Instructor: Angela S. George Email: ageorge7@gmu.edu georgea@si.edu Tuesday 3:15 6:15 p.m. Ripley Center room 3113 Survey of Decorative Arts II (Arth 572 001) Spring 2012 George Mason University / Smithsonian Associates Course Description This course provides an overview of major historical developments in decorative arts and design of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a focus on objects from the United States and Western Europe. Individual lectures familiarize students with significant forms, materials, sites, styles, patrons, designers, and craftsmen. Overall, the course will give students a working visual and historical vocabulary of significant designed/manufactured objects and a better awareness of the areas they might pursue in greater depth at the History of Decorative Arts program. Textbooks Hiesinger, Kathryn and George Marcus. Landmarks of Twentieth-Century Design. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. Riley, Noel, ed. The Elements of Design. New York: Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2003. Additional course readings are located on the course reserves shelf in the student library. Course Requirements Students complete a paper, an oral presentation, a midterm exam, and a final exam. Grades are weighed as follows: Paper = 25% Oral presentation = 25% Midterm = 25% Final = 25% Images for Survey Exams Each week images will be placed in a folder on the I drive (accessible on HDA computers): I:\Common\Masters Program\SURVEY II spring 2012 Important Dates March 9 (Friday, 1:00 3:30pm) presentation at Renwick Gallery; attendance mandatory March 22 (Thursday, 3:30 pm) midterm examination May 1 paper due May 15 final examination Academic Honesty George Mason University has an Honor Code, which requires all members of the university community to maintain the highest standards of academic honesty and integrity. Cheating, plagiarism, lying, and stealing are all prohibited. All violations of the Honor Code will be reported to the Honor Committee. See honorcode.gmu.edu for more detailed information.
Accommodations for Disabilities If you are a student with a disability and you need academic accommodations, please see the instructor and contact the Office for Disability Services at 993-2474 or ods.gmu.edu. All academic accommodations must be arranged through that office. Use of Cell Phones Cell phones and other mobile wireless devices may not be used during class and must be turned off (not on silent or vibrate). Where personal emergency or family care responsibilities require access to electronic devices, arrangements must be made in advance with the instructor. Schedule Please note: the weekly readings are the minimum that should be read for the course, and students are encouraged to consult the supplemental books on reserve. In addition, the instructor reserves the right to assign additional readings throughout the semester. 1. January 24 - Course Introduction; Nineteenth-century Neoclassicism 2. January 31 - Nineteenth-century Neoclassicism Riley, Neoclassicism, 126-209. Wendy A. Cooper, Classical Taste in America 1800-1840 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993), chapters 1 and 3. 3. February 7 - Victorian Period; Revival Styles Riley, Historic Revivals, 210-249. 4. February 14 - Aesthetic Movement Riley, The Aesthetic Movement, 250-273. Nancy B. Wilkinson, E.W. Godwin and Japonisme in England, in E.W. Godwin: Aesthetic Movement Architect and Designer (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 71-92. Roger B. Stein, Artifact as Ideology: The Aesthetic Movement in Its American Cultural Context, in In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement (New York: Rizzoli, 1986), 23-51. February 21 No class this week 5. February 28 - Arts & Crafts Movement, Part I: Great Britain 2
Riley, Arts and Crafts, 274-297. Alan Crawford, United Kingdom: Origins and First Flowering, in The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America: Design for the Modern World (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004), 20-67. 6. March 6 - Arts & Crafts Movement, Part II: United States Wendy Kaplan, America: The Quest for Democratic Design, in The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America: Design for the Modern World (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004), 246-283. 7. March 9 (Friday) 1:00 pm- 3:30 pm; Object Presentations at Something of Splendor exhibit Meet just inside the entrance to the Renwick Gallery at 10:00am 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue NW (at 17 th Street; near the White House) Please remember to wear your Smithsonian ID March 13 No class; Spring Break 8. March 22 (Thursday) 3:30 pm-6:30pm; Midterm examination in room 3031 9. March 29 (Thursday) 3:30 pm-6:30pm, room 3031- Art Nouveau and New Art Movements Riley, Art Nouveau, 298-329. Hiesinger and Marcus, chapter 1, Toward Industrialization. Paul Greenhalgh, The Style and the Age, in Art Nouveau 1890-1914 (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2000), 14-33. 10. April 3 - Modernisms I: Germany; France (Art Deco) Hiesinger and Marcus, chapter 2, Movements for Change, 1910-1920, and chapter 3, Styles of Modernism, 1920-1930. Riley, Art Deco, 350-377. 11. April 10 - Modernisms II: Netherlands (De Stijl); Germany (Bauhaus) Hiesinger and Marcus, chapter 4, The Machine Age, 1930-1940. Riley, Early Modernism, 330-349. Christopher Wilk, Introduction: What was Modernism? in Modernism: 3
Designing a New World 1914-1939 (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2006), 11-21. 12. April 17 - Modernisms III: Scandinavia; United States Hiesinger and Marcus, chapter 5, Austerity, 1940-1950. 13. April 24 - Post-War Design; Studio Craft Hiesinger and Marcus, chapter 6, Good Design, 1950-1960. 14. May 1 Pop and Postmodernism; paper due Hiesinger and Marcus, chapter 7, Alternatives, 1960-1970, chapter 8, Responsible Design, 1970-1980, and chapter 9, Postmodernism and Pluralism Since 1980. May 8 No class (Reading Day at GMU) 15. May 15 - Final Examination 4
Survey of Decorative Arts II, Spring 2012 Reserve Books Aav, Marianne and Nine Stritzler-Levine, eds. Finnish Modern Design: Utopian Ideals and Everyday Realities, 1930-1997. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Benton, Charlotte and Tim Benton, eds. Art Deco 1910-1939. London: V&A, 2003. Bosley, Edward R. and Anne E. Mallek, eds. A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene. New York and London: Merrell, 2008. Burke, Doreen Bolger. In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. Cooper, Wendy A. Classical Taste in America, 1800-1840. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. Fitzgerald, Oscar. Studio Furniture of the Renwick Gallery. East Petersburg, PA: Fox Chapel Publishing, 2008. Gloag, John. Victorian Comfort: A Social History of Design, 1830-1900. London: A. C. Black, 1961. (Reprinted 1973) Greenhalgh, Paul, ed. Art Nouveau 1890-1914. London: V&A, 2000. Hiesinger, Kathryn and George Marcus. Landmarks of Twentieth-Century Design. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. Kaplan, Wendy, ed. The Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe & America: Design for the Modern World. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Marcus, George. What is Design Today. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002. Mayhew, Edgar and Minor Myers, Jr. A Documentary History of American Interiors. New York: Scribner, 1980. Raizman, David. History of Modern Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004. Riley, Noel, ed. The Elements of Design. New York: Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2003. Soros, Susan Weber, ed. E.W. Godwin: Aesthetic Movement Architect and Designer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. Watkin, David. Thomas Hope: Regency Designer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Whiteway, Michael. Christopher Dresser, 1834-1904. London: Thames & Hudson, 2001. Wilk, Christopher, ed. Modernism, 1914-1939: Designing a New World. London: V&A, 2006. 5