Q.1

Discussion Thread: Create your own Romantic Landscape

Directions:

First, watch and read the videos that describe the work of German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich:

1. Friedrich, The Abbey in the Oak Forest (Links to an external site.)
2. Friedrich, The Lone Tree

Romanticism was a diverse style of painting that often focused on nature as means to emphasize spirituality. Contrary to Enlightenment painters, Romantic artists were attracted to the magical connotations of landscape as a limitless repository of the universal cosmos. Many of these paintings emphasized the smallness of man in comparison with the omnipotence of G-d or the cosmos. Romanitc paintings were also used to encourage colonization by presenting the rich and wild resources of nature.

I was surprised by how many landscape shots were on my phone and social media accounts. If you do not have any landscapes photos already, please take one of your neighborhood, and use that.

Your assignment is to choose a landscape picture that you have taken or to take a new one, and to write a 150-300 word essay describing why it is meaningful to you, and whether it possesses any qualities of Romantic Art. Make sure to make a comment on another students photograph!

Q.2

Comparison Esssay, The Odalisque: Ingres vs. Boucher

Directions:

First, read and watch the texts and videos that cover the sytle of painting called Romanticism, and more specifically Orientalism:

1. Romanticism
2. Orientalism
3. “Painting and Colonial Culture” Ingre’s The Grande Odalisque
4. Ingres The Grand Odalisque

Then use the comparison images to write a 200-400 word essay comparing and contrasting Ingres’s Grande Odalisque the Romantic/Orientalist period with Boucher’s The Toilet of Venus from the Rococo period. Consider these questions:

1. How is the setting and atmosphere of the scen different?
2. How are the bodies of the subjects portrayed differently?
3. How does each painting communicate sensuality?
4. Which painting do you like better, and why? Or do neither suite your taste?

Q.3

Comparison Essay, Military Occupation: Goya vs. Velasquez

Directions:

First, watch and read the video and text that covers Goya’s painting, The Third of May, 1808:

1. Goya’s Third of May 1808
2. Goya, The Third of May 1808

Then use the Velasquez vs. Goya comparison images to compare and contrast Goya’s Third of May, 1808 with Velasquez’s The Surrender of Breda in a 200-500 word essay, considering the following questions:

1. How is the occupation of a terriotry by a foreign power presented differently in both works?
2. How is the point of view of the artist different?
3. Who is emphasized as the hero in both works?
4. How are the style of the paintings different?

Q.4

Critical Thesis Essay #3: Nochlin, “The Imaginary Orient”

Directions:

Read Professor Nochlin’s article “The Imaginary Orient”. It is helpful to take notes

while reading in order to organize your thoughts, and then write the essay after

reading the complete article. Answer the prompt in the format of a 500-1000 word,

double-spaced, typed essay. Remember to edit and check your work so that it reads as

nicely as possible. Be sure to read all the texts and watch all the videos in this weeks

course module, they are related to the content of this paper.

PROMPT: What are some stereotypes of the Middle East that Nochlin indicates both

fascinated and repelled Europeans in their construction of an “Imaginary Orient.”

How did nineteenth century painters represent and depict the “Orient” for European

viewers? In what ways do race, gender, and sexuality influence the conception of the

“Imaginary Orient” in the European psyche.