HAD-691P Pratt in Paris: The Material and Visual Rhetoric of French Art

3 Credits

This course examines the art history of France and its relationship to colonial cultures from the point of view of its patronage, creation and reception. We study the historical movements from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, to consider the expanse of the visual arts and the emergent challenges to imperialist history painting. We will study the concept of the Parisian Métropole (as the center of the French empire) that juxtaposed French military/ economic conquests, with the reception and display of indigenous arts at the Paris International Expositions of 1889 and 1899. Our end point is 1900-1910 and the impact of new media and materiality, involving the interactivity of art and science.