This course offers a broad survey of arts in the United States from the Colonial period to the 1913
Armory Show, an exhibition of contemporary European art that ushered in the era of twentieth-
century modernism.  Course goal is to introduce key figures in the history of American art, and to
equip students with a working knowledge of essential themes and issues that influenced the
development of painting, graphic arts, sculpture, material culture, landscape and design.   Topics
include the production of a colonial elite through the medium of portraiture; the problem of
history painting in a new nation; landscape painting and national identity; the art of westward
expansion; putting blacks, native Americans, and women in their "place" on canvas; the art of
war; the nativizing of impressionism; the crusade for beauty in the household; the modernization
of the artist; and the emergence of urban realism, a.k.a. the "Ashcan School."  "Big names"
include John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and John
Singer Sargent, along with a host of lesser-known figures ranging from the designers of Shaker
furniture to painters of happy farmers and dancing bears.  Course work will include reading
assignments from textbook and course pack; short interpretative and research papers; museum
visits, possibly in-class quizzes; exercises in "reading" and interpreting paintings and other
artifacts.