Early American Art

In this course we will look at art and visual culture made in what is now the United States from ancient times to around 1800. We will consider a wide range of visual material, including Native American art before and after contact with Europeans and art, architecture, and material culture from the colonial, Revolutionary, and early national periods. This will include Lakota visual calendars,16th century watercolors depicting Native hunting and agriculture, colorful paintings of both elite Bostonians and Revolutionary War battles, and innovative portraiture by the first generation of professional African American artists. Throughout, we will ask what it means to be American both in the past and in our own time.