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Take what you know and apply it in a museum as you study and dissect works of art in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s anniversary show. Further examine the fundamental concepts of composition as you analyze and appreciate visual art. This is a companion class to Composition Studies. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Since its opening in 2002, the kitchen from Julia Child’s home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been a top destination for visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where it is on display. Drawing from her new book, Julia Child’s Kitchen, Paula Johnson, one of the original collectors and keepers of the iconic space, offers an intimate portrait of Child at home, recalls what it’s like to cook beside her, and reveals how this kitchen has influenced the ways we cook today.
Discover how visual art can inspire creative writing and how writing can offer a powerful way to experience art. Join Mary Hall Surface, the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, for five online workshops that explore essential elements of writing and styles through close looking, word-sketching, and imaginative response to prompts. This writing session is inspired by Welsh artist Gwen John’s A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris.
Refamiliarize yourself with the fundamentals of color theory while learning an approach to mixing color that relies on color harmonies. Gain a deeper understanding of complementary color relationships to more intuitively mix colors and harness color harmonies to better express depth as well as the contrast between light and shadow.
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road from 1957 is almost synonymous with the postwar Beat and counterculture movements that rejected the staid domesticity of the 1950s in search of freedom and alternate ways of life. Joseph Luzzi, professor of literature at Bard College, discusses how characters based on the writer William S. Burroughs, the poet Allen Ginsberg, and Kerouac himself embraced new cultural forms like jazz and experimental literature as routes to meaning and artistic freedom.
Film historian Max Alvarez leads a perfect pre-Halloween evening: a nerve-shattering romp through the history of “creature features” spotlighting the screen’s most memorable monsters, mummies, werewolves, oversized insects, outer-space invaders, and aquatic predators—and the behind-the-scenes masterminds who brought them to life from the 1930s to today. It’s a guaranteed treat for fans of the Monsterverse.
This course is an introduction to J.M.W. Turner’s vast achievements in watercolor, with particular attention to his manner of expressing light and atmosphere. In-class exercises revolve around making studies of his masterworks with an emphasis on creating cohesive sketches, not replicas. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Using watercolor, learn the strategies Morisot, Constable, Monet, and Cézanne employed to harness light in their images. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
Over the past half century, dwarves, hobbits, magic, dragons, runes, and other staples of fantastic realms have become entrenched in popular culture, from The Lord of the Rings to the Harry Potter series. There are substantive historical inspirations behind these phenomena. Historian Justin M. Jacobs discusses the evolving conceptions of fantastic elements in Eurasian history and lays bare the truth behind what he sees as four distorted myths of fantasy in our culture in this fall series. This session focuses on medieval bestiaries.
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, political history curators from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History are gathering materials and memorabilia to document this election cycle for the national collections. Curator Jon Grinspan covers why he’s been attending Democratic and Republican contests and rallies throughout the year, looking for materials that reflect debates, protests, and on-site and digital campaign activities—and how they provide insights into the evolving spirit and complexity of our political landscape.
