Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: COPLEY, SARGENT, AND THE MUSEUM

Department: Art History

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Drawing from the collections and resources of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, this course is designed to achieve two goals: (1) to provide an overview of the art and career of two American painters: the eighteenth-century colonial painter John Singleton Copley, and the late nineteenth-century expatriate painter, John Singer Sargent, focusing on the close examination of works of art on view at the MFAH, and (2) to introduce students to the history and culture of the art museum in the United States by using the MFAH as a laboratory for study. For each lecture, Graduate Students will be assigned additional readings. They will write an annotated bibliography of all the readings to be turned in at the end of the semester. We will meet for an additional two or three weeks to discuss the interpretive and methodological problems and ideas associated with the readings. Graduate students will be expected to complete all the requirements of the class in addition to writing a substantial research paper due at the end of the semester.