(The course should have been cross-listed
as: Urban Orienteering and Physical Fitness—399, as all of the following
were eyes-and-foot witnessed, totally trumping any slide projector or DVD
:)
Prehistory: Circumambulation of Stonehenge. Glastonbury
Tor (A Celtic site that is a hill, not a tower, which we found out
in the climbing thereof. Once upon a time it was an entrance to hell and
by the time I got to the top I felt like hell.
Greeks: Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon and a spare Caryatid at
the British Museum.
Romans: The London Museum has a chunk of the original
Londinium wall built by the Romans and loads of artifacts. A visit
to the City of Bath, with its intact Roman baths overlaid with fab 18th
Neo-Classical architecture.
"Dark Ages": At the British Museum: Saxon
tools, weapons, and jewelry, plus the grim-faced Lewis chess set.
Romanesque Architecture: Dover and Warwick Castles plus
the Tower of London, aka Norman architecture.
Gothic Architecture: Canterbury Cathedral, Westminster
Cathedral, Wells Cathedral (My favorite with hundreds of droll sculptures
plus three scissor-arches that look like they were done with poured concrete
sometime next century, not in 1380).
Renaissance: Mantegna, Massacio, Botticelli, Leonardo,
and Raphael at the National Gallery and the plaster sculpture copies at
the Victoria and Albert for Michelangelo, Holbein at the Tate Britain. Durer
exhibit at the British Museum.
Mannerism: Titian and Caravaggio at the National Gallery.
Baroque: We summited and crypted St. Paul's Cathedral,
Christopher Wren's Magnum Opus, and also visited his Sheldonian Theater
in Oxford. Blenheim Palace with grounds by Capability Brown was a “token”
Versailles.
Rococo: Watteau, Boucher, and Fragonard at the Wallace
Collection, plus Poussin, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Hals.
English 18th Century: Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Hogarth
at the Tate Britain and the National Gallery.
Neo-Classical: Wedgwood china at the Victoria and Albert
Museum. Hard to find any of the Jacobin Jacques-Louis David in England,
so the students have a "life assignment" to go to the Louvre.
(Most have done so already.)
Romantic Era: Constable and Turner at the Tate Britain,
plus a timely exhibition focused on Gericault (Raft of the
Medusa) and Delacroix.
Victorian: Houses of Parliament, Rodin's Burghers of
Calais, Pre-Raphaelites at the Tate Britain and William Morris at the
Victoria and Albert Museum. Albert Hall can be seen from the classroom
window.
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: Manet, Monet,
Pissarro, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Braque, Picasso at the great collection of
the Courtauld Institute.
Modern/Contemporary: 20th century until April 2003 at the
New Tate.
Recapitulation: A boat ride from Westminster to Greenwich which
reminded us all why London is here: The Thames. The river ties it all together:
prehistory, the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings, Westminster
Abbey, Tower of London, Christopher Wren's Churches, Imperial Victorian
Tower Bridge, Canary Wharfs’ corporate skyscrapers, and on out to Greenwich
for Wren's grand Naval Hospital and useful Observatory overlooking
Inigo Jones’ Queen Anne’s Renaissance house. “Don’t forget to straddle The
Prime Meridian.” Professor James Bogan, Group Leader (UMR)
Group: Imali Berkwitz and Steve (SMSU), Mike Bradshaw (CMSU),
Ian Nichols (SMSU), Alicia Pfahl (SMSU), Kim Shola (UMR), Donna Smith (Davis
& Elkins College), Justin Wilbers (SMSU)
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