Course Description
In this brand-new IntroSem, we’ll embark upon the adventure of writing about visual art. Taking advantage of campus resources, such as the Rodin Sculpture Garden, the Cantor Art Museum and the Anderson Gallery, as well as field trips to Bay Area art museums, we’ll explore how the act of writing about art can help us be more present, whether in a gallery or in our day-to-day lives. By writing in the presence of a painting or a sculpture or a building, we aren’t merely writing about art, but writing with it, investing our writing with the same qualities we admire in whatever object we’re regarding. We’ll explore the roots of art writing in Greek literature, the great poems of this tradition, pieces by famous art critics, and the diverse ways artists themselves have written about their own work. Students will learn how to approach an art object with openness and curiosity, become familiar with the vocabulary of art writing, and learn how to shape and structure their own writing in a variety of genres (essay, review, poem). Ultimately, this is a class in paying deep attention, and producing work that can stand as a testament to our emotional and spiritual encounters with works of art.
Meet the Instructor: Austin Smith
"I am a lecturer in the Creative Writing Department, where I teach introductory writing courses in poetry, fiction, nonfiction and nature writing. I've taught several different IntroSems, including classes on the multigenerational novel, the campus novel and the childhood novel. My interest in writing about art stems from my own shy efforts at conveying the experiences I've had while looking at paintings and photographs. I have come to see writing about art as a way to more deeply connect with art—to not merely look at a painting, but to enter into conversation with it."
