HA 343

This course will examine the history of modern and contemporary art in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland from the late 19th century to the present.  Special emphasis will be placed on the history of art in Germany since the turn of the 20th century. This is a fascinating but also turbulent period, defined by the rise and reception of the historical avant-gardes; the devastation wrought by the Third Reich and National Socialism; and the country’s postwar division into socialist East and democratic West Germany, a geopolitical split that generated two very distinct artistic cultures.  Topics to be discussed will include the enduring, if troubled, legacy of German Romanticism; “German” Expressionism and questions of national identity; art during the years of Hitler and the Third Reich; the perceived merits of abstraction versus realism; and artistic responses to World War II and the Holocaust.