Art 1301

Introductions to the Arts

Paris: Cultural Capital of the World, 1850-1930
The Visual, Performing, and Literary Arts
Richard R. Brettell, Margaret McDermott Distinguished Professor of Art and Aesthetics
The University of Texas at Dallas
Fall Term, 2005
Tuesday-Thursday 12:30pm to 1:45pm
Location: Erik Jonsson Building, Room JO 2.604
NOTE: Professor Brettell reserves the right to make changes to this syllabus at its own
discretion. Students will be kept informed in due time of such changes.
Questions regarding adding and dropping classes (deadline 08-25-05) and other
administrative issues, PLEASE consult the Student Handbook.
OFFICE HOURS: TUESDAY 4-6 p.m, THURSDAY 2-4 p.m. AND BY
APPOINTMENT
e-mail contact: Do NOT e- mail Dr. Brettell but use the following e-mail address to
communicate with him and his two assistants:
art1301brettell@utdallas.edu (available 08-22-05, until then and in case of emergency
please e- mail pierret@utdallas)
Teaching Assistants:
Steve Halla, Doctoral Student Aesthetic Studies, (Visual Arts)
Office 4.314 Tel: 972-883-2833 e-mail: srh01900@utdallas.edu
Nick Ippoliti, Doctoral Student Aesthetic Studies (Performing Arts)
Office JO 5.310 Tel: 972-883-2110 e-mail: npi02100@utdallas

REQUIRED READING:
1. Richard R. Brettell, MODERN ART, 1851-1929, CAPITALISM AND
REPRESENTATION, Oxford University Press

2. Patrice Higgonet, PARIS CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, translated by Arthur

Goldhammer, Harvard University Press.

3. Emile Zola, THÉRÈSE RAQUIN, translated by Robin Boss, Penguin Classics

4. Alfred Jarry, UBU ROI, (on order)

5. The Michelin Guide to Paris (NOT REQUIRED, BUT RECOMMENDED) (on order)

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
1. CLASS ATTENDANCE, attendance taken randomly throughout the semester,
20% of grade .
2. THE DALLAS NOTEBOOK. An unlined notes book with pages at least 6 x 8
inches and not fewer than 60 pages. The book should be taken throughout Dallas
on your urban cultural drives, visits, and walks. Each student is required to visit
and respond in drawings and handwriting to 1. an art museum, 2. a classical music
concert, 3. a play, 4, a commercial gallery opening, 5. a music club or popular
 concert venue, 6. a restaurant with entertainment, 7. a public park or urban plaza.
Each week, the instructor and TA’s will present various recommended options in
each category. Due at three points in the semester. (SEE BELOW) 25 % of grade
3. 20 MINUTE CLASS EXAM (September 15): Students will be given three
questions the class BEFORE this short exam (September 13). Each student can
select to answer one of the three questions IN CLASS by hand in a blue book.
10% of grade (Mid-term grades are largely based on this)
4. 60 MINUTE MID-TERM EXAM. Short answers and short essays. The latter will
be given out to the students in the class before the mid-term, 20% of grade
5. FINAL EXAM: 40 minute in-class exam and one take-home essay, to be written
in 40 minutes. 25% of grade .
6. EXTRA CREDIT: Students will be asked to identify works of art, segments of
texts, and musical fragments in simple ways in each of the three exams. These
will contribute ONLY extra points to the student’s grade for that exam. These will
be a mixture of works illustrated in the books, works shown, read or played in
class, and works unknown to the student but by an artist, writer, architect, or
musician used in class.

SYLLABUS
Week 1:
Thursday August 18
-Course Introduction: Requirements, Syllabus, Office Hours,
Lecture: What is the Capital of France? Paris versus Versailles

Week 2:
Tuesday, August 23
-Paris as a Modern City: Napoleon III, Boulevard Paris, Urban Planning, Social
Engineering, and Modernization in French Urban History

Thursday, August 25
-Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert, Gustave Courbet, and Edouard Manet: Paris as
Pictorial and Literary Subject: The Assault on the Salon and the Institut de France

Week 3
Tuesday, August 30, TIME RESERVED IN CLASS FOR STUDENTS TO DISCUSS
THE NOTEBOOK AND ARRANGE WITH NICK AND STEVE POSSIBILITIES AND
IDEAS FOR AN URBAN CULTURAL VISIT. BEGIN THE NOTEBOOK. (attendance
OPTIONAL)

Thursday, September 1st

-The Siege from Within and Without: The Franco-Prussian War and the Commune

Week 4
Tuesday, September 6
-A Modest Solution: Politics and Painting in the Impressionist Exhibitions of 1874 and
1877

Thursday September 8
-Representations of Leisure and Labor in Paris: Who makes? Who Profits?-- Zola and the
Impressionists in the 1870’s

Week 5
Tuesday, September 13
-Consuming the landscape: Impressionism, Zola, and Maupassant in the Ile de France and
Normandy: The Problem of Eden

Thursday, September 15
-The Paris Opera and the Ballet: High Entertainment and Cultural Elitism in Paris
(20 Minute In-Class Essay Exam)

Week 6
Tuesday, September 20
Does the Avant-Garde care about the rich? Degas, Manet, and Parisian High Culture

Thursday, September 22
-Paris as Thebes: Puvis de Chavannes, Georges Seurat, and the Eternal Present

Week 7
Tuesday, September 27
-Gustave Eiffel and the Tower: Architecture, Entrepreneurship, Spectacle, and the
Making of a modern Monument

Thursday, September 29
-Whose Capital is it? Foreigners and Provincials in Paris—Americans and Otherwise

Week 8
Tuesday, October 4
-Slumming with an Aristocrat: Toulouse-Lautrec and the Beginnings of High/Low

Thursday, October 7
-Part I Fleeing Paris: Gauguin, Cezanne, and Van Gogh in the 90’s
Part II: Is there Modern Sculpture? Rodin and Rosso in Paris

Week 9
Tuesday, October 11
-Can an Ordinary Life Become Art? Vuillard, his Mom, and his Friends.

Thursday, October 13
-MID-TERM EXAM - grades due at the latest on October 15

Week 10
Tuesday, October 18
-1900: The World Turns and Paris Worries: Art Nouveau, Guimard, Gallé, Debussy,
Proust, and Bonnard

Thursday, October 20
-The Mediterranean as the New Eden: Color and Heat from Signac to the Wild Beasts
Week 11:
Tuesday, October 25
-The Invention of Cubism: Spaniards, Mexicans, Italians, and the French

Thursday, October 27
-Primitivism and Entertainment: Orphism and the Ballet Russe

Week 12
Tuesday, November 1st
-The Greatness of Death: Pantheons of the Avant-Garde in Literature, Music, and
Painting

Thursday, November 3
-Frantic Futurism: The Arts without History: The Italian Sie ge of Paris

Week 13
Tuesday, November 8
-The Great War: The Decline of Europe

Thursday, November 10
-The Louvre Reopens: Everyone as a Conservative in 1922

Week 14
Tuesday. November 15
-The Poetics and Politics of Memory: Proust, Vuillard, and Ravel in the 1920’s

Thursday, November 17
-Tearing Town Paris: Leger and Le Corbusier, Picasso and Poulenc, 1918-1930

Week 15
Tuesday, November 22
-Bataille and Breton: Surrealism, Colonialism, and the Unconscious as the Last Urban
Frontier

Week 16
FINAL Exam

Grades due: December 17