315, spring 2014: Art and Biography Page 4

5 Course Requirements 1. Reading Responses You need to do 8 overall (including the first week s). 2. In-class presentation on a topic of your choosing (21 and 28 April) 3. Final Historiographic Essay A final 10- to 12-page paper on the state of the literature in artistic biography Grading Policy Final historiographic essay: 30% Short papers: 40% In-Class Presentation and Leading Class Discussion: 20% Participation: 10% Note: the final grades will use minuses and plusses, if necessary that is, it is possible to get an A- or B+ (etc.) for the course. Note also that plagiarism is a very serious offense and will not be tolerated; it will result in your being forced to rewrite a paper or accept a failing grade for the assignment. Your own intellectual honesty is of the greatest importance in this class. Even graduate students have been found guilty of it. The university policies can be found at Course & Instructor Policies You can always make an appointment to meet with me if the office hours don t correspond with your schedule. I can be reached by and will make efforts to respond in a timely manner. Please submit your work in a hard copy if that s what s requested. Maybe once over the course of the semester will it be OK for you to your work in, but don t overdo it. Late assignments will be marked down substantially, but they are much preferable to not turning it in at all. Please turn off your phone and refrain from texting or computing in class. Class begins at 1 pm. If you must come in late, try to be as quiet as possible. You may have no more than two unexcused absences beyond that, you will get a zero for your participation grade. While understanding that you are adults and have busy lives, you also have responsibilities to completing a class that you signed up for. These descriptions and timelines are subject to change at the discretion of the Professor. Syllabus: HUAS 6315, spring 2014: Art and Biography Page 5