CLARTAH024 - Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Artists and Avant-Garde Culture
Experience “life almost enchanted” and the world of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters. Art historian Dr. Leo Costello explores how these artists shaped and were shaped by avant-garde culture. We begin with Édouard Manet and the Impressionists, especially Edgar Degas, working in the vibrant, changing Paris of the 1860s–70s, looking also at the work of other important painters like Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. We then consider Vincent van Gogh and his dream of a “Studio of the South” in the South of France, as well as the work of Paul Cézanne, nearby in Aix, concluding with a discussion of Cezanne’s influence on avant-garde artists in the early 20th century. The first class includes a private, guided tour of the exhibition “Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Pearlman Collection” at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, led by curator of European art Helga Kessler Aurisch, Ph.D., and Leo Costello.
Course Details
Leo Costello, Ph.D., is an associate professor of art history at Rice University. He specializes in 18th- through 20th-century European art as well as Marxist theory and aesthetics. He is the author of “J. M. W. Turner and the Subject of History” (Ashgate, 2012), and is under contract with Routledge for his current book, “Early Turner: Seen and Unseen in London, 1795–1819.” Dr. Costello was formerly curatorial assistant in the Department of Prints and Drawings at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He received his Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College and has won multiple awards, including the Graduate Student Association Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award, and is a four-time finalist for the George R. Brown teaching award at Rice.
On Campus
This course will be delivered on campus / in person. Parking and room information will be sent prior to the class start date.
- Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot
- Landscape Painting and Impressionism
- Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt
- Vincent van Gogh
- Paul Cézanne and early 20th-century avant-garde culture
Department of Art History, Rice University; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH)
First class is a tour at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Sept. 14, 9:30–11 a.m. Participants are responsible for arranging their own transportation for the course field trip.