Join art historian Bonita Billman for a special celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, commemorated through the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in a collaborative exhibition. “A Nation of Artists” features more than 1,000 works, including more than 120 paintings and decorative arts from the private Middleton Family Collection. Together, these works offer fresh perspectives on the evolving story of American art and experience. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)
Henry David Thoreau is widely known for Walden and “Civil Disobedience,” but he was also a pioneering environmentalist, an influence on nonviolence movements, and a geologist, botanist, inventor, poet, and early Darwinian thinker. Scholar Randall Fuller reexamines Thoreau as a figure shaped by post-Revolutionary America—an engaged artist-scientist who in many ways embodied the promise of a “new” citizen in the early Republic.
Pull out your sketchbook and pencil to take an artful break as you explore the Smithsonian while drawing objects from vast and fascinating collections.
Media historian Brian Rose examines the many ways the internet has radically transformed the “old” media of newspapers, magazines, the recording industry, film, radio, and television. He traces how this digital revolution took place in such a short period of time and considers what might lie ahead in the continually changing era of “new” media.
By the end of the 1950s, New York Abstract Expressionism had begun to wane. Painters adopted the large scale and rich palette of artists like Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko but with new processes and goals in mind. Many of these painters lived in Washington, D.C., where their originality earned them the name Washington Color School. Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, and Paul Reed, among others, were important innovators in new working methods based on staining unprimed canvas. Art historian David Gariff examines this golden age in the history of modern American art. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Among President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives was the Federal Art Project, which offered a crucial source of income and creative purpose for thousands of artists at a time when galleries were shuttered and patrons scarce. At its peak, the program employed over 5,300 artists. Art historian Nancy Elizabeth Green explores the enduring legacy of the Federal Art Project, illuminating how art and government together helped to lift the spirits of a nation during one of its darkest times. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Dragonflies, damselflies, and their ancient relatives were the first to fly, long before birds, pterosaurs, and bats took to the skies. Since then, over 400 million years of evolution have shaped the adaptations that support these insects’ aerial feats. Entomologist Jessica Ware discusses the evolution of flight in dragonflies and damselflies, exploring the structure and physiology behind their acrobatic and aerodynamic skills.
In an afternoon of artistic experimentation designed to strengthen creative muscles and deepen skills in visual expression, explore five distinct modes of visual thinking—memory, observation, imagination, narrative, and experimentation—to complete eight expressive journaling exercises using the marking and mapping approach.
