Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette – 3/12/19
Dr. Jeanne Willette unfortunately passed away in early 2019. She supported thousands of students in their exploration of art history during her career and was a valued colleague. This site, Art History Unstuffed, was one of her major contributions to those studying this field. Without Dr. Willette this site is not being updated with new content. While her web master, with support from her two sons, continues to maintain the site for the time being, a new generation of Art Historians is needed to carry the site into the future. If you are interested in participating or have other suggestions for this site, please click here to leave a note.
On line. At your convenience. In your own time. On your own terms.
For too long art history has been held hostage by scholars speaking to scholars and not to people. The purpose of this site is to educate and to inform and to do so with respect to the intelligence of the readers. Designed as a site for serious students of art history in need of solid substantive material, Art History Unstuffed is written for Twenty-First-century learners who prefer reading “text-bytes” and “sound-bytes” of targeted information.
Written by Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette, a published scholar who has researched and consolidated both well-respected classical sources and vetted the latest research, this site creates a middle ground between arcane scholarly jargon and informed discourse and presents a detailed account of Modern, Postmodern, Philosophy and Theory that is accessible to all readers interested in the history of the modern and contemporary periods.
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Art History Unstuffed is listed on the ACI Scholarly Blog Index.
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Episode 46: Painting 13 – Postmodernism and the Other
Postmodernism, Multiculturalism and Globalism
Postmodern art is the first art to be – not global – but international. But the concept of a global or transnational art was proceeded by an acknowledgement of The Other through Multiculturalism. This podcast examines the ideas of colonialism, imperialism and post-colonial theory as manifested through art of the Postmodern period.
Episode 45: Painting 12 – The Impact of Art by Women
New Voices in Painting
Although the sixties is usually thought of as the decade of Civil Rights, the final expression of equality was the Women’s Movement of the seventies. The art world, which had attempted to ignore the prevailing political events was suddenly confronted with a large and unhappy constituency, artists who had been excluded from the art world on the basis of gender and color. Feminist art and art by women and the art of people of color challenged the exclusionary territory of painting, which had been an “all boys’ club” for decades. The result of the influx of new ideas and new points of view would be more open field for new possibilities in painting.
Episode 44: Painting 11 – Photo-Realism and Conceptual Art
Painting in the Seventies
The 1970s presided over the widely publicized “end of painting.” What the phrase really means is the Modernist painting came to an end. One one hand, the object itself disappeared, swallowed up into Conceptual Art. On the other hand, a movement in painting, still marginalized, Photo-Realism revived painting in all its technical glory and added a touch of the taboo — photography. Following the ideas of Marcel Duchamp, Conceptual Art can be seen as either the ultimate expression of the purity of Modernism or the extinction of the “objecthood,” but it is important to understand that Photo-Realism is an early expression of “conceptual painting.”
Dr. Willette is currently completing an entirely new kind of book on design, a book that is multi-modal. Offering multiple modes of output, this book offers the readers several ways of receiving information, slide shows, podcasts, texts and images. The interactive book, Design and the Avant-Garde, 1920-1940, will be divided into several volumes. Volume One will focus on the interconnections between art and design at the fine-de-siècle period, leading up to the creation of “modern” design.