AHST 3320

Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:30am to 12:45pm

ROOM: to be announced
Art in the Empire City: The Art Museums of New York

Richard R. Brettell, Margaret McDermott Chair of Art and Aesthetics

(972-883-2475: email: brettell@utdallas.edu)
Office Hours:

Text: Terry Barrett, INTERPRETING ART: REFLECTING, WONDERING AND

RESPONDING, McGraw-Hill Higher Education

Philippe de Montebello: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide Revised Edition

YALE
ISBN # 0-87099-711-4 (paperback)

MoMA Highlights: 325 works from the MoMA

ISBN#6-87070-098-7

This course has two principals aims:

1. To introduce the students to the history of human art through the public
collections of the greatest American city.
2. To insure that each student comes away with a clear understanding of the
diverse interpretative strategies for understanding individual works of art.

To measure each student’s mastery of the history and collections of the museum’s
themselves, there will be two tests, one of which will focus on the Metropolitan
Museum on March 20 (midterm) and the second of which will deal with the other
museums of New York on April 25th . The latter (the Final Exam) will also use
material related to the Metropolitan Museum in comparative questions.

The second aim of the course—skill at interpreting individual works of art—will be

measured in one of two ways:
1. The student will select (with the approval of the Professor) an individual
work of art in a public collection in Dallas/Fort Worth (The Dallas Museum
of Art, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the
Meadows Museum, the Amon Carter Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, the
Fort Worth Modern Art Museum, or the Sid Richardson Museum). The
student will write a brief 6-8 page paper interpreting the work of art in
historical, art historical, and esthetic terms.
2. The student will write an essay in a one hour period at the time of the final
exam interpreting a work of art in a New York public collection selected by
the professor.
The course grade will be determined as follows:
1. Class Attendance IS REQUIRED. Students with three unexcused absences of
three classes will have their grade reduced one letter.
2. Mid-Term 30%
3. Final: 40%
4. paper or final essay 30%

SYLLABUS

1. January 9: The Art Museums of the Western World: Why do we have them?
When did they begin? What are they for? Who pays for them? Tye Case of
European Museums: The Louvre, the British Museum, the Museums of Berlin and
Munich, the Hermitage, the Prado, the Uffizi

2. January 11: The Museums of New York: What are they? Where are they? What
do they contain? Why study them? (Peck)

3. January 16: The Empire City and the Idea of New York: New York versus Boston
and Philadelphia, New York versus Washington: America’s Cultural and Financial
Capital

4. January 18: The Metropolitan Museum and Central Park: Art, Architecture, and
Nature from Vaux and Olmstead to McKim Meade and White

5. January 23: The Birth of Western Culture: The Ancient Arts of Egypt and the
Mediterranean

6. January 25: The Middle Ages in the West: The Met and the Cloisters (Peck)

7. January 30: The Ancient Near East and Islamic Civilization

8. February 1: The Triumph or European Painting and Sculpture: Part I The

Renaissance

9. February 6: Part II: The Baroque

10. February 8: Part III: After the French Revolution

11. February 13: The Decorative Arts in Europe: Objects and Ensembles

12. February 15: American Art and Architecture, Part 1 Colonial and Federal

13. February 20: Part II After the Civil War

14. February 22: The Arts of Asia

15. February 27: the Rockefellers and the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

16. March 1: What is Art at the MET? Part I The Departments of Arms & Armour
and Musical Instruments

SPRING BREAK March 5 through 10

17. March 13: Part II Textiles and Costumes (guest lecture, Myra Walker)

18. March 15: The Invisible Departments: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs and
the Library

19. March 20: Mid Term

20. March 22: The Idea of The Museum of Modern Art: From the Founding to the
Present. Part I: The Canon: Painting and Sculpture

21. March 27: Part II: Modern and/or contemporary: Art After 1945

22. March 29: Part III: Architectrure, Design, Photography, and Graphic Arts and
the Modern

23. April 3: The Mansions of Fifth Avenue: The Frick Collection

24. April 5: The Cooper Hewitt, the Neue Gallerie, the and Jewish Museum:
Mansions for left-out Art

25. April 10: The Story of the Whitney Museum: Fighting for American Art in New
York

26. April 12: The Guggenheim Museum and The Cult of “non-Objective” Art

27. April 17: The J. P. Morgan Museum and Library

28. April 19: The Huntingtons and the Creation of the Hispanic Society

April 25: EXAM