ART AND REVOLUTION/ART AND POLITICS : THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Contemporary artists all over the world are currently engaging with politics.
But there are precedents where artists reflected and defined the cultural language for some of history’s great turning points. This course looks at the art, music, and literature that evolved from several major revolutions and the responses to them.

Though early colonialism could not afford many cultural luxury objects, by the 1750s American cities were flourishing. Artists who often began as sign painters became adept in oil, painting portraits that reflected their patrons as serious individuals. In 1775 relations between the British and the colonists were strained, leading to combat and the 1776 Declaration of Independence. This session will focus on the works of Trumbull, John Singleton Copley, Benjamin West, and later artists like Emmanuel Leutze showing how the values of the Revolution - pragmatism, egalitarianism, materialism, moderation - were reflected in its culture.

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