Outline

Overview

This unit treats French Art in terms of the cultural structures that allowed academic art, Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism to emerge. Mainstream art is studied alongside emerging avant-gardes. Other topics include nationalism, exoticism, and peripheral versus metropolitan modernism.

Unit details and rules

Academic unit	Art History
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	12 credit points at 1000 level in Art History or 12 credit points at 1000 level in Critical Studies
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	ARHT2018
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Roger Benjamin, roger.benjamin@sydney.edu.au
Tutor(s)	Roger Benjamin, roger.benjamin@sydney.edu.au
	Ksenia Radchenko, ksenia.radchenko@sydney.edu.au
	Jos Hackforth-Jones, jos.hackforth-jones@sydney.edu.au

Assessment

The census date for this unit availability is 2 September 2024

Details
Criteria

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length
Skills-based evaluation	Visual Analysis n/a	30%	Week 06 Due date: 06 Sep 2024 at 23:59 Closing date: 06 Sep 2024	1,500 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Essay n/a	60%	Week 12 Due date: 25 Oct 2024 at 23:59	2,500 words
Outcomes assessed:
Participation	Class Participation n/a	10%	Weekly	weekly tutorial
Outcomes assessed:

Assessment summary

Detailed information for each assessment can be found in the Canvas site for this unit.

Assessment criteria

The University awards common result grades, set out in the Coursework Policy 2014 (Schedule 1).

As a general guide, a High distinction indicates work of an exceptional standard, a Distinction a very high standard, a credit a good standard, and a pass an acceptable standard.

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100
Distinction	75 - 84
Credit	65 - 74
Pass	50 - 64
Fail	0 - 49	When you don’t meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard.

For more information see sydney.edu.au/students/guide-to-grades

For more information see guide to grades.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

Academic integrity

The Current Student website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. The University expects students and staff to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

We use similarity detection software to detect potential instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breach. If such matches indicate evidence of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breaches, your teacher is required to report your work for further investigation.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

You may only use generative AI and automated writing tools in assessment tasks if you are permitted to by your unit coordinator. If you do use these tools, you must acknowledge this in your work, either in a footnote or an acknowledgement section. The assessment instructions or unit outline will give guidance of the types of tools that are permitted and how the tools should be used.

Your final submitted work must be your own, original work. You must acknowledge any use of generative AI tools that have been used in the assessment, and any material that forms part of your submission must be appropriately referenced. For guidance on how to acknowledge the use of AI, please refer to the AI in Education Canvas site.

The unapproved use of these tools or unacknowledged use will be considered a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy and penalties may apply.

Studiosity is permitted unless otherwise indicated by the unit coordinator. The use of this service must be acknowledged in your submission as detailed on the Learning Hub’s Canvas page.

Outside assessment tasks, generative AI tools may be used to support your learning. The AI in Education Canvas site contains a number of productive ways that students are using AI to improve their learning.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Support for students

The Support for Students Policy 2023 reflects the University’s commitment to supporting students in their academic journey and making the University safe for students. It is important that you read and understand this policy so that you are familiar with the range of support services available to you and understand how to engage with them.

The University uses email as its primary source of communication with students who need support under the Support for Students Policy 2023. Make sure you check your University email regularly and respond to any communications received from the University.

Learning resources and detailed information about weekly assessment and learning activities can be accessed via Canvas. It is essential that you visit your unit of study Canvas site to ensure you are up to date with all of your tasks.

If you are having difficulties completing your studies, or are feeling unsure about your progress, we are here to help. You can access the support services offered by the University at any time:

Support and Services (including health and wellbeing services, financial support and learning support)
Course planning and administration
Meet with an Academic Adviser

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Introduction: the academic system and its opponents	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 01	NO TUTORIAL IN FIRST WEEK	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 02	Reading Manet’s Olympia: The salon nude, popular culture & pornography	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 02	Manet's Olympia and the Salon nude	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 03	Early landscapes of Monet, Pissarro, and Cézanne	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 03	Early Impressionism	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 04	Haussmann’s Paris: Degas, Caillebotte, Morisot and Cassatt	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 04	Hausmann's transformation of Paris and the 'spaces of femininity'	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 05	The impact of photography	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 05	Photography and the Impressionist sensibility	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 06	The East as Career: Orientalist art	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 06	Orientalist art	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 07	Art & politics: Neo-Impressionism & anarchism	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 07	Neo-impressionism and politics	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 08	Van Gogh and the production of ‘genius’	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 08	Vincent van Gogh	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 09	Gauguin in Brittany and Polynesia	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 09	Paul Gauguin	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 10	Symbolists and decadents	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 10	ESSAY PREPARATION AND DISCUSSION	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 11	Monet’s series and decorations	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 11	Monet: seriality and the decorative	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 12	Late Cézanne and Cézannism	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 12	The painting of the Late Cézanne	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 13	The New Century: Matisse and Picasso	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 13	Modern art and the New Century	Tutorial (1 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

According to Faculty Board Resolutions, students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are expected to attend 90% of their classes. If you attend less than 50% of classes, regardless of the reasons, you may be referred to the Examiner’s Board. The Examiner’s Board will decide whether you should pass or fail the unit of study if your attendance falls below this threshold.

If a unit of study has a participation mark, your attendance may influence this mark.

For more information on attendance, see http://sydney.edu.au/policies/showdoc.aspx?recnum=PDOC2014/345&RendNum=0.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

2 articles per week, with digital copies available via Canvas (see 'Modules' for available copies). The list for 2024 is:

Week 1: the Academic system and its opponents

Baudelaire, Charles, “The Painter of Modern Life” (1863, excerpts), Modern Art and Modernism: a Critical Anthology, ed. F. Frascina and C. Harrison, London: Harper & Row, 1982, pp. 23-29.
Courbet, Gustave ‘The Realist Manifesto”, in Linda Nochlin, Realism and Tradition in Art, 1848-1900, Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968, pp. 33-36.

Week 2: Reading Olympia: The salon nude, pornography & popular culture

Clark, T.J., The Painting of Modern Life. Paris in the art of Manet and his followers, London/Princeton 1984, ch. on Olympia, esp. pp. 78-112.
Thomson, Richard, “Introduction” to N. Bakker et al., Splendors and Miseries: images of prostitution (1850-1910), Paris: Musée d'Orsay & RMN, 2015.

Week 3: Early Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne

Duret, Théodore, Manet and the French Impressionists, London, 1910, selections (esp. pp. 70-74 ‘The Open Air’ and 105-25 ‘The Impressionist Group). [Internet Archive]

Eisenman, Stephen F., “The Intransigent Artist or How the Impressionists Got Their Name”,

in The New Painting. Impressionism 1874-1886, ed C. Moffet, Washington and San Francisco:

R. Burton, 1986, pp. 51-57.

Week 4: The impact of Photography

Batchen, Geoffrey, Burning with desire: the conception of photography, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997, pp. 127-143.
Baudelaire, Charles, “The Modern Public and Photography”, in), Modern Art and Modernism: a Critical Anthology, ed. F. Frascina and C. Harrison, London: Harper & Row, 1982, pp. 19-21.

Week 5: Haussmann’s Paris and the Visual Arts

Pollock, Griselda, “Modernity and the spaces of femininity” in her Vision and Difference. Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art, London: Routledge, 1988, pp. 50-90.

Week 6: The East as a career: Orientalist art

Benjamin, Roger, “The Oriental Mirage”, in Orientalism: Delacroix to Klee, ed R. Benjamin, Sydney: Art Gallery of NSW, 1997, pp. 7-22.
Said, Edward, “Introduction”, in Orientalism, New York, 1979, pp 1-14.

Week 7: Art and Politics: Neo-impressionism and anarchism

Félix Fénéon, Georges Seurat, and Paul Signac, texts on colour theory and on anarchism, in L. Nochlin, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism 1874-1904, Sources and Documents, Englewood: Prentice-Hall, 1966, pp. 111-129.
Osadtschy, Olga and Jelle Imkampe, “Liberty in the Fields”, in Camille Pissarro: the Studio of Modernism, eds. C. Duvivier and J. Helfenstein, Munich, London, NY: Prestel, 2021, pp. 110-25.

Week 8: Van Gogh and the production of ‘genius’

Aurier, Georges-Albert, "The Lonely Ones: Vincent Van Gogh" (1890), in Henri Dorra (ed), Symbolist Art Theories: a Critical Anthology, Berkeley: U of California Press, 1994, pp. 218-226.
Zemel, Carol, “What becomes a Legend Most”, Art in America, July 1988, pp. 88-93, 151.

Week 9: Gauguin in Brittany and Polynesia

Broude, Norma, “Gauguin and his art in the age of cancel culture: reception and reassessments,” in Loyrette, Henri (ed), Gauguin’s World, Tona Iho Tona Ao, Canberra: NGA, 2024, pp. 105-116.
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail, "Going Native", Art in America, Vol. 77 (July 1989), from N. Broude and M. Garrard, eds, The Expanding discourse: feminism and art history, New York: Icon, 1992, pp. 312-329.

Week 10: Symbolists and Decadents

Texts by Laforgue, Huysmans, Hennequin, and Redon in Henri Dorra (ed), Symbolist Art Theories: a Critical Anthology, Berkeley, U of California Press, 1994, pp. 40-56.
Huysmans, Karl-Joris, Against Nature (À Rebours), 1891, selections.

Week 11: Monet’s series and decorations

Spate, Virginia, The Colour of Time. Claude Monet, London: Phaidon, 1992, pp. 201-217.
Tucker, Paul Hayes, Monet in the '90s: the Series Paintings, Boston Museum of Fine Arts 1989, ch reprinted as “Monet and the Challenges to Impressionism in the 1880s”, pp. 227-49.

Week 12: Late Cézanne

Denis, Maurice, “Cézanne”, tr. Roger Fry, Burlington Magazine 1907, in Francis Frascina (ed), Modern Art and Modernism, Open U Press, pp. 57-63.

Shiff, Richard, Cézanne and the End of Impressionism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, pp. 111-123.

Week 13: The new century: Matisse, Picasso

Matisse, Henri, “Notes of a Painter” (1908), in Jack D. Flam, Matisse on Art, London: Phaidon, 2nd ed., 1995.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. To provide students with a solid understanding of the history of art produced in France between 1850–1900.
LO2. To introduce students to the key art historical skill of visual analysis through the interpretation of art.
LO3. To develop students’ verbal and written skills to interpret art in its historical and cultural context.
LO4. To engage students with current debates about the canon of French art from the Salon to the Post-Impressionism of Cézanne.
LO5. To provide a foundational knowledge base for the more advanced study of the history of art in senior level courses within the Department of Art History.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

Minor changes have been made since this unit was last offered (2022). Bibliographies have been updated and lecture topics tweaked.

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Week 11: Monet’s series and decorations

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect

Current students

ARHT2618: French Art, Salon to Cezanne

Semester 2, 2024 [Normal day] - Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Week 11: Monet’s series and decorations

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect