(For even more of a "taste," click on the images!)

History 300: Modern Europe and the Arts

This course will take advantage of a privilege we enjoy as Chicagoans: access to one of the most important collections of modern European art in the world. The Art Institute of Chicago offers masterpieces representing every major aesthetic movement in Western history since the seventeenth century, including Baroque, Rococo, Neo-classicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstraction. Full appreciation of these treasures involves recognizing the historical circumstances that surrounded their creation and considering the ideas their creators intended to communicate. This course will explore the Art Institute’s permanent collection of paintings with both of these goals in mind: to better appreciate the great works themselves, and to learn from them about major developments in modern European social, political, and cultural history.

To achieve these aims, we will combine background readings and discussion with regular visits to the collection itself: Thursdays we will meet on Water Tower Campus to discuss readings and establish a common critical framework; Tuesdays we will meet at the Art Institute to carefully study the masterworks.

Charles Baudelaire, the great French poet and critic, asserted that Parisians should visit the Louvre every day and encounter a single painting each time. Only then, he felt, would they take full advantage of the "artificial paradise" that is a major metropolis. Our Water Tower Campus is ideally situated to offer students and faculty the greatest urban center of the American Midwest. Let’s explore and enjoy it together!

Modern Europe & the Arts (HIST 300)
Section: 202 (TTR 04594)
Instructor: D. Dennis
3.0 credit hours
TTh 1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
25 E Pearson, Room 208