Course Details
Paris, Provence and the Painters of Modern Life
These dates are currently unavailable
Personal Interest
Arts
Victoria University Community Continuing Education
Victoria University Community Continuing Education
Level 2, Rutherford House, 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington City
Part Time
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
$110.00
Early Bird Discount available until 2 weeks prior to the course start date $99.00 incl GST
Early Bird Discount available until 2 weeks prior to the course start date $99.00 incl GST
Overview:
Take a journey through one of France’s most fascinating periods of artistic history. This course introduces the French art of the second half of the 19th century, focusing in particular on artistic responses to modernity.
In an 1863 essay entitled ‘The Painter of Modern Life’, the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire coined the term ‘modernité’ to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of modern urban life and the responsibility of contemporary artists to capture that experience.
The course begins by exploring Paris, the cultural centre and heart of the art world, and traces its dramatic transformation under Baron Haussman (Prefect of Paris under Napoleon III from 1853–70), the civic planner responsible for redesigning the city’s layout and creating new leisure spaces for the enjoyment of the rising bourgeoisie.
The French Second Empire (1852–70) was a time of exceptionally rapid social, industrial and technological change. The course looks at the different ways artists embraced or rejected ‘modernity’, paying particular attention to the avant-garde artists associated with the Realist, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements – artists who invented a style of painting in response to the transitory and fragmented nature of contemporary life.
The course turns to Paul Cezanne, often considered the father of modern painting, whose struggle to develop an authentic observation of the seen world – one that would resituate a Pre-Impressionist world of gravity-bound, solid forms – and led him to pursue plein air painting in his native Provence.
Target audience:
This course is for anyone with an interest in the French language, culture, history and art history, or who is considering attending the Paris, Provence and the Painters of Modern Life study tour to France in September 2013.
Learning objectives:
By the end of this course, participants will have:
•gained an appreciation for the artistic movements of the second half of the 19th century against the background of the changing social and cultural landscape in urban France
•gained knowledge to enable interpretation of visual imagery in the wider context of social, political and cultural history
•developed analytical skills allowing analysis of works of art in the context of contemporary debates about the nature and role of art
•learnt to compare and contrast the different artistic responses to a rapidly changing urban landscape.
Course outline:
This course covers the following topics.
•Paris: Capital of the 19th Century – Haussman and the transformation of urban space
•Painters of Modern Life: Baudelairean ‘modernity’ and the metropolitan ‘flâneur’
•The ‘Spectacle’ of Modern Life: From the boulevard to the theatre, stage and backstage (Degas, Manet, Morisot ...)
•Spaces of Pleasure: From café to brothel (Degas, Manet, Caillebotte, Monet, Gervex ...)
•The Problem of the Female Nude (with a focus on Manet’s Olympia and Le déjeuner sur l’herbe of 1863, and Clésinger’s sculpture Femme piquée par un serpent of 1847)
•Picnics, Parks and Promenades: New kinds of suburban leisure
•Cezanne and Provence
Course format:
The lectures are held on a Saturday morning over four weeks. Each session is interactive and discussion is encouraged.
There will be a short break half-way through each session, and you are welcome to bring refreshments if you wish.
Relevant links:
Study Tours
School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies
For further information:
Community Continuing Education Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington
Phone 04 463 6556, Email: conted@vuw.ac.nz
Take a journey through one of France’s most fascinating periods of artistic history. This course introduces the French art of the second half of the 19th century, focusing in particular on artistic responses to modernity.
In an 1863 essay entitled ‘The Painter of Modern Life’, the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire coined the term ‘modernité’ to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of modern urban life and the responsibility of contemporary artists to capture that experience.
The course begins by exploring Paris, the cultural centre and heart of the art world, and traces its dramatic transformation under Baron Haussman (Prefect of Paris under Napoleon III from 1853–70), the civic planner responsible for redesigning the city’s layout and creating new leisure spaces for the enjoyment of the rising bourgeoisie.
The French Second Empire (1852–70) was a time of exceptionally rapid social, industrial and technological change. The course looks at the different ways artists embraced or rejected ‘modernity’, paying particular attention to the avant-garde artists associated with the Realist, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements – artists who invented a style of painting in response to the transitory and fragmented nature of contemporary life.
The course turns to Paul Cezanne, often considered the father of modern painting, whose struggle to develop an authentic observation of the seen world – one that would resituate a Pre-Impressionist world of gravity-bound, solid forms – and led him to pursue plein air painting in his native Provence.
Target audience:
This course is for anyone with an interest in the French language, culture, history and art history, or who is considering attending the Paris, Provence and the Painters of Modern Life study tour to France in September 2013.
Learning objectives:
By the end of this course, participants will have:
•gained an appreciation for the artistic movements of the second half of the 19th century against the background of the changing social and cultural landscape in urban France
•gained knowledge to enable interpretation of visual imagery in the wider context of social, political and cultural history
•developed analytical skills allowing analysis of works of art in the context of contemporary debates about the nature and role of art
•learnt to compare and contrast the different artistic responses to a rapidly changing urban landscape.
Course outline:
This course covers the following topics.
•Paris: Capital of the 19th Century – Haussman and the transformation of urban space
•Painters of Modern Life: Baudelairean ‘modernity’ and the metropolitan ‘flâneur’
•The ‘Spectacle’ of Modern Life: From the boulevard to the theatre, stage and backstage (Degas, Manet, Morisot ...)
•Spaces of Pleasure: From café to brothel (Degas, Manet, Caillebotte, Monet, Gervex ...)
•The Problem of the Female Nude (with a focus on Manet’s Olympia and Le déjeuner sur l’herbe of 1863, and Clésinger’s sculpture Femme piquée par un serpent of 1847)
•Picnics, Parks and Promenades: New kinds of suburban leisure
•Cezanne and Provence
Course format:
The lectures are held on a Saturday morning over four weeks. Each session is interactive and discussion is encouraged.
There will be a short break half-way through each session, and you are welcome to bring refreshments if you wish.
Relevant links:
Study Tours
School of Art History, Classics and Religious Studies
For further information:
Community Continuing Education Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington
Phone 04 463 6556, Email: conted@vuw.ac.nz
Teacher:
Wendy Joyce is a Research Associate in the Department of Modern Languages. She holds a PhD in 19th-century French studies from Princeton University and has lectured at universities in France, England and Australia. She lived for eight years in France, where she worked as a tour guide. She is a French/American and speaks both languages fluently.
Wendy Joyce is a Research Associate in the Department of Modern Languages. She holds a PhD in 19th-century French studies from Princeton University and has lectured at universities in France, England and Australia. She lived for eight years in France, where she worked as a tour guide. She is a French/American and speaks both languages fluently.