ART 219 Land Into Landscape
Students will explore the use of landscape in art and visual culture, through a mixture of readings, writing, slide lectures, seminar discussions, field trips and studio work. Students will investigate historical, contemporary and cross-cultural examples of the use of landscape. Through doing so students will discover that landscape in art is always dependent on context, and not a transparent depiction of the natural world. They will discover how cultural needs and expectations frame our depictions of the natural world and in how, in turn, those depictions frame our understanding of it. Students will work independently with a range of two-dimensional media. Participants will engage in constructive debate through regular written and verbal critiques. This course is an alternative core requirement for studio art majors and can be taken at the 300-level with permission of the instructor to fulfill the intermediate level in drawing sequence for students concentrating in drawing. The class is open to all levels; it will act as an introductory course for some, while advanced students will have the opportunity to push their practice further.