HART305 The Body Politic in American Art to 1876 3cr

This course examines how representations in art
and visual culture were tools with which
individuals learned to think of themselves as
American, from the Colonial era to the late 19th
century.Considering how class, race, gender, and
models of physical health and fitness were
rendered visible to widely-dispersed viewers, we
attend to the ‘body’ in the body politic. We
examine how the self, both externalized and
internalized, was understood as essential to
American identity, and mapped onto emerging
concepts of a democratic society. Throughout the
class, we will question what it means to be
‘American,’ and consider the ways in which issues
important in the development of 19thcentury art
remain significant to artists today.

Prerequisites: HART-100

Lecture
Spring

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